| | | | Welcome to an abbreviated Sunday edition of the letter... coming to you from West Hollywood... | | Print front pages still have an uncanny way of capturing what a city is thinking and what a world is watching. Witness Sunday's page one of the L.A. Times: "ON EDGE IN TRUMP'S AMERICA" is the title of a series the paper is running about local perspectives. Sunday's story -- "ANXIETY IN L.A. IMMIGRANT HUB" -- is about fear in the Boyle Heights neighborhood.
Next to that feature are two stories about the "healthcare failure" and what's next for Trump. And below the fold: "U.S. affirms role in Mosul airstrike." Subhed: "Attack requested by Iraq against militants is believed to have killed 200 civilians."
In the lower right hand corner, two teases, "Difficult path ahead for Trump" and "Huntington rally erupts in violence." ICYMI on Saturday, that second story recounted how "Trump backers and foes came to blows at a Make America Great Again march..." | | LAT editor Davan Maharaj told me that the "On Edge" series was formalized a week ago: "By many estimates, some 2.3 million residents in California are undocumented. They are our friends, neighbors and co-workers. They represent every continent. Since the election, the overwhelming sentiment they feel is fear, fear that their parents will be rounded up and deported, fear about that dreaded knock on the door." So the series is a "multi-media effort" to tell those stories... | | | When a president's words are worthless... | | My opening questions on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" broadcast:
What happens to a country when a leader's words are worthless? When their promises are toothless or utterly useless? Is that where we now with President Trump?
On one level, Trump's words DO have the power to inspire and influence and intimidate and incite fear. But journalists and lawmakers -- and most importantly, voters -- just can't take him at his word. So what happens when the president's words lose all meaning?
Later in the hour, Time mag editor Nancy Gibbs asked Q's too: "What does it mean," she said, "what are the implications of having a president whose relationship with truth is unlike any we have seen in a public figure probably in our lifetimes?" Watch the Q&A with Gibbs... | | | Can Trump regain trust? Bernstein doubts it | | "There is a credibility and trust factor that's really in play with this president," April Ryan said in the A block of the show.
"And there is almost an impossibility that Trump can regain trust," Carl Bernstein added. "Really?" I said. His rationale: Trump "is someone who has lied at will all of his adult life." Watch the segment here... | | | Spicer calls Politico reporter an "idiot" | | When Politico's Tara Palmeri tweeted over the weekend that a "Source close to @POTUS says he's being advised to replace @Reince45 & is open to possibility -- healthcare was last straw," Breitbart's Matt Boyle asked Sean Spicer for comment, and Spicer shot back: "She is an idiot with no real sources."
"This is just another example of the stoop-to-any-levelism of the current White House press operation," Erik Wemple wrote Sunday afternoon. He quoted Politico's defense of Palmeri...
-- FWIW: I once hated a Page Six item Palmeri wrote about me. Hated it. But I knew the item was right. She's no idiot... | | Jon Lovett's appearance on the show definitely generated the most email in my inbox Sunday morning. Many viewers told me they wholeheartedly agreed with Lovett's critique of CNN's pro-Trump commentators. "So often on CNN there's a world class journalist interviewing campaign rejects and ideologues and silly, craven people who do not care about informing people, that aren't there to help people understand what's going on in the news," Lovett said.
Other commenters pushed back by saying Lovett's just preaching to the choir. Read recaps of the fiery segment via Deadline and Mediaite... and here's the video of the full thing... | | Lovett's broader critique of cable news is that too many shows speak in a "dead language" -- meaning "the tone, the tenor, the substance, the people, it's inaccessible, it's alienating for millions and millions of young people." He portrays his podcast as an alternative...
-- Related: Lovett is quoted in this Sunday Styles story by Erin Geiger Smith about podcast ads... | | LawNewz editor Rachel Stockman says CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem was "irresponsible" to say on air that her "sources" indicate Michael Flynn may have a deal with the FBI.
Quoting Stockman's blog post: "In a Facebook post over the weekend, Kayyem predictably started to back peddle on her comments saying, 'Sources I have talked to in the field also are increasingly wondering the same thing.'"
Kayyem didn't invoke CNN's name while citing "sources," so it's not exactly akin to the Andrew Napolitano dust-up, but this once again highlights the difference between carefully vetted reporting on cable news and commentating on cable... | | | Pirro, Trump, Ryan, and a tweet | | "Paul Ryan needs to step down as speaker of the House," Jeanine Pirro said on Fox News Saturday night, 11 hours after POTUS told viewers to tune in to her show. But that was totally "coincidental," Reince Priebus told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." (Maybe Trump posted his tweet because he saw the Fox countdown clock promising new wiretapping info on Pirro's show?)
Per CNNPolitics, Ryan spokesman Doug Andres says Trump spoke with Ryan on Sunday morning and "the President was clear his tweet had nothing to do with the speaker. They are both eager to get back to work on the agenda..." | | | Fox's extensive coverage of a Maryland rape case... | | | ...And the trouble with anecdote over data | | Media editor Alex Koppelman emails: The item on today's show on the rape case that Fox News has been covering because one of the suspects is an undocumented immigrant reminded me: earlier this year, a student at the high school from which I graduated, also in Maryland, was accused of three sexual assaults against other students. Fox doesn't appear to have covered that case, nor angrily accused other outlets of bias for not covering it. It doesn't take much effort to guess why.
Fox hosts and pundits have spent years trumpeting individual cases of undocumented immigrants committing crimes to argue for crackdowns on undocumented immigrants and on so-called "sanctuary cities." But anecdote -- even tragic, horrifying anecdote -- is not data. Indeed, there is research to indicate that immigrants are less likely to commit crime than people born here. And officials behind "sanctuary city" policies will tell you that, by ensuring undocumented immigrants don't just hide in the shadows and feel safe coming to authorities for help, they actually keep the public safer.
Reasonable people, knowing all this, can still differ. So journalists and commentators discussing issues like these have to ask themselves why they want to be in this business. Do they want to inform people, or cherry-pick stories to push an agenda? Do they care so little about their audience, respect them so little, that they are willing to lie by omission? Too often, some Fox personalities have been choosing the wrong answers. | | "This is the most presidential shattering investigation that we have had since Watergate. There's no question about that."
--Carl Bernstein on Sunday's show, talking about the Russia probe... | | | Page Six says Tomi Lahren has been "banned permanently" from The Blaze | | "Tomi Lahren won't be appearing on Glenn Beck's multiplatform network, TheBlaze, anymore," Page Six's Richard Johnson reports. "Sources say Lahren — who was suspended last week after flip-flopping on abortion and declaring herself pro-choice — has been banned permanently." Lahren told me Sunday afternoon that she cannot comment... | | | Must-watch Koppel segment | | Ted Koppel's "CBS Sunday Morning" look at the "great divide," featuring interviews with Sean Hannity and Dean Baquet, is worth your time. Check out the video here. This exchange seemed to get the most attention online:
HANNITY: "We have to give some credit to the American people that they are somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show. You're cynical."
KOPPEL: "I am cynical."
HANNITY: "Do you think we're bad for America? You think I'm bad for America?"
KOPPEL: "Yeah."
HANNITY: "You do?"
KOPPEL: "In the long haul I think you and all these opinion shows --"
HANNITY: "Really? That's sad, Ted. That's sad."
KOPPEL: "No, you know why? Because you're very good at what you do, and because you have attracted a significantly more influential --"
HANNITY: "You are selling the American people short."
KOPPEL: "No, let me finish the sentence before you do that."
HANNITY: "I'm listening. With all due respect. Take the floor."
KOPPEL: "You have attracted people who are determined that ideology is more important than facts." | | | An apology from Alex Jones | | "Alex Jones has apologized. Yes, you're reading that correctly," Mediaite's Jon Levine writes. "The radio host famous for conspiracy theories including that fluoridated water is causing homosexuality and the Sandy Hook massacre was staged, has apparently thrown in the towel on another fan favorite: Pizzagate."
It happened "in a highly unusual six-minute video" -- a direct apology to Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis -- after Alefantis's lawyers reached out to Infowars, Levine says. Maybe that's why this correction sounds so lawyered: "To my knowledge today, neither Mr. Alefantis nor his restaurant Comet Ping Pong, were involved in any human trafficking as was part of the theories about Pizzagate." Read more... | | | Boris leaving the White House | | "Boris Epshteyn, a special assistant to President Donald Trump who leads the White House's television surrogate operations, is expected to leave the White House, potentially for a position outside the West Wing," CNN's Jim Acosta and Jeremy Diamond reported Saturday night... | | | A very attractive Final Four for CBS... | | Brian Lowry emails: After a down-to-the-wire North Carolina win over Kentucky, CBS gets a very attractive Final Four that also includes South Carolina, Gonzaga and Oregon. The brackets are full of storylines, not the least being a possible North Carolina-South Carolina final. | | | "Highest level of exec churn in years" | | "From the outside, Hollywood looks like a thriving town with massive blockbusters and growing box-office revenue. But pull back the curtain and the legacy movie business is under siege, contributing to the highest level of executive churn in years," Ryan Faughnder writes in this 30,000-foot view of Hollywood in Sunday's LAT.
About that exec churn: "Three of the six major studios — Paramount, Sony and Fox — have removed or replaced their top executives in the last year." Read the rest here... | | | Weekend box office report | | Jamie and I saw "Beauty and the Beast" on Saturday... loved every minute of it... and we were not the only ones. The film "delivered a monster second weekend, pulling in enough to make it the fourth largest second weekend of all-time and pushing the film over $315 million in a matter of just ten days," Box Office Mojo's Brad Brevet writes. "Added to that, Lionsgate's release of Saban's Power Rangers debuted in second place and proved there was still an audience for the franchise that began in the early '90s. Meanwhile, Sony's Life didn't show much of it and WB's CHiPs finished mostly as expected, settling in the lower half of the weekend top ten..." | | | Memorial for Reynolds and Fisher | | Chloe Melas writes: The lives of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher continue to be celebrated. More than a thousand people paid tribute to the mother-daughter duo at a public memorial on Saturday, held near their burial sites at Forest Lawn cemetery in Los Angeles. Todd Fisher, who organized the event, spoke lovingly about his sister and mother, then introduced a video featuring movie clips and images of the family through the years. Read more... | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email. | |  | | 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