| | | | | Questions, but no answers, about O'Reilly | | A big headline from Thursday night's party in NYC for The Hollywood Reporter's annual New York issue: The co-presidents of Fox News don't have anything to say -- publicly -- about Bill O'Reilly or his future at Fox News. | | Tom Kludt emails: I spoke briefly with Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy, the latter of whom bolted from the conversation as soon he learned I was with CNN. But I had a friendly chat with Shine, who seemed to be in good spirits (shortly before we spoke, I saw him high-five Sean Hannity). After exchanging pleasantries, I told him I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about O'Reilly. "Listen," he said, "I'm just here to have a good time." (This was the first year Shine and Abernethy were on THR's 35 Most Powerful People in Media list.)
Other media reporters who approached Shine were met with the same cheery non-answer. He has been, reportedly, O'Reilly's biggest advocate behind the scenes, but clearly he's limited in what he can say on the record. Of course, others at the party were abuzz about the scandal... | | | What will the Murdochs decide? | | With the ad boycott continuing and O'Reilly on vacation til April 24, the Murdochs are weighing what, if anything, to do. One observer surmised that "Shine can't get caught supporting him since, in the end, this won't be his decision. And he has no idea what the Murdochs will decide." The same holds true for Abernethy... | | | Rupert's memo to the staff | | (No mention of O'Reilly or turbulent times.) "As we enter this new spring season," he wrote, "I'd like to take the opportunity to wish those celebrating, a wonderful Passover and Easter holiday. The first few months of this year have already given us much to be thankful for. Fox News just delivered its highest-rated quarter ever and remains number one in cable in both prime time and total day..." | | | MORE FROM THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER PARTY... | | Cable news time slot competitors Don Lemon and Sean Hannity socializing on the red carpet... Hannity told me later that he hadn't showed up to a red carpet event in over a decade, but he wanted to demonstrate support for Shine and Abernethy...
NBC colleagues Savannah Guthrie, Megyn Kelly and Lester Holt smiling and chatting... which some reporters thought was a public response to the gossip column items about alleged intra-network rivalry... | | >> Kelly told a THR interviewer on the red carpet that she's ready to get back to work: "I've spent enough time staring at the refrigerator, it's time to do some news..." | | Phil Griffin, Jeff Zucker, David Rhodes, Andy Lack, Tom Cibrowski, Janelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fager, Charlie Collier, Cesar Conde, Ainsley Earhardt, Harvey Weinstein, Arianna Huffington, Jonathan Wald, Sheila Nevins, Pat Kiernan, Jesse Angelo, David Remnick, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Charlie Rose, Lester Holt, Dan Abrams, Juan Williams, Kelly Bensimon, Thomas Roberts, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Hill Harper, Danny Strong, Greg Kelly, Julia Stiles, Anna Wintour, Carol Alt, Ali Velshi, Julie Menin, Jim Acosta, Dr. Oz, Alex Wagner, Paul Feig, Olivia Metzger, Richard Leibner... | | CBS's Mark Knoller tweets: "Leading network evening newscasts across-the-board: US targets ISIS in Afghanistan with biggest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat."
CNN's Barbara Starr broke the news of the bombing shortly after noon ET. Crucial context, included in her CNN.com story: When the bomb was in its final stages of testing, back in 2003, military officials said the MOAB was mainly conceived as a weapon employed for "psychological operations."
Slate's Jacob Brogan, who's been writing the site's "Today in Conservative Media" column, says some of the right-wing objections to Trump's shifts were set aside after the bombing. "Whatever the grumbling, almost every right-leaning site was unified about one issue on Thursday afternoon: Really big bombs are great." Read more... | | The AP's Carol Lee: "Another reversal! Trump calls media 'very honorable people' as introduces pool to first responders, though says not more honorable than them..." | | | Tribune shutters national news site before it even launches | | This is a sad and revealing story on several levels:
Politico's Peter Sterne reports: "On April 25, Tribune Media planned to launch a new national news site — Tribune.com — featuring a combination of breaking news, in-depth feature reporting and opinion content. The company had spent months developing the site and staffing it up with reporters from places like Vice, The Intercept and the New York Daily News. By Wednesday, Tribune Media had already started the P.R. roll-out for the site. And then it abruptly pulled the plug."
Some of those reporters are now looking for new jobs -- before the site even launched. C'mon, Tribune... | | -- "Mike Bloomberg is planning to host a one-day event at the same time as the UN General Assembly later this year, replacing the annual gathering run by the Clinton Global Initiative." Title the "Global Business Forum..." (Axios)
-- Charlie Warzel's scoop: A group of 550+ Amazon employees are pushing management "to stop running ads for Amazon products on Breitbart News..." (BuzzFeed)
-- "The Poynter Institute will honor PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff with its 2017 Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism," Chris Ariens reports... (TVNewser) | | | This week's "Reliable" podcast | | Thursday = a new edition of our "Reliable Sources" podcast... this week's edition features not one, not two, but three great guests... Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown, ABC's Cecilia Vega, and author David Kirkpatrick... I spoke with them on stage at the Newseum on Wednesday. Title of the panel: "The Future of News in a Divided and Connected World." Listen to the podcast here! | | | Early look at Sunday's show | | Dan Rather, Jen Psaki, Michael Oreskes, Lydia Polgreen, and Steve Adler will join me in NYC... plus Chris Arnade, a banker turned photographer who's been criss-crossing the country interviewing Trump voters... Set your DVR for Sunday at 11am ET! | | | Instagram's Snapchat clone is more popular than Snapchat | | Chart via BTIG's Rich Greenfield. "Snapchat's lead over Facebook just disappeared," CNNMoney's Kaya Yurieff writes. "Facebook-owned Instagram on Thursday said more than 200 million people use Instagram Stories every day. Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, reported that it has 161 million daily active users ahead of its IPO last month."
-- FTR, Instagram's 200 mil # is for viewers of stories... not people who are actually posting stories... | | Given Trump's ties to the National Enquirer, I think it's worth paying attention to what the supermarket tabloid is selling... here's what the Enquirer is telling its readers this week: | | "HERE WE COME," says the yellow circle in the lower left hand corner... | | | Pompeo calls out WikiLeaks | | Former Tea Party congressman turned CIA director Mike Pompeo in a speech Thursday afternoon: "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia..."
Per CNN's Eli Watkins, Pompeo dismissed WikiLeaks' self-description as a media organization. "These are not reporters doing good work," he said. "These are people who are actively recruiting agents." | | | What will Hannity say about this? (Will he just ignore it?) | | Tom Kludt emails: Sean Hannity has been perhaps Trump's most reliable media booster, only rarely breaking with the president. In some cases, Hannity has even shelved his previous positions in order to bring himself in line with Trump. Take WikiLeaks -- in 2010, Hannity ripped the organization, saying that people "may die" as a result of Julian Assange's disclosures. In 2017, after WikiLeaks was a consistent thorn in Hillary Clinton's side throughout the campaign, Hannity had this to say about Assange: "I believe everything he says."
So what tune will Hannity sing now that Mike Pompeo has come down forcefully on WikiLeaks and Assange? | | | Sandra interviews Chelsea Handler | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: The second season of "Chelsea" launches on Netflix on Friday. In my sit-down with Chelsea Handler, she teased a can't-miss tribute to Sean Spicer and talked about how she feels a sense of "responsibility" as a person with a huge platform... | | | This year's Cannes lineup | | Chloe Melas emails about the lineup for the 2017 Cannes Film Festival:
"An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power," Al Gore's follow to his 2006 doc "An Inconvenient Truth," is among the nearly 50 films that will be screened. Another notable entry: Actress Vanessa Redgrave will make her directorial debut with the documentary "Sea Sorrow," which takes a historical look at the current migrant crisis. Cannes Film Festival president Pierre Lescure: We are in a suspenseful moment for the world. Since we have a new surprise every day from Donald Trump, I hope Syria and North Korea will not cause a shadow on the festival." Read more... | | | Beauty and a box office beast | | Frank Pallotta emails: Disney's live action retelling of its animated classic "Beauty and the Beast" has crossed the $1 billion mark and has done so in less than four weeks. This is Disney's 14th release to reach the milestone, but most likely won't be the last with "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" still on the way.
Speaking of "Star Wars..." | | | "Star Wars" pays tribute to Carrie Fisher | | More from Frank: "She was the boss. It was her war." That's how George Lucas remembered the late Carrie Fisher at Star Wars Celebration convention on Thursday. Lucas remembered Fisher at the gathering along with Billie Lourd, who spoke of her late mother and her role as Princess Leia. "My mom used to say, she never knew where Princess Leia ended and Carrie Fisher began," Lourd said. That was followed by a five-minute tribute to Fisher that featured behind-the-scenes moments and interviews... | | | "The Last Jedi" trailer tomorrow? | | Quick note from Frank: "The Last Jedi" panel at Star Wars Celebration is from 11am to 12:30pm on Friday. Not much is known, but if you're looking for a possible peek at the upcoming film, that may be the place to look... | | | Lowry reviews "Fate of the Furious" | | Brian Lowry emails: The latest "Fast & Furious" sequel runs pretty much on autopilot, but the movie -- which even works in a nuclear sub -- should make Universal U-boats full of money. 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. | | | | | |
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