| | | | MSNBC's Rachel Maddow outranked NBC's "This Is Us" season finale on Twitter's trending topics list Tuesday night... but many twittery journalists were disappointed by Maddow's special report.
Dylan Byers emails: Maddow teed-up a major scoop about President Trump's taxes... The big reveal, which Maddow did not get to until after a lengthy monologue and commercial break, showed that in 2005 Trump paid $38 million in federal income taxes on a reported income of $150 million -- an effective tax rate of 25%... the 1040 form left people with more questions than answers. Read Dylan's full story here...
>> The tax info actually came from veteran journalist David Cay Johnston, who was a guest on Maddow's show. The two of them "teased" it more than an hour in advance. But by the time the segment aired, the White House had gotten ahead of it, and The Daily Beast (where Johnston is a columnist) had published a summary... | | -- Mind meld: The pro-Maddow view: She's exposing just how much we still DON'T know about Trump's taxes. She had a legit scoop.
-- The more critical take: This was a cheap ratings stunt. She over-promised and under-delivered. Variety's insta-take: "Some Numbers, Much Hype..."
-- Donald Trump Jr. tweets: "Thank you Rachel Maddow for proving to your #Trump hating followers how successful @realDonaldTrump is..."
-- Matt Drudge tweets: "Andy Lack must be freaking. Maddow will get huge ratings.... But so many saw the fail!"
-- Jay Yarow of MSNBC's sister channel CNBC published this op-ed: "Trump just got a nice victory, thanks, of all people, to Rachel Maddow"
-- IndieWire's Michael Schneider: "Coincidentally, a chunk of Trump's income in the Rachel Maddow taxes comes from NBC & The Apprentice..." | | | "Totally illegal" or perfectly legal? | | From a savvy reader: "By releasing a blurb describing the return income and taxes at 8:40pm, the W.H. finally handled a 'controversy' well and got ahead of it..."
The Trump statement said, in part, "You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago... It is totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns. The dishonest media can continue to make this part of their agenda, while the president will focus on his..."
Maddow's response on air: "For the record, the First Amendment gives us the right to publish the return." | | Maddow has been on a ratings hot streak lately. Many viewers specifically change the channel to MSNBC at 9pm ET to see her, which is something special in TV...
>> Deadline's Lisa de Moraes earlier Tuesday: "For the week of March 6," Maddow "ranked No. 1 among cable news shows in the news demo..." | | This is the midway point of SXSW... I'm filing this newsletter from an NBC bash for "Meet The Press..." and as you can imagine, Trump's taxes are a topic of conversation. Here's the rest of the day's media news... | | | How often do Murdoch and Trump talk? | | NPR's David Folkenflik has a new answer to a constant question: Rupert Murdoch "has told close associates that the nation's 45th president calls to confer frequently — as often as multiple times a week — and that he has visited the White House to meet with Trump more than once."
Sean Spicer's comment: "They have been friends for a long time. They speak on occasion as the president does with all his friends."
A Murdoch rep declined to comment. The Trump White House is not releasing visitor logs, so Murdoch's visits can't be tallied. Folkenflik's report goes into detail about Trump and Murdoch's "mutual interests..." | | | Wonder what Murdoch thinks of this intramural feud... | | WSJ columnist Bret Stephens took aim at Fox's Sean Hannity in this must-read column, "Deep States and Demagogues," in Tuesday's paper. He said "Hannity reminds us that the paranoid style in politics is alive and well today." Hannity naturally shot back on Twitter overnight: "I'm so glad @FoxNews is such a profit center that helps keep u employed!"
Of course, Murdochworld budgeting doesn't really work that way, since 21st Century Fox and News Corp are separate entities... When Stephens reminded Hannity about that, Hannity invoked a derogatory Wall Street nickname for News Corp, "crap co."
On Tuesday afternoon, Stephens tried to get the final word by tweeting this quote from The Economist: "Murdoch's 'crap co' is worth more than $7 billion." | | | Trump speaking to his base: | | | A third Trump interview for Fox | | Two weeks ago the "Fox & Friends" gang interviewed POTUS at the White House... On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson will tape an interview with POTUS in Detroit... And now comes word that Jesse Watters will also interview him on Wednesday... Per BI's Maxwell Tani, this interview will take place aboard Air Force One. When Watters was ambushing Bill O'Reilly's enemies for "The O'Reilly Factor," did he ever imagine interviewing a president?
-- More: The AF1 interview will air on Saturday's "Watters World..." | | -- How's Axios doing? Emily Jane Fox has a checkup here... Jim VandeHei says the site's next vertical is science... (VF)
-- Ted Johnson interviews new FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who said "the agency is studying restrictions on media ownership, characterizing a number of the rules as 'quite antiquated...'" (Variety)
-- A fascinating read by Lachlan Markay: "Inside the collapse of the Mark Steyn Show..." (The Daily Beast)
-- I missed this on Monday: Pulitzer Prize administrator Mike Pride is retiring this summer. Roy J. Harris Jr. has an exit interview with Pride... (Poynter) | | | Only one reporter is traveling on Tillerson's plane... | | Breaking with decades of tradition, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is flying to Asia without his traveling press corps. (Here's our Sunday TV segment about why it matters.)
But Tillerson is allowing one reporter on board: Independent Journal Review's Erin McPike. IJR founder Alex Skatell told BuzzFeed's Steven Perlberg: "We don't take this opportunity lightly... Last week, the State Department officially offered McPike an opportunity... After editorial consultation, McPike accepted the seat."
It's notable that McPike (a former CNNer) is not a veteran State Department beat reporter. And IJR is not a big, well-established news organization. State Department beat reporters are flying commercially, trying to keep up with Tillerson... | | | State Department Correspondents' Association responds | | This just in: "The State Department Correspondents' Association is disappointed... After saying it was unable to accommodate press on the Secretary's plane to Asia due to space and budget constraints, the State Department offered a unilateral seat to one reporter... We have been negotiating in good faith with Secretary Tillerson's team about a variety of issues related to media access and we welcome the State Department's pledge to address our concerns in the very near future." | | | Us Weekly's new buyer: American Media | | Ken Doctor's latest for The Street: Tronc "has walked away from its offer to buy Us Weekly, telling magazine owner Wenner Media on Friday that it decided not to finalize and announce the deal this week, as the companies had planned... American Media, familiar to those still perusing supermarket checkout reading options, has quickly re-entered the picture as a suitor. AMI, the owner of the National Enquirer, Star, OK!, Soap Opera Digest and Men's Fitness, will likely close its own deal to buy Us Weekly as soon as this week, according to the same sources, for a purchase price that could reach $100 million." No comment from any of the companies involved... | | | Fox releases Megyn Kelly from contract | | WSJ's Joe Flint with the scoop: Fox News "said in a statement that it released Ms. Kelly from the network on March 9, almost four months before her contract expires on July 1, so she can start working at NBC News." (The NBC deal was announced in early January.)
-- Not so fast? Kelly's spokeswoman says in an email that "they are still negotiating terms of termination.." But the message from NBC is "all good..." The network was never expecting Kelly to start on air until the summer at the earliest. An early release from her contract will allow her to have meetings at NBC before the summertime... | | | Latest intel about Kelly's shows on NBC | | Flint writes: "One option under consideration for Ms. Kelly's morning show is to do a 10 a.m. program that would be filmed in front of a live audience and wouldn't be part of the 'Today' franchise, according to people familiar with the matter... Even less is known about the Sunday night show beyond that it will be a news magazine and could premiere as early as this summer. However, its run would be brief as NBC airs 'Sunday Night Football' through the fall..." | | | WSJ's Alastair Gale scored the first interview with viral video star Robert Kelly and his wife Kim Jung-A... | | -- Poynter's Rick Edmonds with a look at regional papers making tough decisions: "Are daily opinion pages headed to the morgue?" (Poynter)
-- "Univision bans Gizmodo staff from screening new film about Hulk Hogan's sex-tape lawsuit." The Daily Dot's Dell Cameron explains it here...
-- eMarketer's latest forecast: "Total digital ad spending in the U.S. will increase 16% this year to $83 billion, led by Google's continued dominance of the search ad market..." (WSJ)
-- "MSNBC anchor and NBC News correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin and his wife French-born supermodel Kenza Fourati welcomed their first child into the world Sunday night..." (TVNewser) | | | Walter Isaacson stepping down | | Walter Isaacson is saying goodbye to the Aspen Institute... chairman James S. Crown's internal memo: "After an extraordinary tenure of 14 years as President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, Walter Isaacson will be stepping down from his position at the end of this year. Walter's leadership has been remarkable, and while he leaves the Institute in the strongest position in its history, he will be missed by all of us..."
-- Next: Isaacson will be joining the Tulane University history department and becoming an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg Partners... | | The Wrap picked up on our scooplet from last night: "Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger won't consider running for President of the United States at the moment, but he didn't rule out a White House bid once his schedule clears up, according to CNN's Chloe Melas..." | | | Willow Bay named dean of USC Annenberg | | Brian Lowry emails: USC's ties to the entertainment community are already strong, but just got a little stronger: ABC News alumna Willow Bay has been named dean of USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, having previously headed up the journalism school since 2014. Bay is married to Bob Iger, and two years ago, she presided over the opening of a brand new CBS Media Center, paid for through a donation by CBS CEO Leslie Moonves and his wife, Julie Chen, an SC grad. Bay becomes USC Annenberg's first female dean... | | This would be a big loss for the food world: "Lucky Peach, the six-year-old indie food media outfit from writer Peter Meehan and restaurant mogul and Momofuku founder Dave Chang, is going through a major upheaval. The entire staff learned on Monday afternoon that their employment would end in May," Eater's Amanda Kludt reports. "The last scheduled issue of Lucky Peach magazine, the Suburbs issue, will hit stands in May. The last planned Lucky Peach book, All About Eggs, publishes April 4... Chang tells Eater that he's keeping all options open but couldn't elaborate further..." | | "I fell into that tribal mode. And now I'm over here, but I still don't know how to reach people on the other side."
--Glenn Beck to the WashPost's Marc Fisher... | | | Tale of the Breitbart tape | | Politico's Josh Dawsey and Hadas Gold with the tale of the tape: "Breitbart News had a scoop on their hands: Audio tape of House Speaker Paul Ryan trashing then-nominee Donald Trump in a conference call with House Republicans after a vulgar video emerged of Trump saying he groped women with impunity. But the site didn't release the tape until Monday, months after getting it... The release seemed to be for an audience of one, from the website led until August by Steve Bannon... It shows the enduring power of the site to torture Republicans deemed not conservative enough and to cause great consternation within the party..." | | | Why Devlin Barrett jumped from WSJ to WashPost | | Another scooplet in David Folkenflik's aforementioned piece: Remember how WSJ EIC Gerry Baker "told reporters and editors at a town hall session held last month that they should find work in other newsrooms they admired more if they did not like the way the Journal's coverage was shaped" ? Well "a week later, Devlin Barrett, a widely respected Washington-based reporter who covered national security, left the Journal to join The Washington Post. When asked why he was leaving in a meeting with Journal Washington bureau chief Paul Beckett, Barrett cited Baker's pointed remarks, according to two reporters with direct knowledge of the incident..." | | | NBC to air 'SNL: Weekend Update' primetime specials this summer | | Frank Pallotta reports: "SNL" is going to miss its summer vacation this year. NBC will air a primetime edition of "Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update" in August, the network said Tuesday. Four episodes of the current events satire, hosted by "Weekend Update" anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che, will begin airing on August 10. Other "SNL" cast members will also make appearances... | | | "This Is Us" season finale time | | Since I'm at SXSW and Jamie is back home in NYC, we won't be watching the finale for a couple of days... so no spoilers, please... but CNN Entertainment has post-show coverage right here... | | | How "This" became such a big hit | | Brian Lowry emails: At the TCA press tour in January, Fox executives addressed (a bit defensively) the decision to let "This Is Us" wind up on NBC. Although the show is produced by sister unit 20th Century Fox Television, they maintained it was basically a better fit on the other network. But as the first season ends, there's no simple explanation for why the show broke through the way that it has... Read Lowry's full story here... | | | "Beauty and the Beast" countdown | | Chloe Melas emails: Sir Ian McKellen told me he thinks it's "rubbish" parents aren't taking their children to see "Beauty and the Beast" over the inclusion of a gay character in the film. Several other cast members echoed those sentiments as well. Check out my interview and video from the NYC premiere here... The movie hits theaters on Friday... | | | For the record, part three | | | 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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