| | | | A second weekend of protests | | "A little unusual to have multiple nationwide protests in the first two weeks of a presidency," LATimes' Matt Pearce tweeted Saturday evening.
More than "a little!" This special edition of the newsletter recaps coverage of President Trump's temporary travel bans... the sudden protests at airports like JFK, O'Hare and LAX... and the rest of the day's media news. There was a lot. | | Iranian filmmaker unable to attend Academy Award ceremony | | The new restrictions mean that an Oscar nominee, Asghar Farhadi, may not be able to attend the Academy Awards next month. Farhadi is the director of "The Salesman," which is up for the foreign language film award. He is Iranian. He hasn't directly commented, but Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council, publicized the situation. "He can't come in. He's an Iranian passport holder, so he cannot come in. There's no way around that unless Trump wants to give an exception," Parsi told me.
The Academy put out a statement calling it "extremely troubling" that Farhadi could be barred... the TriBeCa Film Festival called the situation "heartbreaking and unacceptable..." Parsi said he hopes that if someone else wins the award on February 26, they'll speak on Farhadi's behalf. Here's our full story... | | "If this all happened in one week, what's going to happen next week?" | | I spoke with Mohammed Al Rawi, a former LATimes staffer who is been personally affected by the ban. Al Rawi, an Iraqi citizen, kept the paper's Baghdad bureau online for years as the IT director for the bureau. He also sometimes translated and reported stories. Al Rawi eventually applied for asylum, and he now lives in California with his family. On Faceboo, he wrote, "My 69 year old dad is in Qatar boarding LAX flight to come visit us and and he's being sent back to Iraq." Al Rawi told me: "It's not about the inconvenience of my dad not getting here… It's about what's going to happen next. If this all happened in one week, what's going to happen next week? What's going to happen next year?"
-- More: ProPublica's T. Christian Miller, who worked with Al Rawi in Iraq, tweeted: He "literally kept me safe. I am ashamed today..." | | How will newsroom staffing be affected? | | | Dylan Byers has been asking about that... He emails: International news organizations are looking into how the ban will affect their journalists, photographers, fixers, etcetera. So far we haven't received any definitive statements... | | | WashPost reporter Jason Rezaian and his wife Yeganeh Salehi are here in America, one year after Rezaian was freed from an Iranian jail cell. Rezaian has both American and Iranian citizenship. Salehi has Iranian citizenship. When a twitterer said, "Think who this #MuslimBan affects. Wife of @jrezaian," Jason responded: "Yes, it is likely to have a major impact on my wife & our entire family. This isn't the America I promised her when we were finally set free." | | Discomfort among some journos | | Jason and Yegi exemplify how this executive order affects the news media in personal ways. On Twitter and on TV, I can sense that many journalists are uncomfortable with what they're covering this weekend. Some, like NYT's Rukmini Callimachi, are sharing it openly. ("Last night, I found myself in tears at the news," she wrote.)
I think this is fair to say: Journalists, particularly in the national media, are more likely than their viewers/readers to know an Iraqi citizen or a Yemeni citizen. In some cases, far more likely. How this does and doesn't affect the news coverage is something I'm interested in...
-- Media editor Alex Koppelman adds: "It's sort of the double-edged sword of where journalists are congregated: we're all in big cities on the coasts and not in the middle of the country really hearing from and reflecting the experiences and views of people there; on the other hand, in our big cities on the coasts we very happily and comfortably deal with Muslims every day..." | | "Today I shed a tear for the country I know and love, the one I believe still beats in the heart of most of its citizens," Dan Rather posted on Facebook Saturday night.
Part of his post: "Today, in the wake of his one-man decision to wreck and reverse immigration policy so suddenly, there is chaos and confusion mixed with heartbreak and fear. A well thought-out, measured overhaul of immigration policy, with organized-in-advance measures to implement that is one thing—and one that perhaps a majority of Americans would support. But this mess, created overnight, is quite another..."
-- About that "chaos and confusion:" CNN's Evan Perez and Pamela Brown have a well-reported story about it here... | | What Trump supporters are saying about the travel ban | | Here are the types of comments I'm finding online and on TV:
-- "Trump is keeping his promise and keeping us safe."
-- "These protests are being funded by George Soros and CAIR." (See these two pieces on Breitbart.)
-- "Obama did it too." (This is a false equivalency. For six months in 2011 the Obama administration put a pause on Iraqi refugee processing.) | | How "ultraconservative" sites promote misleading stories about Muslim refugees | | The NYT's Caitlin Dickerson has a 💯 story about how far-right-wing sites stoke "anxiety about Muslim refugees." Here's the lead:
"Type the word refugees into Facebook and some alarming 'news' will appear about a refugee rape crisis, a refugee flesh-eating disease epidemic and a refugee-related risk of female genital mutilation — none of it true. For the months leading up to the presidential election, and in the days since President Trump took office, ultraconservative websites like Breitbart News and Infowars have published a cycle of eye-popping stories with misleading claims about refugees. And it is beginning to influence public perception, experts say." Read more... | | Tech companies denounce the travel ban | | CNNMoney's Jackie Wattles emails: Almost every major tech company issued a statement criticizing the move. Among them: Microsoft, Google, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Y Combinator, Salesforce, Path, Box, Yelp, LinkedIn, Foursquare. Here's the story... plus a list of tech exec quotes...
-- Selena Larson spotted Google's co-founder at a protest: "Sergey Brin at SFO, told me he's here with protestors in a personal capacity, wouldn't give a comment..." | | | BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti emailed his staff: The U.S. "is a nation of immigrants, and should continue to be a symbol of freedom in the world. Instead, the President has decided to let fear drive our government policy. Our thoughts are with the victims of this recent executive order, our employees around the world, including Muslims and their families abroad, refugees, and everyone whose lives may be turned upside down by this policy. These changes in government policy do not change BuzzFeed's ongoing commitment to support and respect all of our employees and our diverse audience around the world..." | | Some of today's top tweets | | -- Matt Viser: "This is a moment, it seems, where America figures out what kind of country it wants to be."
-- Michelle Malkin responds: "Newsflash: America decided on Nov. 8."
-- Ricky Gervais: "It's like we're watching history repeat itself but only half the population know how bad it turns out." | | Two must-reads in Sunday's NYT | | I highly recommend these two stories:
-- David Barstow's Page One story about the "torrent of bogus claims that gushed" from President Trump... He quotes Center for Public Integrity founder Charles Lewis saying "we've never seen anything this bizarre in our lifetimes, where up is down and down is up and everything is in question and nothing is real..."
-- Sabrina Tavernise's "One Country, Two Tribes," about seeing divides in America that mimic what she's seen in her reporting overseas: "I have covered political divides in Turkey, Russia, Pakistan and Iraq. The pattern often goes like this: one country. Two tribes. Conflicting visions for how government should be run. There is lots of shouting. Sometimes there is shooting. Now those same forces are tearing at my own country. Increasingly, Americans live in alternate worlds, with different laws of gravity, languages and truths. Politics is raw, more about who you are than what you believe. The ground is shifting in unsettling ways. Even democracy feels fragile..." | | Lots to cover on Sunday... | | | An incomplete list of the cities where protests are being planned on Sunday: Boston, JFK airport, Newark airport, Philadelphia, Dulles airport outside DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle... | | "Reliable Sources" guest list | | | We just added Fareed Zakaria to the lineup. Also on Sunday's show: Brooke Gladstone, Joel Pollak, Lydia Polgreen, Stephen Adler, Matthew Garrahan, Mahir Zeynalov and Alexey Kovalev. Live on CNN at 11 a.m. Sunday... | | "It Can't Happen Here" joins "1984" atop Amazon's chart | | The Sinclair Lewis novel "It Can't Happen Here," about a gradual fascist takeover of the U.S., has joined George Orwell's "1984" on Amazon's list of its best-selling books.
Details in my story: "It Can't Happen Here" broke into the top 100 on Amazon's list several days ago. On Saturday it surged into the top 10. Now it's at #4... | | Also on the best selling books list... | | | The spike in sales is, at least in part, a reaction to the Trump presidency. Lower down on the book seller's list are the dystopian classics "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood, "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, and "Animal Farm," also by Orwell. Trump's "The Art of the Deal" is also on the list, at #12... Details here... | | A day full of Trump photo ops | | | The press pool was allowed to peek (and record video) through the Oval Office windows while Trump was on the phone with foreign leaders on Saturday. Later, the pool was escorted inside to watch Trump sign three executive orders and memos. "This is the plan to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria," he said, while actually signing a document telling military leaders to give him a plan within 30 days. When Kasie Hunt asked "is this a Muslim ban?" he responded "it's not a Muslim ban..." | | Michael Flynn's son says it is a "Muslim ban" | | | Jake Tapper noted on Twitter that Michael Flynn Jr., "son and former top aide of National Security Adviser @GenFlynn," is calling the exec order a "Muslim ban, despite GOP insistence it isn't a Muslim ban..." The junior Flynn repeatedly used the #MuslimBan hashtag on Saturday... | | Time mag and newspapers on the Resolute Desk | | Back to the Oval Office for a moment... Sean Spicer tweeted this picture of Trump on the phone with Putin... Foreign policy experts noticed who was with him, while media wonks like yours truly noticed what was on the desk... stacks of newspapers, the book "Adams vs. Jefferson," and a copy of Time magazine. Remember, a pile of Time "Person of the Year" issues was on his desk in Trump Tower... it looks like the same issue is in the Oval Office now...
Later in the day, when the press pool came in, Trump's desk had been cleared off... | | Trump's media critique on Saturday morning | | 1. Trump woke up.
2. He... read the NYT and WashPost?
3. He tweeted criticism of the NYT and WashPost. | | NYT fires back with facts | | | Trump called the NYT "fake news" and said the paper's subscriber #'s are "dwindling." The NYT responded: "Fact check: @nytimes subscribers & audience at all-time highs. Supporting independent journalism matters." Dean Baquet told Poynter's Ben Mullin: "Independent journalism matters right now. Why not shout it from the rooftops?" | | Media should "keep its mouth shut?" Paul Ryan declined to comment | | Highlighting this from Politico Playbook's on-stage interview with Paul Ryan on Friday: "When asked about everything from Trump's position on torture to Steve Bannon's comments to the New York Times that the press should 'keep its mouth shut,' Ryan declined to comment. 'I don't care about distractions. We want to get results and get things done...'"
Let's see if the anti-media statements come up when Trump officials are interviewed on NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News on Sunday morning... | | Fox's Jesse Watters buying into the "opposition party" rhetoric | | I noticed that Fox News host Jesse Watters' sycophantic first question to Ed Henry on Saturday night fully subscribed to Trump and Bannon's "the media is the opposition party" messaging. Transcript:
"It looks like Trump the president is going to be a man of action, just like how he was in the private sector. He's got a dizzying array of things he's got done on the first week. It seems like the press can't keep up. A couple months ago, this Muslim ban,' quote unquote, was huge news. Now he's throwing all these big ticket items, and I don't even know if they're going to be able to stop it. Is any of this stuff going to hit any roadblocks?" Henry rightly answered by citing roadblocks from Democrats, not the media... | | Organizing a Muslim American Journalists Association | | Sarah Amy Harvard, a staff writer at Mic, tells me she's organizing a Muslim American Journalists Association, which would exist alongside groups like the National Association of Black Journalists and the South Asian Journalism Association.
She says: "Trump's blatant Islamophobia obviously was a huge motivator in getting this started, but there is no sole impetus for it. It's a collection of things, really: the long history of poor coverage on Islam, Muslims, and MENA; about a decade of fake news smearing our community without much opposition from the press; non-Muslims journalists not being provided with enough resources or helpful guidelines on how to properly cover stories about our communities, culture and religion; and finally, the lack of resources, support and opportunity for Muslim journalists who are putting themselves out there to correct the narrative and amplify the voices of their community."
There have been previous incarnations of MAJA, but I can't find any evidence of an active group right now. If you're interested in participating, Harvard's email address is sarahamyharvard@gmail.com... | | | That's what David Remnick said on a panel discussion about Trump and the media at NYU earlier this week. I moderated the discussion with Remnick, Lydia Polgreen, Jacob Weisberg and Borja Echevarría. The audio is now online... Listen to the podcast here... | | | Expecting more mockery of Trump on TV Saturday night? Well, NBC is running a "SNL" repeat... a pre-Thanksgiving episode... | | | The 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be held on Sunday night at the Shrine Auditorium... Sandra has this look at four key races... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. See you Sunday! | |  | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
Post a Comment