| | | | When President Trump began his unhinged (Jake Tapper's word) press conference on Thursday, CNN president Jeff Zucker was at Porter House in NYC, speaking at Turner's annual luncheon for media reporters. It won't surprise you to hear that we asked a LOT of questions about Trump coverage. Some of the takeaways:
-- Zucker said Morale at CNN is "incredibly high" amid the president's attacks. "It is a very exciting time, frankly, to be a journalist at CNN..."
-- "If there is any issue, it is because they are exhausted. The pace has been nonstop, and it has not let up..." (I can second-source this)
-- Ratings are up across the board for cable news, with CNN and Fox News both up about 50% year over year...
-- Zucker and Trump haven't spoken since December... | | Trump: Press is 'out of control' | | | I ducked out early to join CNN's coverage of the presser. Trump repeatedly called out Zucker by name; downgraded CNN to "very fake news;" mischaracterized his own electoral college victory; said "Russia is fake news;" said the "leaks are real" but the news is fake; claimed his administration is a "fine-tuned machine;" said he'd make a pretty good reporter; and so on and so forth. | | | Dylan Byers, in this recap, called it Trump's most extensive attack on the media since taking office... | | | He'd rather be campaigning than governing. This presser harkened back to the primary season. And this weekend he's holding a campaign-style rally. Up at the podium, he really seemed to be enjoying the verbal combat. I think he'll hold more of these... POTUS pressers are better than any soap opera on daytime TV... | | Q's from more than a dozen reporters | | | Credit where it's due: Trump fielded questions from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the AP, the BBC, and other big outlets that he had skipped during his joint pressers... | | "Trump demanded to face the media..." | | | This lead is on page one of Friday's NYT: "President Trump, smarting from a series of crises, moved his surrogates aside on Thursday and assigned the rescue of his month-old presidency to the only spokesman he's ever really trusted — himself... Over the objections of some top advisers who wanted to steer him away from confrontation, Mr. Trump demanded to face the media..." | | | Dylan Byers emails: On the one hand Trump's attacks on the media were strategically designed to deflect attention away from controversies surrounding him and his administration. But the attacks also reflect a very sincere grievance that he and his top advisers have about how they're being treated by the media. When I spoke with Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway last week, all of them went on at length about what they described as hostile and unfair media coverage... | | Remembering Howard Stern's words: "Detrimental" to mental health | | | Brian Lowry emails: Watching the Trump presser, kept thinking about Howard Stern's recent assessment of the toll that being president will take on him: "I actually think this is something that is gonna be detrimental to his mental health too, because, he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved. He wants people to cheer for him." Setting aside Trump's policies, his comportment gave the impression of someone who is already feeling the weight of the job... | | Trump's latest anti-media "survey" / fund-raising tool | | | This new survey is getting a lot of attention on social media... It's a continuation of a Trump tactic from the campaign, asking voters to opine on media bias and tapping into resentment about the coverage... with questions like "Do you believe that our Party should spend more time and resources holding the mainstream media accountable?" | | Meanwhile, back at the Turner luncheon... | | CNN's research finds "no impact" from Trump's insults | | | "I was concerned that after a year of being called 'fake news' that there may have been some kind of impact on the brand," Zucker said. "We spent a month investigating this" (through one of the "brand surveys" the network does from time to time) "and I'm happy to say there has been no diminution whatsoever in the CNN brand — it is as strong as it's ever been, incredibly trusted, and we've seen no impact whatsoever from all of those attacks." | | Going viral: anchor reactions to Trump | | > Jake Tapper on CNN: "It was unhinged, it was wild..."
> Shep Smith on Fox: "It is crazy what we are watching every day. It's absolutely crazy..."
> Scott Pelley on CBS: "Today, we learned the length of the president's fuse: 28 days." At the presser, Trump "went on offense with the familiar tools that built his career: Bluster, bravado, exaggeration and a few loose facts."
> MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski on Twitter: "The President needs to succeed for America but he has crossed the line too many times. This feels like a fake Presidency."
> BBC "NewsNight" anchor Evan Davis: "Is the president on the verge of a nervous breakdown?" | | Hannity calls it "a historic beat-down" | | | "All I can say is wow," Sean Hannity said on "Hannity." "What we saw today was a historic beat-down of the alt-left propaganda media, and they had it coming..." | | Trump fails to answer Q about anti-semitism, tells reporter to "sit down" | | The NYT editorial board's headline: "Donald Trump's Answer to Anti-Semitism? You Don't Want to Know." CNN's Eli Watkins summed up the presser exchange this way: "In response to a question Thursday about threats to Jewish centers nationwide, POTUS called a Jewish reporter a liar, told him to sit down and later said anti-Semitism was coming from 'the other side...'"
A few hours later MSNBC's Chuck Todd asked on air: "Why can't President Trump simply denounce anti-semitism?" | | Trump's reaction to April Ryan | | | Another eyebrow-raising exchange: Trump "asked reporter April Ryan if she would set up a meeting between him and the Congressional Black Caucus." Ryan didn't "go there" during a post-presser with CNN's Brooke Baldwin, but Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings did -- he told MSNBC's Chris Hayes Thursday night, "A lot of people assume that all black people know all black people..." | | Peter Alexander getting kudos | | | The New Yorker's John Cassidy called it "Trump's alternative-reality press conference." Like many of us, Cassidy was struck by Trump's false claim about having the biggest electoral college victory since Ronald Reagan. NBC's Peter Alexander looked up the data on his phone, read it to the president, and asked "Why should Americans trust you?" Trump did not give a reason. His excuse was "I was given the information." By who? He didn't say... | | | Dylan Byers asks: At a certain point, the attacks must get old... right? At a certain point the President of the United States needs to start acting like the President of the United States and stop offloading blame for his failures on the press... | | "The Romans said that the way to keep people happy was to give them 'bread and circus.' So far, all we have gotten is the circus."
--Fareed Zakaria in his next WashPost column... | | WSJ reveals Kushner-Ginsberg meeting | | A source familiar with the matter confirms this WSJ scoop: "Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and close adviser, met with a senior Time Warner Inc. executive in recent weeks" -- marketing and comms EVP Gary Ginsberg -- and "expressed the administration's deep concerns about CNN's news coverage." The objections included complaints about CNN commentators like Van Jones and Ana Navarro.
-- The WSJ's Keach Hagey and Damian Paletta say the meeting happened at the W.H...
-- Navarro responds in a tweet: "Little boy Kushner, tough guy who's supposed to achieve Middle East peace, is complaining about me to CNN. Boo-hoo!" | | W.H. official says CNN's "ratings have suffered," CNN says "the W.H. has their facts wrong" | | A revealing chunk of the WSJ story: Hagey and Paletta quote an anonymous W.H. official as saying that "it's no secret that the President and his team have been critical of CNN's dishonest coverage of the President both during the campaign and since his inauguration, and it's obvious their ratings have suffered as a result. Fox on the other hand provides mostly fair, and more complete coverage of the Administration and their ratings have never been better."
A CNN spokesperson responded: "Once again, the White House has their facts wrong. CNN's ratings are up 50%." | | -- "Twentieth Century Fox has apologized for creating fake news sites as part of the digital marketing campaign for the new film A Cure for Wellness..." (THR)
-- The NYT is introducing a new column all about late-night TV... Gio Russonello will write it... (NYT)
-- Carolyn Ryan, "who ran The Times' coverage of the presidential campaign, will join the Times' masthead as an assistant editor in charge of recruitment..." (Poynter)
-- The Wall Street Journal is "nixing its fashion and culture columns..." (WWD)
-- "The hottest read in Hollywood?" All about Scott Conroy's script for an 8-to-10-part TV series about the Trump campaign... (Deadline) | | | Now back to our special edition... | | Thursday's top tweets and comments | | Nicholas Kristof: "I haven't heard an administration denounce reporters so harshly since China castigated us for covering its Tiananmen massacre"
Howard Fineman: "Today's presser will be studied forever as the 1st real-time, extended-play, public tour inside Trump's brain on a drug called 'president'"
Jack Mirkinson: "Good for Trump to so boldly tackle America's biggest crisis: cable news..."
Salena Zito: "Listening to DJT press conf., in middle of PA and watching press on my twitter is like parallel universe -- people think he is doing well."
Ari Fleischer on the "O'Reilly Factor:" Trump "is the only person I know who has the moxie to be able to take on the press like this"
Joe Scarborough earlier in the day: "The press always wins. Ask Richard Nixon: The press always wins!" | | Rebutting Trump's claim about reporters not asking for comment | | Dylan Byers notes: Trump claimed that reporters at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal did not reach out to him before writing certain stories. Both stories he cited say that the reporters tried to get comment from the White House...
-- NYT's Maggie Haberman reacted on NYTimes.com: "I email his press office almost every day, and Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee refuse to respond to my emails." Glenn Thrush seconded that: "The last 14 emails I have sent to his press secretary have gone unanswered." | | | Stephen Colbert tossed out his planned monologue on Thursday night... instead, he weighed in on the presser in a big way... calling it Trump's first "STRESS CONFERENCE." Here's a clip... | | Trump says leakers will "pay a big price" | | The president's warning about pursuing government leakers was overshadowed by the lunchtime presser. But for the record, he said, "We're going to find the leakers and they're going to pay a big price." Later on, he said, "I've actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks..."
-- More: Maggie Haberman tweets: "The subtext of today's complaints on leaks -- Trump is deeply rattled by leaks big and small out of his WH..." | | Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | | We've booked several people who know about the ins and and outs of leaks... Carl Bernstein, Dana Priest, Glenn Greenwald... plus political reporters like Glenn Thrush... so set your DVR for 11am ET Sunday... | | Venezuela taking further action against CNN En Español | | | On Wednesday Venezuela's government ordered cable companies to take down CNN en Espanol. The companies complied, and CNN responded by offering news headlines on its web site and a free live stream on YouTube. Now this: a government regulator says "managers are coordinating with all internet providers, using the available technology, to make the respective blocks." According to Reuters, however, CNN's coverage "could still be easily accessed online in Venezuela by mid-afternoon on Thursday..." | | | At the aforementioned Turner luncheon, Zucker called Venezuela's actions "an attack on freedom of the press everywhere." He urged the reporters in the room to pay close attention to the case. This is "what happens when an authoritarian regime starts taking down feeds & blocking web sites just because we reported the truth," he said... | | | Ryan Lizza proposes a story idea via Twitter: "Free story idea: how the anti-/never-Trump conservative press gradually became Trump bootlickers because clicks..." | | ICYMI: Dylan's story about Sean Spicer | | | So long as Sean Spicer has Trump's support, "the rest is noise," Dylan Byers wrote in Wednesday's must-read profile. "The media and indeed much of the American public may be ready to write him into history as the most disreputable and ineffective press secretary of the modern era. But history goes through many drafts before it hits the shelves. Those who know Spicer and his relationship with the President say it would be a mistake to count him out so soon..." | | Podcast with Marisa Guthrie | | | On this week's "Reliable Sources Livecast," I talked with THR's Marisa Guthrie about Josh Elliott, Deborah Turness, Noah Oppenheim, and other media world changes... Listen to the 15-minute-long podcast here... | | Why hasn't Apple revolutionized TV? | | | A really smart feature by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman: Time and again, "Apple engineers have been forced to compromise on Apple's vision of revolutionizing the living room. Early on, the Apple TV was going to replace the clunky set-top boxes from the cable companies and stream live television. It never happened..." Read the rest here... | | | Lowry reviews "Big Little Lies" | | | HBO has a lot riding on the miniseries "Big Little Lies," and Brian Lowry says the star-studded project -- including Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman -- mostly delivers... Read his full review here... | | BBC America debuting "Planet Earth II" | | | Brian Lowry emails: Also a thumbs (or paws) up for another seven-part production, "Planet Earth II," a stunning nature documentary, this time with a more concerted environmental message. The BBC production has already been a major hit in the U.K., but lands stateside on BBC America, with the earlier version having played on Discovery Channel... Read the rest here! | | | 'American Horror Story' to get political | | | Lisa France emails: "American Horror Story" is set to get political next season, according to Ryan Murphy. And there may be some Trump in there... | | -- Chloe Melas emails: I sat down with the editor of Sport Illustrated's swimsuit issue, MJ Day, and Olympian Aly Raisman, who spoke to me about body image, their own insecurities and why sexy isn't one size. Watch here...
-- More from Chloe: Keith Urban is making a major country music comeback! The country star was nominated for seven Academy of Country Music Awards on Thursday. This is huge considering last year he was nominated in just one category. For the rest of the nominations, check them out here... | | -- Lisa France emails: Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa don't talk, according to Philbin. But Ripa's folks provided us evidence that their relationship has not been as contentious as he has said..
-- And Rick Astley is on a (Rick) roll... | | | ICYMI Thursday morning: Time's new cover is bound to get noticed by POTUS. | | | 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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