| | | | | Fox says Paul, Weiss is still investigating | | The law firm that 21st Century Fox retained to interview Roger Ailes' accusers is now reviewing a harassment allegation against Bill O'Reilly. Fox confirmed this on Sunday evening... after Lisa Bloom, the lawyer for O'Reilly accuser Wendy Walsh, spoke with me on "Reliable Sources."
On Wednesday Bloom and Walsh called Fox's hotline to report alleged harassment by O'Reilly from 2013. "On Friday, we received a return phone call from a couple of attorneys who represent Fox News and they said that they are indeed going to do an investigation based on Wendy's complaint," Bloom said.
After the segment, the company received many requests for comment. In response, a Murdoch spokesman said, "21st Century Fox investigates all complaints and we have asked the law firm Paul, Weiss to continue assisting the company in these serious matters..." | | "We're taking this really seriously." That's the intended message by having Paul Weiss on the case. The reality is that Paul Weiss never really left... it remained in the Fox fold after Ailes resigned... and there were indications of the law firm's involvement in the O'Reilly matter several days ago. But Sunday evening's statement is the company's first public comment in a week...
-- O'Reilly's outside spokesman, Mark Fabiani, told Emily Steel there's "nothing special" about how this case is being handled...
-- Still unknown: What are the Murdoch sons thinking? And what's the 21CF board of directors thinking? | | Keep scrolling for more on O'Reilly and Fox... | | The Pulitzer Prizes will be awarded Monday at 3pm ET at Columbia University. Pulitzers expert Roy J. Harris Jr. asks: With President Trump's attacks against the media now a daily reality, "what will the winning journalism say about the press' value to the public?"
Harris wrote his annual preview of the competition for Poynter. One big Q: Will David Fahrenthold's work receive recognition? | | | Colbert's close-up in the NYT | | "One of the most surprising turnaround stories in recent television history began on one of the most surprising nights in political history." So begins John Koblin's in-depth look at Stephen Colbert's ratings growth. One big point: "Trump is not the only reason." Great photography by Chad Batka too, like this action shot of Chris Licht with Colbert... | | | Fallout from Inauguration Day arrests of reporters and photographers | | Would you be concerned if police officers arrested a journalist during a protest, seized the person's notepad, and made copies of all the notes? If so, you should be concerned about the fallout from the inauguration day fracas in DC. BuzzFeed's Zoe Tillman just published an in-depth examination of the arrests of journalists, photogs and legal observers that day... the repercussions linger nearly three months later... | | | How the press covered the Syria strike | | | Making sure all sides are represented | | My essay from Sunday's show: History shows us that, too often, when the subject is military action, skeptical voices are marginalized -- drowned out by the beating of war drums. When it comes to the president's strike in Syria, there are hawks and there are doves, and on TV and online, we need to hear from both -- actually, from all of them, because there are a lot more than two sides here. >>Video of the two-minute segment>> | | | Four ways to catch up on Sunday's show | | During the season finale of "Homeland" on Sunday night, Showtime aired the trailer for "Risk,"thereby revealing that it has acquired the TV rights to the Laura Poitras documentary about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The film originally premiered at Cannes last year, but it's been evolving due to news events, as Jim Rutenberg explains here. It has "not been completed yet..." but it'll air on Showtime sometime this summer...
-- Related: Brian Lowry's "Homeland" review will be up on CNN.com overnight... | | -- Craig Silverman has an insightful look at how Facebook's "approach to the news industry has changed remarkably..." (BuzzFeed)
-- More: From IJF in Perugia, Fabio Chiusi has this piece about Facebook exec Adam Mosseri's presentation... (Poynter)
-- Richard Deitsch knows it won't happen, but he says Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts should become the #1 NFL broadcasting team on CBS in the fall, with Jim Nantz and Tony Romo in the #2 slot... "for Romo's sake..." (SI) | | | Quotes from Sunday's "Reliable Sources" | | -- David Folkenflik: Among some staffers at Fox, "there is a degree of contempt towards O'Reilly..."
-- Emily Steel: "Sexual harassment is against the law. You are not supposed to treat women like this in the work force..."
-- David Zurawik: "Short-term, I don't think anything happens to O'Reilly. He's the franchise." But O'Reilly "has become the face of that sick and predatory culture... There's a difference in the perception of him..."
-- Michael Wolff: "This is an issue as much about politics as it is about sexual harassment...." | | | Fox "should enforce the law" and "enforce the culture" | | A key comment during the show from AU professor and former Fox contributor Jane Hall: "21st Century Fox should enforce the law... And they should enforce a change in the culture... And if O'Reilly's audience views this as some kind of liberal cabal, then that is regrettable, but that is not the point. This is against the law." Watch the full segment here... | | | Ad boycott entering a second week | | Brian Lowry emails: If the ad boycott continues (and all signs indicate that it will) I'm wondering if Fox might move O'Reilly's 11pm repeat later in the night. Would give them another hour to sell and mitigate the hit a bit, without sacrificing 8pm lead-in.... | | | Elsewhere on the dial at 11am ET... | | -- Lawrence O'Donnell discussed O'Reilly on Joy Reid's MSNBC show... he compared Fox News to a "cesspool" of harassment and dared O'Reilly to sue him...
-- Howard Kurtz mentioned the ad boycott and Julie Roginsky's lawsuit at the end of his Fox show. "This has been a difficult and uncomfortable period for the people who work here, no question about it," Kurtz said. "The network has been trying to move on, to change the culture, and to make clear that any kind of harassment is unacceptable... Most of these allegations date from the Roger Ailes era, but the echoes of that era are still making news." | | | Fox Networks/Charter update | | Fox Networks Group has been warning of a possible blackout in Charter homes... negotiations apparently continued over the weekend... but Fox is still warning that the blackout could take effect as soon as Monday... | | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Monday morning: Judge Neil M. Gorsuch will be sworn in
-- Monday afternoon: the aforementioned Pulitzers announcement...
-- Wednesday: the Newseum hosts a half-day conference about the president and the press...
-- Thursday evening: THR's "35 Most Powerful People in Media" party... | | | About that Newseum event... | | On Wednesday the Newseum is hosting "The President and the Press: The First Amendment in the First 100 Days," with speakers including Sean Spicer, Bret Baier, Jim Acosta, Julie Pace, Greta Van Susteren, Mike Allen, Glenn Thrush, Kristen Welker, and yours truly. Details here. The Newseum says "the goal of the conference is to reduce tension between the administration and the media, and provide guidelines for the road ahead..." | | "Ads showing up on objectionable sites, that's bad. Ads showing up to bots, through searching, that's bad. Ads that you place that don't really get measured by a third party that validates what's right — that's not so good, either..."
--P&G chief brand officer Marc S. Pritchard talking with the NYT's Sapna Maheshwari... this is an enlightening Q&A about the biz... | | | "SNL" returns after a month-long hiatus | | ICYMI: "SNL" opened with Alec Baldwin's President Donald Trump taking time to, uhh, visit his supporters. Frank Pallotta has the highlights/lowlights here... | | Baldwin also played O'Reilly later in the show... via a split-screen effect... and I thought it was a better sketch than the cold open.
Vulture's Matthew Love: "Baldwin has a nice sense of O'Reilly — his voice remains the same, but he's got the smirk, the jerking of the head, the sing-song cadence."
You could make the case that Baldwin's O'Reilly impersonation is better than his Trump impersonation... | | | While we're on the subject of "SNL..." | | This was a cutting joke during "Weekend Update:"
"It was reported that Yahoo! and AOL will combine to form a new company, because no one wants to die alone." | | | Two Trump guests, "two opposite arguments" | | Quoting Jonathan Swan's Sunday evening Axios newsletter: "Nikki Haley and Rex Tillerson may need to talk." They "went on the Sunday shows to sell the President's Syria strikes — and made two opposite arguments... The fact that their divisions are so public suggests they aren't talking to each other. Which is unusual..." | | | Revisiting the Globe's imaginary front page | | One year ago today, The Boston Globe's editorial board published its imaginary "Sunday, April 9, 2017" cover, imagining/warning what a Trump presidency might look like. And... many of the specifics haven't come true.
"Markets sink as trade war looms." "Trump calls for tripling of ICE force; riots continue." "New libel law targets 'absolute scum' in press." Nope...
NewsBusters says it was a "flop." However, the cover does capture the generalized anxiety that exists among Trump foes... with references to deportations, military strikes and the border wall.
Kathleen Kingsbury of the Globe tweeted the cover on Sunday, saying, "It isn't perfect but did take @realDonaldTrump at his word..." | | -- Gabriel Debenedetti notices that Bernie Sanders' new podcast has hit #2 on iTunes...
-- In Monday's NYT, Alexandra Alter profiles Adam Bellow: "A Partisan Books Editor Places a Bet on Balance" (NYT)
-- I missed this on Friday: Mic has raised $21 million "in Series C funding, led by previous investor Lightspeed Venture Partners." Time Warner Investments is another participant... (WSJ) | | 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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