| | | | | What we show you -- and what we don't | | Something to consider: "It was the images of children killed with chemical weapons that supposedly sent Trump over the edge," the WashPost's Paul Waldman wrote Friday.
But "it's not as though he just found out that children are dying in Syria. We get to see those horrifying images precisely because they are less gruesome than what happens when someone is killed by conventional weapons. If a photojournalist takes a photo of a dead child whose limbs have been blown off by a bomb, you won't ever see it (and neither will Trump). The newspaper won't run it, and the evening news won't show it, because editors consider those images too upsetting. But you will see a photo of a child killed by sarin gas, because her body is intact..."
The question that arises: should TV networks routinely show more of the real carnage of war? From, say, the reported civilian deaths from the sites of U.S. strikes in in Iraq and Yemen? Or ISIS executions?
-- LATimes headline two days ago: "Nearly 300 died in Mosul airstrike, making it one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in recent memory" | | | Trump receiving "warm reviews" from pundits | | Do you agree/disagree with Steven Perlberg's take? "Trump has won the praise of the mainstream media" for the second time, he wrote Friday. "All it took was a comfortable speech to Congress and bombing Syria. Trump ran on a promise not to intervene against the Syrian regime, and to instead bomb their ISIS enemies. But the warm reviews for his military strike raise the question: What lesson will a president who is hungry for praise take from this?" | | That's the title of Susan Glasser's Politico piece. The WSJ's Carol Lee and Eli Stokols make a similar point in their story about Trump being affected by the TV images of the chemical attack aftermath:
"Obama rarely showed emotion in public over Syria, let alone drew such a connection between his personal reaction to events and his decisions as commander-in-chief. Mr. Trump displayed both..." | | | Admin officials on the Sunday shows | | Rex Tillerson on "Face the Nation" and "This Week," Nikki Haley on "State of the Union," H.R. McMaster on "Fox News Sunday..." | | -- I perceive the same thing MZ Hemingway does: "Many people on left and right openly skeptical about yet another war in the Middle East, demanding more from leaders who are pushing it."
-- In some quarters on Friday there were accusations that journos are beating the war drums and boosting Trump... Fareed Zakaria was criticized for saying that Trump "became president" on Thursday night, and Brian Williams was criticized for saying the pictures of the missile launches were "beautiful..."
-- The NYT was slammed for a headline reading "On Syria Attack, Trump's Heart Came First" -- and then criticized by others when the headline was changed to read "Acting on Instinct, Trump Upends His Own Foreign Policy..." | | On this week's "Reliable Sources Livecast," I spoke with CNN's Arwa Damon about Syria war coverage... why the work can be "demoralizing" for journalists... whether viewers are "desensitized..." and more. Listen here via iTunes... | | | Jeffrey Goldberg is right... | | Referring to the attack in Stockholm, Jeffrey Goldberg tweets, "This is the sort of news day in which a terrorist attack in a major European city gets third billing. We've had a lot of these lately..." | | | Only ten national ads on Friday's "Factor" | | It's still getting worse for Bill O'Reilly. That's the bottom line. The ad boycott is spreading, as evidenced on Friday, when there were only ten national ads during the program, all of them for obscure brands. Catheters, etcetera. A normal hour would have upwards of 30 national ads, some from blue chip sponsors.
O'Reilly's ratings remain strong, but the ad boycott makes him weak. There's concern inside Fox about the prospect of this spreading beyond the "Factor..."
-- Brian Lowry tweets: "Just saw an Elvis Presley Gospel Music Collection ad on O'Reilly. Pretty good proof that most advertisers have left the building." | | On Friday, two of the seven advertisers who appeared on Thursday's "Factor" said it wouldn't happen again. Laser Spine Institute told the advocacy group Sleeping Giants that "we've requested @LaserSpine ads be pulled immediately from O'Reilly. We do not condone his actions." And Ring.com said "all Ring ads have been removed from the O'Reilly Show..." | | "Any thought of removing O'Reilly from his nightly pulpit would almost surely invite blowback of atomic proportions from the host's fanbase, which dovetails tightly with the overall Fox News audience -- as well as the base that elected President Trump," Bill Carter writes in his latest for CNN.com.
On the other hand: "Several veteran Fox News staff members told me this week that replacing him now should not rattle the institution as it would have in the past, because the audience for the network is so committed and loyal they merely segue to whomever is the next designated voice of the channel's conservative narrative." Case in point: from Megyn Kelly to Tucker Carlson... "The viewers never blinked." Read the rest here... | | "There's a lot of anguish, distress and concern among employees at Fox News, particularly women, about the fact that Bill O'Reilly has been allowed to continue almost unrebuked by his employer," David Folkenflik reported on NPR's "Morning Edition" on Friday.
More: "There's sort of a contempt for O'Reilly from some of his colleagues, particularly female colleagues. And there's a cynicism about the degree of sincerity with which the Murdoch family and the top executives are operating..."
Folkenflik will join me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." | | CNNMoney's Mark Thompson writes: "21st Century Fox's planned acquisition of pay-TV operator Sky was approved by EU competition regulators on Friday. But the deal faces a much bigger test. British regulators are still examining whether it would reduce media plurality in the U.K., and whether the Murdochs are fit and proper people to own a broadcaster. The review should be completed by May 16..." | | | Tomi Lahren suing Glenn Beck and The Blaze | | Frank Pallotta reports: Tomi Lahren is alleging that Glenn Beck and The Blaze got rid of her and her nightly talk show due to her pro-choice comments on "The View" last month. According to the suit filed on Friday, Lahren received a call from The Blaze that "her employment was terminated" and "she would have no more shows" after the comments. "The contract simply doesn't allow The Blaze to terminate her for expressing her personal opinion on the salient issue of abortion," Lahren's lawyer, Brian Lauten, told CNN... | | "It is puzzling that an employee who remains under contract (and is still being paid) has sued us for being fired, especially when we continue to comply fully with the terms of our agreement with her." The company is basically saying this is a "pay-or-play" situation. She's not playing on TV, but she's still being paid, and that's what these TV contracts allow... | | -- Walt Mossberg has decided to retire... he'll depart Recode and The Verge in June, after the next Code Conference... (Recode)
-- Glenn O'Brien, a co-founder of Spin and the author of GQ's Style Guy column for nearly 20 years, has died. (Vogue)
-- Emily Bell tweets: "Spent yesterday and today talking with lot of journos and newsrooms in Canada/USA. The No. 1 concern [was] not fake news, or trust in media, but how smaller newsrooms can survive or gain traction in current world of tech dominance..." | | | $70 million for Moonves, give or take a few | | CBS chairman and CEO Les Moonves "made a whopping $69.6 million, a 22.5% increase over 2015, according to the company proxy just filed at the SEC," Deadline's David Lieberman writes. "The increase follows a year in which CBS shares appreciated 35%..." | | | An update on Sumner's status | | More from THR's Georg Szalai: "The proxy statement also disclosed that chairman emeritus and controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone would leave his voting role on the CBS board as of the annual shareholder meeting in May." The same change is underway at Viacom... | | | Fox Networks warning of possible blackout in Charter homes | | Fox Networks Group says talks with Charter for a new carriage deal have stalled... customers are being told "they may lose access to Fox cable channels — including FX, National Geographic, and Fox Sports — as soon as this weekend," Variety reports. FYI, Fox News is covered by a separate carriage deal... | | "Can you imagine how desperately Donald Trump wants a war right now? How badly he is gunning for a full-on fight with a fresh enemy of the people, real or imagined, that could galvanize his limp (and getting limper) public support, stop people fake-newsing about the catastrophic failure of TrumpCare, remove the asterisk from his Glorious Victory against Hillary, and take the media spotlight off the dark web of Russian collusion that has dogged and—let us pray—will ultimately end his Brief and Terrifying Reign. He needs something to distract us from all these distractions. And there is one thing that always works..."
--GQ editor in chief Jim Nelson wrote that two weeks ago, accidentally predicting the "wag the dog" discussions that were taking place in some corners Friday... it's his letter from the editor in the May issue... the magazine decided to share it on Friday due to the Syria strikes. "In the letter, I did not cite Syria. I was only responding to a playbook I felt Trump was following. I never dreamed that the missiles would start flying so quickly," Nelson wrote in this postscript... | | | Google adding "Fact Check" labeling | | Google "is rolling out a new feature that places 'Fact Check' tags on snippets of articles in its News results," Bloomberg's Mark Bergen writes.
Google has been testing this for a while... "On Friday, it extended the capability to every listing in its News pages and massive search catalog..." PolitiFact is one of its partners... | | | Maggie Haberman was "made for this moment" | | "If you could clone her you could build a journalistic empire around Maggies," Jim VandeHei says in Dylan Byers' profile of Maggie Haberman and her Trump coverage. Haberman "was made for this moment," Ben Smith says... | | | Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | The guest list includes Jeremy Scahill, Lara Setrakian, Emily Steel, David Folkenflik, Jane Hall, David Zurawik, Michael Wolff, and Lisa Bloom. Join us Sunday at 11am ET on CNN... | | | "SNL" is back this weekend | | Frank Pallotta tweets: "'SNL' is new tomorrow night. I feel like they have to open with Baldwin's Trump in the Situation Room. Maybe even throw Bennett's Putin in there..." | | -- NiemanLab's Laura Hazard Owen is doing an excellent weekly roundup of all things "fake news" and misinformation...
-- The Academy says "multipart documentaries like the most recent best documentary Oscar winner, 'O.J.: Made in America,' will not be eligible for an award at future Oscars..." (THR)
-- Turner, Fox Networks and Viacom presented OpenAP at a Friday morning event... Donna Speciale said it's designed to "simplify the audience targeting on television and make it more scalable..." (AdWeek) | | YouTube's monetization change | | "Reliable Sources" intern Beverly Danquah writes: Novice YouTubers are going to have to work a little harder to generate money from the video platform. YouTube will no longer allow creators to monetize their channels unless they receive 10,000 lifetime views. Why? Partly because the company is under scrutiny for pairing advertisements with hate-speech and terror videos... so it's targeting the accounts that post those videos... Read more via BI... | | Brian Lowry emails: The western once dominated primetime, but now they're pretty few and far between. AMC is trying to rectify that with "The Son," a fairly bland new drama most notable for Pierce Brosnan's return to TV, having subbed in for Sam Neill.
Read Lowry's full review here.. | | Brian Lowry emails: Fighting back tears throughout, Jimmy Kimmel used the first 13 minutes of his show on Thursday to pay tribute to Don Rickles. It was a truly genuine moment, and for anyone familiar with Rickles, well worth watching...
-- Also, the Viacom networks -- Spike, TV Land, Comedy Central -- will repeat the special "One Night Only: An All-Star Comedy Tribute To Don Rickles" on Sunday...
-- Lisa France writes: Don Rickles' last project before he died was perfect for him: a dinner series with AARP where he sat down with other comics... | | | How about a second iteration of "The Night Of?" | | Brian Lowry emails: I had a chance to moderate an Emmy-consideration panel for HBO's limited series "The Night Of" on Thursday night. For those wondering, they're still talking about the prospect of doing another edition, but don't sound any closer to a decision on it. Indiewire has a good rundown of the discussion... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Lisa France emails: The student who made a prom-posal to Emma Stone by recreating the opening to "La La Land" has gotten his answer...
-- Chloe Melas emails: I had a chance to catch up with "13 Reasons Why" star Devin Druid, who teases a potential second season for the Netflix series...
-- Chloe will be on HLN's Weekend Express live from Atlanta HQ... Saturday at 7:45am... discussing her interview with Jessica Chastain about her new movie "The Zookeeper's Wife..."
-- More from Lisa: Harry Styles, formerly of One Direction, debuted a new song Friday... and naturally Twitter went crazy... | | 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