| | | | When this week began, did you think Bill O'Reilly would be out of a job by the weekend? | | 1) Fox's O'Reilly-less 8pm hour was relatively weak on Thursday, but the overall prime time lineup was strong. 2) The federal investigation is ongoing in the U.S. 3) And the regulatory review of the Sky deal is ongoing in the U.K. 4) I'll have an interview with Fox-turned-CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota on "Reliable Sources" this Sunday... | | | Fox "looks set to stay the course" | | Dylan Byers' latest story: If you think James Murdoch's discomfort with the Fox News editorial approach "will cause him to change its programming and risk tampering with the company's cash cow, think again, sources with knowledge of his thinking say. Even with Roger Ailes and O'Reilly out, the network looks set to stay the course as a conservative juggernaut. If anything, Fox News looks likely to become more conservative, and more friendly to President Trump, than it is now." Read more...
-- Key point in Dylan's story: "With O'Reilly out, Sean Hannity has become Fox's most valuable player and the man the company can't afford to lose..." | | Roger Ailes resigned nine months ago today. | | Here it is, the cover of Gretchen Carlson's forthcoming book, titled "Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back." The publisher, Hachette's Center Street imprint, says the book "shares Gretchen's experience and powerful stories from the thousands of women who have reached out to her who refuse to submit to intimidation of any kind..." | | What I said yesterday bears repeating... the ratings impact of O'Reilly's firing will be measured over months, not days. But take a look at Thursday's scoreboard -- the evening wasn't as rosy as Wednesday was. Fox's viewership spike at 8pm was a lot smaller than usual. But Tucker Carlson gained in the 25-54 demo at 9pm and Hannity gained even more at 10pm. TVNewser has all the #'s here... | | | Friday's countdown clocks | | A "STARTING MONDAY" clock filled the corner of Fox's screen on Friday... plugging Tucker at 8 and "The Five" at 9... | | According to Fox, "on his first show in the 8:00pm ET timeslot, Tucker Carlson will present a cable exclusive interview with Caitlyn Jenner." It's a "cable exclusive" because Diane Sawyer has the first overall interview pegged to Jenner's new book... | | | Meanwhile, the Daily Mail spots O'Reilly... | | | Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | NYT reporter Emily Steel will join me... along with Sarah Ellison, Jamia Wilson, Alisyn Camerota, Laura Coates, David Zurawik, Kaitlan Collins, Glenn Thrush, and April Ryan... Live on CNN at 11am Sunday... | | | LOOKING BACK AT A STUNNING WEEK... | | Tom Kludt's latest video outlines the reasons why the Murdochs moved O'Reilly out. Tom emails:
O'Reilly was undone by a cultural shift, both within the halls of Fox News and throughout society at large. And that changing landscape is what created fertile ground for the advertiser exodus and other economic pressures that led to his ouster... | | Brian Lowry emails: The O'Reilly fallout prompted me to take another look at what turned out to be significant moment in this whole story -- when O'Reilly, under siege in 2015 because of his Falkland islands reporting, threatened a New York Times reporter. That was Emily Steel, who eventually filed the story on the $13 million in settlement payments that set O'Reilly's exit in motion.
At the time, I wrote a piece titled "Why Bill O'Reilly Has a Bill O'Reilly Problem," which examined how the host's thin skin cost him -- how his reaction to any slight tended to elevate the coverage, and how he conflated legitimate criticism into attempts by "smear merchants" to bring him down. O'Reilly "doesn't look to be in any jeopardy career-wise," I reasoned, because his then-boss, Roger Ailes, would always back him in such situations. When O'Reilly found himself in trouble again, Ailes wasn't around to the circle the wagons, and in fact had set up the conditions for his star's dismissal... | | | Murdoch must wait extra month to learn fate of Fox-Sky deal | | Alanna Petroff reports: "U.K. culture secretary Karen Bradley said Friday that she will give regulators extra time to review the contentious deal because of snap national elections scheduled for early June. The decision from media regulator Ofcom, which had been due by May 16, must now be wrapped up before June 20..." | | | Does One America News have the $$ for O'Reilly? | | Robert Herring, whose son Charles Herring is the CEO of the conservative-leaning cable upstart OANN, tweeted on Friday: "We are getting a lot of request[s] to hire Bill O'Reilly here at One America News Network." I asked Charles to elaborate but he didn't reply... | | | Revisiting Sarah Palin's remarks | | CNN's Z. Byron Wolf writes: "There was a very interesting exchange between Jake Tapper and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin during his interview with her on The Lead Thursday... Palin, who left the network in June of 2015, didn't elaborate about her personal experiences, but she did say the Fox News culture needed to change..." and "it doesn't take much online research to find evidence of questionable comments by Fox News executives and personalities aimed at Palin..." | | | A worrisome "no-comment" from Sessions | | Tom Kludt reports: Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday declined to say whether the Justice Department's decision to prepare charges against Julian Assange of WikiLeaks would open the door to such action against U.S. news organizations like the NYT and CNN.
"That's speculative, and I'm not able to comment on that," Sessions said in an interview with CNN's Kate Bolduan.
He gave the same non-answer when he was asked a similar question during an interview on MSNBC. "That's, you know, a hypothetical, and facts are so important in those cases," he said. "I'd want to consult with my good lawyers before I gave you an opinion anyway, so I'm just not able to comment on that..."
-- Programming note: Glenn Greenwald will react on CNN's "AC360" Friday night... | | -- A big hire in the biz world: "CNBC Digital adds Jeffrey McCracken as managing editor for digital..." (Adweek)
-- This is pretty rich: Alex Jones asks the press to be "respectful and responsible" in covering the civil trial over custody of his kids... (Oliver Darcy)
-- WSJ's Mike Shields asks: "Are companies pulling back on NewFronts for individual reasons? Or have the NewFronts not lived up to their billing?" His story has some answers... (WSJ)
-- "The Guardian has dropped both Facebook's fast-loading Instant Article format and will no longer publish content on Apple News..." (Digiday)
-- ICYMI earlier this week: "Google and Partners Try to Block the March of Ad-Blockers" (Bloomberg) | | | Podcast with NYT's Joe Kahn | | The second phase of the NYT's "Truth is Hard" ad campaign premiered on Friday... a set of films directed by Darren Aronofsky...
So for this week's midweek podcast, I spoke with NYT managing editor Joe Kahn about the marketing effort, big changes at the Times, and the sports department's Patriots-related screw-up on Twitter. Listen to the conversation here... | | | Eliana Johnson's must-read | | | Bill Nye is back to save the (post-fact) world | | Frank Pallotta emails: It's been more than 20 years since "Bill Nye the Science Guy" hit the airwaves, but now Nye is back with "Bill Nye Saves the World," debuting this weekend on Netflix. The host sat down with me to explain how a post-fact planet can't last.
"Science will be back. No, you guys. This is not sustainable," he said. "You can't just pretend stuff's not happening that's happening. This just won't last." Watch/read more here... | | | Lowry reviews "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" | | More from Brian Lowry: Oprah Winfrey is the best thing about "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," but even she can't breathe life into an HBO movie that comes at its story from the wrong perspective. Read Lowry's full review here... | | | New in theaters this weekend: "Unforgettable" | | Megan Thomas emails: The new cat-fight film "Unforgettable" is getting panned for its sexist storyline of a woman (Katherine Heigl) seeking to destroy her ex-husband's fiancé (Rosario Dawson). The movie currently has a 26% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but Heigl may salvage the film. The actress is getting rave reviews for her villainous performance. Vulture called it Heigl's "best career move in years..." | | | Because we need more politics in our lives... | | More from Megan Thomas: Frank and Claire Underwood return to Netflix on May 30 with "House of Cards" season five. The dark political drama picks up during a contentious election -- just what America needs! EW has a first-look at some images from the new season... | | By Lisa France:
-- Friday marked the one year anniversary of the death of superstar Prince. For some fans, the pain is as fresh now as it ever was...
-- Rob Lowe is tackling his meatiest role yet. The "Parks and Recreation" star is appearing as Colonel Sanders to help KFC launch a new sandwich. It's just one of the more interesting roles the actor has tackled in the past few years. Read more...
-- The truth is still out there. Fox is bringing the rebooted "X-Files" back for 10 more episodes... | | 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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