| | | | | O'Reilly: "The criticism is valid" | | Bill O'Reilly is not known for his regrets. But on Monday night he issued a mea culpa for a segment about Sweden on last week's "O'Reilly Factor." O'Reilly interviewed a man named Nils Bildt and presented him as a "Swedish Defense and National Security Advisor." Bildt basically backed up President Trump's dark view of immigration in Sweden. But Swedish officials did not recognize this "advisor."
This story gained a lot of attention both in and out of Sweden over the weekend... For a primer, check out Ivana Kottasova's story for CNNMoney here.
O'Reilly issued this semi-correction on Monday night: "We looked into the situation and the criticism is valid. It's valid. Mr. Bildt does consulting work on terrorism, that's true -- but we should have clarified that he had no direct role with the Swedish government. To be fair, the information we gave you in the segment was accurate but in hindsight a more relevant guest should have been used on the anti-immigrant side." By O'Reilly standards, that's quite an admission... The "Factor" rarely bows to criticism of its shortcomings... | | | The bigger picture point... | | O'Reilly pitted Bildt against Anne-Sofie Naslund, a Swedish reporter in NYC who said Sweden is "one of the safest and most peaceful countries" on Earth. So the segment did have balance. But the bigger picture point is that POV hosts like O'Reilly aren't doing original reporting from Sweden or from other countries for that matter. They're talking about immigration rather than reporting on it... | | | PriceWaterhouseCoopers apologizes | | Here's what went wrong at the Oscars: "In his fourth year of handling envelopes for the winners of the Academy Awards, PWC partner Brian Cullinan picked a bad time for a miscue — pulling the envelope for what was supposed to be the best picture winner from the wrong pile. As a result, presenter Warren Beatty carried the wrong envelope to center stage Sunday night," Variety's James Rainey reports.
The accounting firm's chairman Tim Ryan told Rainey, "We clearly made a mistake and once the mistake was made we corrected it and owned up to it..." | | | What Jordan Horowitz told me | | "La La Land" producer Jordan Horowitz, who found out that "Moonlight" was the real winner after delivering his own acceptance speech, isn't angry. In fact, he sounded downright sanguine when we spoke by phone Monday morning. "Hey, I won the Oscar for best picture. I got to thank my wife and kids. And then I got to present the Oscar for best picture! Not many people can say that," he said... | | | Scroll down for full Oscars coverage... | | | Breitbart's first interview with a president | | This picture is of Breitbart's Washington editor Matt Boyle interviewing President Trump in the Oval Office. Breitbart began to publish quotes from the interview on Monday afternoon.
Boyle asked about the Oscars, and Trump referenced the screw-up: "They were focused so hard on politics that they didn't get the act together at the end. It was a little sad. It took away from the glamour of the Oscars."
So Trump thinks PWC messed up because "they were focused so hard on politics?" Seems like a logical fallacy... | | According to Boyle, this Oscars thing "comprised just one part of a lengthy interview, which ranged in topics from healthcare to tax cuts to immigration to trade and more."
So what does it say about Trump and Breitbart that the first interview excerpt was about Hollywood... and the second interview excerpt was about "fake news?" CJR's David Uberti tweeted this answer: "They'd much rather get under MSM skin/sow chaos than make an affirmative case for their product...' | | O'Reilly started Monday's "Factor" with a commentary about the "actively left-wing" press being at "war" with Trump, then discussed it with guests. Media-bashing continues to be the name of the conservative media game... | | | Trump's new comment about AT&T/Time Warner deal | | Back to Breitbart for a moment. Check out this exchange:
BOYLE: "Obviously, there's a looming merger between AT&T and Time Warner. I wanted to see what your thoughts are on that and if CNN's pretty bad behavior over the course of—they really don't seem to be making an effort to get it right—does that give you hesitation in terms of approval of the deal?"
TRUMP: "I don't want to comment on any specific deal, but I do believe there has to be competition in the marketplace and maybe even more so with the media because it would be awfully bad after years if we ended up having one voice out there. You have to have competition in the marketplace and you have to have competition among the media. And I'm not commenting on any one deal, but you need competition generally and you certainly need it with media." | | As expected: The deal won't be reviewed by the FCC, just the DOJ.
Speaking with the WSJ's Thomas Gryta at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, new FCC chairman Ajit Pai "said he understood the companies have structured the deal so that no airwave licenses would be transferred, something that would trigger a broad FCC review." | | | Zucker "not cowed by Trump's attacks" | | "The old CNN may have shrunk from conflict; the new CNN is leaning into it," the NYT's Michael Grynbaum writes in this Monday Biz section story about the "yearslong, up-and-down relationship" between Jeff Zucker and Donald Trump. "Both share an obsession with ratings and a love of spectacle," Grynbaum says.
Key graf: "People who have spoken to Mr. Zucker in recent weeks say he is not cowed by Mr. Trump's attacks, if irked by the level of vitriol from a man with whom he was once close."
Zucker gets the last word in the story: A quote from Turner's recent PR luncheon for media reporters... Zucker said Trump "put out a tweet yesterday morning that said CNN was 'unwatchable.' But the only way he knew that was because he was watching." | | -- Fox News ad sales chief Paul Rittenberg is stepping down in April, right ahead of the upfront sales season. "An immediate successor was not named..." (Variety)
-- Is Gretchen Carlson in talks to join MSNBC? No. BI's Oliver Darcy reported the "talks" on Saturday... citing anonymous sources... but the channel is pretty firmly denying it. (BI)
-- "Comcast is integrating YouTube into its set-top box — just like it did with Netflix." Peter Kafka explains... (Recode) | | What President George W. Bush told Matt Lauer on Monday's "Today:"
>> A free press is "indispensable to democracy..."
>> "Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power..."
>> "It's kind of hard to tell others to have an independent free press when we're not willing to have one ourselves..." | | | "I just thought it would be better if I didn't do the dinner" | | Along with the aforementioned Breitbart interview, POTUS taped a chat with the co-hosts of "Fox & Friends." It will air Tuesday morning. In an excerpt released by Fox, Trump explained why he's skipping the WHCA dinner in April:
"I'm not saying all sources, but I do believe that a lot of the sources are made up. A lot of the stories are made up. I believe a lot of, the stories are pure fiction, they just pull it out of air. Now, with all of that being said, I just thought it would be better if I didn't do the dinner, that doesn't mean I'm not going to do it next year, but I just thought it would be better if I didn't do it this year..." | | | The TV-Twitter connection | | Tom Kludt emails about CNNMoney's new feature connecting Trump's tweets with TV segments:
It happened weeks after Trump's stunning election victory, when he tweeted -- seemingly out of nowhere -- about flag burning. In late January, it happened again, when Trump took Twitter to cite statistics on Chicago's crime rate. And it happened yet again this past weekend, when Trump complained that the media had failed to give him credit for the falling national debt.
The common denominator in each of those tweets? They all directly followed, and were seemingly inspired by, something Trump had just seen on television. We all know the president watches a ton of cable news. And we all know that he spends a lot of time on Twitter. Here's what it looks like when those two obsession converge... | | CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Daniella Diaz report: "Trump signed off on press secretary Sean Spicer's decision to check aides' cell phones to make certain they weren't communicating with reporters by text message or through encrypted apps, multiple sources confirmed to CNN on Monday... The sources also said the President gave his blessing before Spicer blocked reporters from the briefing last Friday..."
But: "When reached by CNN, Spicer denied that Trump was involved in either decision..."
>> Zeleny on "AC360:" "We stand by our reporting..." | | | Leaks about leaking: Psaki's theory | | Former Obama comms director Jen Psaki on "AC360" a few minutes later: "I suspect that they leaked this story purposefully... they want to keep the focus on leaks and their investigation to crack down on leaks, they don't want us to be talking about Russia and their contact with Russians... | | | Spicer says there's "nothing there" | | Sean Spicer's spin at Monday's briefing: "There's nothing there" when it comes to POTUS and Russia.
"It's the same stuff over and over again that we've heard for literally six months," he said. (Six months ago, in the dog days of August, the stolen trove of John Podesta emails hadn't even come out yet...) | | | What Trump is not tweeting about | | Pre-empting questions about the subject at Monday's briefing, Spicer said Trump was "disappointed and concerned" by reports of vandalism at a Jewish cemetery in Philly and by threats made to Jewish community centers across the country. "The President continues to condemn these and any other form of anti-Semitic and hateful acts in the strongest terms," Spicer said.
The @realDonaldTrump Twitter feed remained silent on the matter. It is unclear if Breitbart or "Fox & Friends" brought it up in Monday's interviews... | | -- "In the first month of the Trump administration, Spicer chose to call on Fox News and affiliate national networks (Fox Business Network, Fox News Radio) more than any other outlet..." (IJR)
-- Jack Shafer's latest: "Why the media needs to stop whining about Trump." He says Sunday's "Reliable Sources" discussions were "almost enough to cause me to start rooting against the home team and throw in with Trump" 🤔 (Politico)
-- Showtime is ordering "a Trump-centric season of political documentary series The Circus..." (The AV Club) | | | New "confidence in the media" #'s | | Confidence in the media remains miserably low, according to new Fox News polling. Check out the #'s comparing 2014 to 2017 -- what you see is polarization -- the % of people with "a great deal of confidence" has increased and the % of people with no confidence at all has increased too. What about the folks who have more moderate views about the media? That % has shrunk... | | Frank Pallotta reports: The nearly four-hour-long ABC broadcast averaged 32.9 million viewers... That # is down from the 2016 broadcast, and is the lowest rated Oscars since 2008... Read Frank's full story here... | | | Lowry's reality check about the ratings | | Some conservative web sites are triumphant about the ratings results. Brian Lowry emails:
Before anyone claims victory or defeat based on tepid Oscar ratings, let's remember multiple factors impact tune-in, starting with the obvious: there are too many awards shows and what's known as "awards season" is too damn long. Beyond that, Jimmy Kimmel did a perfectly fine job as host, but he wasn't going to bring in anyone who might not have otherwise watched. In the past, Oscars have used edgier hosts as marketing come-ons, particularly to younger demographics (Jon Stewart, Chris Rock), only to marginally integrate them into the broadcast.
The other point worth noting is that even with ratings down, the Oscars remain a premium showcase for advertisers, largely because -- like major sporting events -- those people who do watch generally feel compelled to do so live. That means less zapping past commercials.
In other words, the relatively modest numbers are no reason to panic... Which probably won't prevent Hollywood from panicking... And ABC should know early Tuesday whether all that promotion for the miniseries "When We Rise" yielded any dividends... | | | Historic night for ESPN, Amazon, Netflix | | The wins by Amazon, Netflix and ESPN showcase the evolving and expanding shape of the movie business. Here's my full story... | | | The night's other mistake | | Lisa France emails: After that best picture snafu, comic Billy Eichner jokingly tweeted, "If anyone from the In Memoriam is still alive please let us know." Turns out there was. Read all about the Academy's other big mistake of the night right here... | | | "Reliable Sources" highlights | | | | The problem right now: confusion about "what's real and what's not" | | Talking about the White House's exclusion of CNN, the NYT and other news outlets from an off-camera briefing on Friday, the WSJ's Bret Stephens didn't mince words: "I would call it Nixonian, except I think that would be unfair to the memory of President Nixon. This is an attempt to bully the press by using access as a weapon to manipulate coverage... If the administration will try to boycott certain news outlets, then perhaps we should, as news organizations, return the favor to this administration..." | | On Sunday's "Reliable Sources" I asked NYT executive editor Dean Baquet, is President Trump the best thing to ever happen to the NYT's subscription sales strategy? Yes, Baquet said -- "every time he tweets, it drives subscriptions wildly." Baquet told me the NYT's mission is now "clearer than it's ever been." Read/watch more here...
-- More from the interview: Baquet justifying the use of anonymous sourcing... He says "these are people who are worried about the direction of the government..."
| | | The real definition of "fake news" | | In an essay on Sunday's show, I tried to address the difference between the media industry's definition of "fake news" and the White House's definition of "fake news..." | | A better way to fact-check | | World-renowned linguist George Lakoff on Sunday's show: "If you just negate what he's saying, you're going to just strengthen him." He was talking about Trump, but this idea applies to other politicians too.
"The very fact of repeating a falsehood in proclaiming it as incorrect can actually have the opposite effect in terms of informing the public," the professor said.
Via CNN's Alexandra King, who summed up the interview: The better tactic is for journalists to "frame" fact checking by immediately pointing out that "Trump is diverting attention from real issues ... like his foreign policy, like his business connections and on and on." Journalists should "talk first about the truth, that he's diverting attention from, the real issues..." | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email. See you tomorrow... | |  | | 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. | | | | | |
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