| | | | Filing from the train to DC... fellow newsletter-er Mike Allen is a few rows back... we're both attending the Newseum's "President and the Press" forum. Details below... | | | (Will he be able to relax?) | | Some late-breaking news from Dylan Byers: Amid a sexual harassment scandal and advertiser boycott, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly announced Tuesday night that he will take a nearly two-week vacation.
Fox knows what you're thinking. But O'Reilly's spokesperson, crisis comms vet Mark Fabiani, says this is a family trip that was planned way back in October. O'Reilly usually takes time off around Easter, though his vacations in 2016 and 2015 didn't last as long as this one will... | | | Source says James Murdoch wants O'Reilly out | | If nothing else, this vacation will be a "cooling off period" for everybody who's involved. Some observers have already leapt to the conclusion that O'Reilly might not ever come back. Others say that's hogwash.
Dylan writes in his latest for CNNMoney: O'Reilly's ultimate fate will be determined by Rupert Murdoch and his sons... One source close to the matter said their understanding is that Rupert, the Executive Chairman, would like to keep O'Reilly on air, while his son James, the Chief Executive Officer, is opposed to that idea. 21st Century Fox declined to comment... | | NYMag's Gabriel Sherman, who was out front and right when he reported that Roger Ailes' days were numbered last summer, was the first to report that James Murdoch wants O'Reilly out. Sherman's headline -- which was very quickly picked up by other outlets -- is "Bill O'Reilly Is Going on Vacation. Will His Show Return?"
Fabiani's reaction on the record: "Other than the vacation guest hosts, The Factor broadcast will remain unchanged until Mr. O'Reilly's return post-vacation." | | | Mark April 24 on your calendar | | That's the day O'Reilly will return to the program, according to both Fox News and Fabiani... | | What, you thought we'd lead with the Sean Spicer story? No, too obvious, you'll have to keep scrolling... | | | Another essential Trump-check | | Here's a headline about President Trump and jobs: Trump is making the jobs of headline writers easier! Here's what I mean. The CNNMoney headline on Heather Long's Tuesday story is "Trump says he created 600,000 jobs. Not true."
It's black and white -- the president said it, he's wrong, end of story -- no hesitations or equivocations that muck up the headline. It's also an example of the day-in day-out Trump-checking that this news cycle demands. I noticed John King fact-check the claim on CNN... and Kayla Tausche on CNBC said it's "unclear exactly which data he's referring to there..." but by and large the comment went unchallenged on other nets...
-- The facts: Long reports that 317,000 jobs were created in February and March, Trump's first two full months in office. Even if you include all of January, the number is 533,000, not 600,000. Trump versus Obama info here...
-- The risks: When journos ignore these daily misstatements, do they miss an ongoing story about the president's carelessness? Or do they succeed in stopping the B.S. from spreading? | | Trump went back to Fox for another interview on Tuesday -- a taping with Maria Bartiromo at the White House... and he also got on the phone with Michael Goodwin of the NY Post, apparently to talk about Steve Bannon... The Post's headline is "Trump won't definitively say he still backs Bannon..." | | CNN's Tuesday night scoop seems to puncture a big hole in the conservative media narrative about Susan Rice: "After a review of the same intelligence reports brought to light by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers and aides have so far found no evidence that Obama administration officials did anything unusual or illegal, multiple sources in both parties tell CNN."
Notice the reference to "both parties..." | | | Coming Wednesday morning... | | Savannah Guthrie, Gayle King, Jake Tapper, Bret Baier, and George Stephanopoulos are interviewed in a THR feature about fairness and fake news in the Trump age... part of the magazine's annual New York issue... online at 8am ET... | | | Sean Spicer screws up -- and says sorry | | Even by Sean Spicer standards, Tuesday's briefing was shocking. Almost as surprising: what he did afterward.
By now you've heard and read about his Hitler/Assad comparisons and his repeated, failed attempts to clarify. But consider the significance of his sudden 6:15pm appearance on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer:" he profusely apologized.
On Twitter, CNN's Jeff Zeleny wondered if this is "another sign of changing press strategy in West Wing?" The W.H. has also been holding more briefings for reporters, oftentimes off-camera for guidance...
Is the permafrost thawing? Just a little bit? Is this an acknowledgement that Team Trump's approach has not worked? Maybe. On the other hand, Trump's preferred outlets on Tuesday were the NYPost and Fox Biz... | | | In parenthesis right after the briefing on MSNBC: (HITLER GASSED MILLIONS) | | | Dylan's view: Let's not go overboard | | Dylan Byers emails:
What Spicer said was offensive and ignorant. It warranted the full-throated apology he gave to Wolf. But the effort by Nancy Pelosi, the DNC and some advocacy groups to portray Spicer as a Holocaust denier or Hitler defender is either disingenuous or thoughtless.
No doubt, Spicer put himself in this position. He's done a lot to undermine his integrity over the last three months and he's given critics little reason to sympathize with him. He's also frequently stated falsehoods and said the wrong words. He did that again today in a terrible, regrettable way -- but he didn't mean to deny the horrors of the Holocaust. It'd be convenient for Democratic fundraising efforts if he did. But he didn't. | | | Brian's view: Spicer's flubs and falsehoods are adding up | | I agree with Dylan, but I was struck by two of Spicer's misfires during his interview with Blitzer. He mispronounced Assad's name again (causing Blitzer to pronounce it correctly for him) and he said Trump is trying to "DE-stabilize the Middle East" instead of "stabilize." Minor? Silly? No -- this pattern of sloppiness has a corrosive effect on Spicer's credibility... | | All three network nightly newscasts led with the Spicer screw-up. But Fox gave it less attention -->
Brian Lowry emails: This moment Think Progress' Judd Legum flagged from "The Five" provides a pretty clear window into how the Fox News sausage gets made. Bob Beckel begins by noting that Spicer's Hitler comments weren't on the menu for conversation, on a day when they were receiving more attention elsewhere than perhaps anything except the United flight. And Beckel was right -- a TVEyes search shows Shep Smith and Neil Cavuto's shows didn't cover it for a second.
This wasn't a case of putting a certain spin on a story; it reflected a decision to simply ignore something that would be uncomfortable for the White House.
-- Notice Greg Gutfeld's reaction to Beckel's remarks: "He made a mistake, Bob," we all make mistakes... | | | Spicer speaking Wednesday morning... | | Spicer will be interviewed on stage at the Newseum's forum Wednesday morning... it's a chance to assess the first 100 days... and you can tune in via a live stream at Newseum.org. I'll be moderating the last panel discussion of the day.... | | 8:10am: THE PRESS AS A WATCHDOG, David Fahrenthold
8:30am: COMMUNICATING FOR THE PRESIDENT, Mike Allen, Ari Fleischer and Jennifer Palmieri
9:20am: CONVERSATION WITH Sean Spicer, led by Greta Van Susteren
9:55am: COVERING THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE, Jim Acosta, Julie Pace, Charlie Spiering, Glenn Thrush, Kristen Welker
11:00am: CONVERSATION WITH Kellyanne Conway, led by Michael Wolff
11:35am: FUTURE OF NEWS IN A DIVIDED AND CONNECTED WORLD, Brian Stelter, Carrie Budoff Brown, David Kirkpatrick, Cecilia Vega
12:10pm: A LOOK TO THE FUTURE, Bob Schieffer | | This chart, provided by CBS PR, shows the NBC/ABC/CBS morning show ratings race among total viewers for the past five years... when "CBS This Morning" launched in 2012, it was 2.5 million viewers behind "Today..." now it's just 354,000 viewers behind... | | | Welcome Oliver Darcy to CNN! | | Welcome Oliver Darcy to the CNN Media team! Media editor Alex Koppelman wrote this note to the newsroom making it official:
Darcy "is joining us from Business Insider, where he's currently politics editor. Oliver is a dogged reporter with a keen eye for the stories that matter... Oliver will be reporting at the intersection of media and politics with an emphasis on issues related to misinformation and credibility..." | | | U-Va. dean settles with Rolling Stone | | Julia Horowitz emails: The University of Virginia dean who sued Rolling Stone for defamation after it published an explosive — and later retracted — story about a rape on campus settled out of court on Tuesday. The terms of the deal aren't being disclosed, Dean Nicole Eramo's lawyer told CNNMoney. A jury found Rolling Stone and its publisher liable for $3 million in November. The magazine quickly began laying the groundwork for an appeal... | | | MORE ON THE O'REILLY SCANDAL... | | Per Yashar Ali, Tuesday's broadcast had 13 ads, including two 15-second spots and one 2-minute spot. Pretty similar to last night... | | | Fox host says other networks have a similar sexual harassment problem | | This is a very interesting exchange between Fox Business host Melissa Francis (who's out promoting a new book) and Motto's Lucy Feldman...
Feldman asked: "You mentioned sexual harassment is a problem across your industry – why do you think that is?" Francis answered: "It's everywhere in my industry. Other powerful women at major networks have also talked to me since everything has happened at Fox and identified people at their networks who are also doing inappropriate things. As I watch other networks where I know there are predators throw stones at us, I kind of sit there and wait for their time to come. Because those other managers at other networks know who they are. And the talent and people working there know, too. The more people who hear other people's stories and feel empowered to say something, the better." | | | Lisa Bloom asks New York state to "intervene" | | "Attorney Lisa Bloom is calling on the New York State Division of Human Rights to intervene at Fox News, calling the network a 'cesspool of sexual harassment, intimidation and retaliation,'" THR's Ashley Cullins reports... | | | United outrage spreads to this Kentucky paper | | Tom Kludt emails about his latest story: In the last 24 hours, the anger over United's violent removal of a passenger from a Kentucky-bound flight made way for a separate but related controversy. The Courier-Journal of Louisville published a story revealing the "troubled past" of the passenger, David Dao. Reaction to the story was almost universally negative... some people even suggested that the newspaper was doing the bidding of a company currently ensnared in a PR nightmare.
Tom spoke to the Courier-Journal's exec editor, Joel Christopher... Here's what he said... | | Tom Kludt adds: The Dao story is part of a relatively new genre of online journalism, the latest example of a news outlet taking high-interest ephemera into uncomfortable territory. We saw it last year with Ken Bone, and then earlier this year with "Gary from Chicago," the man who stole the show at the Oscars. Stories like that are often born out of newsroom pressure to wring as many clicks out of the viral sponge as possible.
But oftentimes, the reporters whose names are attached to those stories are only following the orders of superiors. To that end, Christopher told me that Morgan Watkins, the reporter who filed the offending story about Dao, was being unfairly criticized. "Morgan was assigned this story, and the decision on what to publish and what not to publish is out of her hands," he said. "Any criticism should be directed my way..." | | -- Correction to last night's newsletter: I had the Columbia Journalism Review on the brain... so I called Max Boot a CJR fellow... he's actually a CFR fellow!
-- "IFC swings for the comedy fences..." Stephen Battaglio's look at the cabler... (LATimes)
-- Tina Nguyen's latest for VF: "The far right thought of bolting from Trump. Now they seem to have thought better of it—because where can they go? (VF) | | | 18 days til the WHCA dinner... | | | The WHCA has tapped "Daily Show" comedian Hasan Minhaj to perform on April 29... association president Jeff Mason announced the news on Tuesday's "Morning Joe..."
Context: Minhaj, 31, is not as well-known as most past WHCA dinner performers... the association clearly had a tough time booking a big star... on the other hand, Minhaj has a unique opportunity to raise his profile. Here's my full story... | | What Mason said on "MJ:" "I was not looking for somebody who was going to roast the president in absentia. That's not fair, and that's not the message that we want to get across. I was looking for somebody who is funny and who is entertaining, because I want the dinner to be entertaining, but who can also speak to the message that the whole dinner is going to speak to ... the importance of a free press." | | Megan Thomas emails: "Big Little Lies" author Liane Moriarty tells the Sydney Herald she's developing ideas for a possible second season of the HBO hit – focused on Bonnie's untold story and Celeste's grief.
It's unclear how likely/unlikely a second season really is... | | More from Megan Thomas: In a new interview with TheWrap, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said that he intends to bring more production to California, having concluded that chasing tax incentives in other states produces diminishing returns on screen... | | | "Star Wars" bait and switch by "GMA" | | Brian Lowry writes: Fortunately, there's not much penalty in the "Star Wars" universe for crying wolf (or Wookiee), but that was pretty much a nothing-burger that "GMA" served up Tuesday morning, announcing the latest Force for Change charity contest. The initiative is admirable enough, but the "tune in for 'Star Wars' news" tease didn't deliver much that fans have been looking for... | | | For the record, part three | | | | Highlights from Sunday's "Reliable Sources" | | | 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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