| | | | What happened this weekend... in 8 bullet points | | -- The shock of an unconventional terror attack, especially when it's the second one in as many weeks, is enough to dominate several news cycles in a row and receive wall-to-wall TV coverage... Even as some media types express concern that the coverage is excessive...
-- British authorities are smart about reassuring the public while carefully waiting to release solid info -- waiting about six hours before sharing the London Bridge death toll...
-- After an attack, one of President Trump's default reactions is to stoke fear. (What will he say and do when an attack happens on U.S. soil?)
-- There's a growing recognition among DC types that Trump's tweets aren't just "tweets," they are "official statements from the White House" and should be treated as such. This weekend his tweets were the White House's only statement about London...
-- Theresa May and others are talking about the need to "regulate cyberspace." We're going to hear a lot more about this. Meanwhile, Facebook's new line is "we want Facebook to be a hostile environment for terrorists..."
-- Locals are sensitive when reporters paint them as victims. Case in point: Londoners who loudly objected to an NYT headline saying Britain was "reeling" after recent attacks...
-- Sunday's benefit concert, One Love Manchester, was incredible. Hats off to Scooter Braun for pulling it off...
-- Amid all of this, some folks are forgetting basic decency. Reza Aslan, Bill Maher, I'm talking about you... | | | Hope you had a chance to recharge this weekend. Keep scrolling for more about these stories and a look ahead to this workweek... | | Up first on NBC's "Sunday Night" was Megyn Kelly's exclusive interview with Vladimir Putin. Then a Cynthia McFadden report, a Harry Smith report, and a playful segment called "The Kids' Table."
But back to Putin. How much new info did the Russian president really reveal? NBC's recap is here... | | Brian Lowry emails: Kelly told Dylan Byers that her primetime newsmag would be "cutting edge" and "irreverent," but there was little evidence of that on premiere night. Her big "get" interview with Putin was somewhat deflated by his "deny, deny, deny" strategy. Then again, with her morning show due in the fall, "Sunday Night" might be Kelly's second-most-important gig at the network...
Read Lowry's full review here >>> | | | Coincidence? C'mon. CBS lined up a Putin-related story for this week's encore of "60 Minutes," which is going head-to-head with Kelly's show this summer. Lowry also noticed Showtime running an ad for its forthcoming "Putin Interviews" series, from Oliver Stone, during "Sunday Night." The Stone series starts in a week... | | Kelly will be on Monday's "Today" show... | | | Talking more about what it was like to interview Putin... | | | Vice's Eye Peyser tweets: "as a politics writer, i should probably learn more about how golf works." She's referring to the president's frequent golf outings, most recently on Saturday and Sunday... the White House refuses to confirm that the president is actually golfing, but the presence of golf outfits and golf clubs gives it away... | | -- Matthew Garrahan's latest scoop: Sinclair "is in talks with Steve Mosko, the former head of the TV studio behind Breaking Bad and Wheel of Fortune, as it to seeks to build up its original programming..." (FT)
-- A fun read from the Boston Globe about WGBH versus WBUR: "In well-mannered public radio, an airwaves war" (Globe)
-- Streaming network meets cable: For the next three months, Jon Steinberg's Cheddar business coverage will be simulcast on Fusion... 11am til 1pm ET... (BuzzFeed) | | -- Front page headline in the UK Daily Telegraph: "Police uncover YouTube link to London terror attack." We may hear more about terror plotters tapping into YouTube videos for help...
-- At least two of Trump's Sunday A.M. tweets seemed to be inspired by "Fox & Friends," as Jill Disis and Jackie Wattles explain here...
-- A new Twitter account, @RealPressSecBot, formats Trump's tweets as printed W.H. statements...
-- Ken Vogel tweets: "Trump often accuses the media & critics of mischaracterizing his words, but that's exactly what he did to Sadiq Khan." (True. PolitiFact has an explainer here...)
-- Far-right commentators are misleading folks, claiming that CNN "staged" a pro-Muslim live shot in London on Sunday. Mediaite's Colby Hall has CNN's rebuttal here...
-- Agree/disagree with Joe Scarborough? He tweeted this "memo to cable News execs" on Saturday night: "Report the breaking news and move on. Do not give terrorists the publicity they crave." | | Clarissa Ward's reality check | | WashPost's headline: "London, 'reeling'? The city that weathered Nazi bombs pushes back against fear."
That was partly a response to the NYT's "reeling" headline. I also noticed a Fox News banner on Sunday morning saying "LONDON UNDER SIEGE." No, CNN's Clarissa Ward told me on "Reliable Sources," it doesn't feel that way in London. While there is a "level of fear and anxiety," Ward said "the predominant thing I see is a kind of indignance, almost, like, 'Hold on a second. You're not going to change our way of life, you're not going to get us to compromise our values, you're not going to get us to change the way that we live, the values we treasure so dearly, you're not going to change our democracy, and you're not going to divide us,' which, of course, is usually the goal with these types of attacks..." | | Trump, the "panic president?" | | | Brian Lowry emails: After the Manchester attack I heard the local CBS news radio station, KNX, asking random parents whether they'd let their kids go to a concert and thought, "So much for not giving in to fear." Jay Rosen made a similar point in this tweet, suggesting that "London reeling" headlines inadvertently validate terrorism as a strategy. And seeking to maintain calm becomes even more of a challenge for media given Trump's propensity, as the Atlantic's David Graham noted, to respond to such events in a panicky manner. Graham called Trump the "panic president..." | | "I think the real comparison with Watergate that is apt -- and that tells us a lot so far -- is that Donald Trump is not nearly as effective at presiding over a cover-up as Richard Nixon was."
--Carl Bernstein on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." Bernstein offered this preview of Thursday's testimony by James Comey... | | | Also on Sunday's "Reliable Sources:" I had an exclusive interview with Andrew Feinberg, who was the White House correspondent for the Russian-owned Sputnik News service until a week or so ago. He said he was fed questions by his bosses and blocked from developing his own story ideas. He described how stories get slanted and turned "upside down." There's nothing necessarily wrong with state-sponsored news entities like the BBC or AFP, he said. But Sputnik is different, "Sputnik is state-controlled." Read Jackie Wattles' recap of the interview here... | | Trump hasn't granted a TV interview in three weeks | | | His last sit-down was with Jeanine Pirro. This is an unusually long stretch of time for this POTUS to go without a TV interview, as I noted during a segment with D.C. correspondents Olivia Nuzzi and John Gizzi... Watch our discussion about W.H. communications problems here... | | How to catch up on Sunday's show | | Scott Pelley back on Monday... temporarily | | | Back from assignment in Syria, Scott Pelley will anchor the "CBS Evening News" on Monday... but CBS isn't saying how long he'll be back for... just that Anthony Mason will take over (on an interim basis) in the "coming weeks..." | | Bidding war for the Chicago Sun-Times? | | | Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails: A fierce media bidding war is in the making in Chicago, Robert Feder reports. Former alderman Edwin Eisendrath and hedge fund CEO Thane Ritchie are reportedly going to bid against Tronc for ownership of the Sun-Times and the Reader. Monday at 5pm is the deadline for bidders to submit their initial offers, so expect more news on this tomorrow... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Monday: Apple's week-long developers conference, a.k.a. WWDC, begins. Tim Cook keynote at 1pm ET...
-- Thursday: James Comey speaks starting at 10am ET. Live coverage on all the major networks...
-- Thursday: Yahoo shareholders vote on Verizon deal... | | TWO TRIALS STARTING MONDAY... | | "Opening statements in what could be the largest defamation case in U.S. history are set to begin Monday in a South Dakota courtroom," the WSJ's Jacob Gershman and Lukas Alpert write.
It's Beef Products Inc. v. ABC... THR's Eriq Gardner published an excellent preview of the case on Friday... | | | Bill Cosby's trial on charges of aggravated indecent assault begins Monday. Here's CNN's preview... | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Margaret Sullivan's Monday WashPost column argues that leaks are a good thing: without them, we wouldn't have known about Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, or the fact that the NSA was snooping on American citizens, just to name a few...
-- And speaking of Margaret... Ben Smith interviewed her about the sudden end of the NYT public editor column...
-- "Facebook is broken," TechCrunch columnist Jon Evans writes: "Facebook is like a powerful greenhouse gas for our collective social atmosphere. TV was too, of course, but it was CO2 to Facebook's methane..." | | Bill Maher apologizes for awful comment | | Friday night: Bill Maher blurts out the N-word on "Real Time." Guest Ben Sasse cringes but doesn't interject. Early Saturday morning: Sasse says he should have spoken up. Saturday afternoon: HBO says Maher's comment was "completely inexcusable and tasteless," and it's been removed from re-airs of the show. Later in the afternoon, Maher says "the word was offensive and I regret saying it and am very sorry." (Here's Dave Itzkoff's full report in the NYT.)
So is that sufficient? David Zurawik said on "Reliable Sources" that a suspension may be warranted. Some other commentators are saying Maher should be fired outright, while others are urging people to accept the apology... | | | Comedian and columnist Dean Obeidallah writing for CNN.com: "It wasn't a joke that took on a person in power. It was the opposite. Maher's joke made light of the darkest time in American history while using a word that white supremacists used to dehumanize a race of people..." | | Reza Aslan apologizes for awful tweet | | Reza Aslan, an author and scholar who hosts the CNN docu-series "Believer," has been a virulent critic of Trump for a long time, but he went too far on Saturday night... reacting to Trump's London tweets by calling the president a piece of excrement. Prominent conservatives weighed in throughout the day and said they wanted Aslan to be fired.
On Sunday afternoon Aslan apologized for the tweet. "I should have used better language to express my shock and frustration," he wrote. CNN's reaction: "Reza Aslan is not a CNN employee, but does host a series on the network. We are pleased that he has apologized for his tweets. That kind of discourse is never appropriate." | | | Oliver Darcy reports: Breitbart employees expressed strong displeasure on Sunday with two of their colleagues for inflammatory comments posted to Twitter in the aftermath of the London terror attack. "I find it appalling," one Breitbart employee told CNN. "It's a terrible comment," another Breitbart employee remarked, saying it was wrong to make a blanket statement about an entire religious group. "I would never write what she said." Here's what's this is all about... | | Ariana Grande returns to Manchester | | If you missed the Manchester concert, set your DVR for the replay on ABC... it was an artistic triumph... as one C-suite newsletter reader texted me: "Blown away by the size and scale and impact."
"Ariana Grande returned Sunday to Manchester to honor the lives of those lost there," Lisa France reports... Read her full story here... | | "Wonder Woman" has biggest opening ever for a female director | | Frank Pallotta writes: "Wonder Woman" made history. The latest film in Warner Bros.' DC Extended Universe exceeded expectations at the box office, bringing in an estimated $100.5 million during its opening in North America this weekend. That makes the superhero film starring Gal Gadot and directed by Patty Jenkins the biggest opening ever for a female director. The previous record holder, "Fifty Shades of Grey," brought in $85.2 million in 2015. Read Frank's full story here...
--> Notably: More than half, 52%, of the film's audience this weekend was female -- a significant number for a genre that has been dominated by men... | | Rutenberg's take on "Wonder" | | "You could hear the champagne popping from coast to coast, along with the joyful cries that maybe Hollywood would finally realize it's time to demolish the glass border crossing for women directors," Jim Rutenberg writes in Monday's NYT. "The celebration was only picking up where it had left off in France after Sofia Coppola became the second woman to win the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival since its founding in 1939 — and the first in 56 years. Now, I hate to stink up the party, but is it a little hard to fathom that we're hitting these marks only now. These are indisputably signs of progress and, as such, something to toast. But that progress has come too slowly."
Rutenberg also cites Pallotta's story from the other day... Read the full column here... | | | Email us: reliablesources@cnn.com. Let us know what you like and dislike... what you want more of, what you want less of. 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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