| | | | | EXCLUSIVE-- NBC DEFENDING MEGYN KELLY'S INTERVIEW WITH ALEX JONES-- SCROLL DOWN FOR THE DETAILS FROM DYLAN... | | | [Photo by COVER/LINE author Kate Bennett] | | From the West Wing to the "NewsHour" to... | | Is this just a trial balloon or something more serious? Since the James Comey hearing, some of President Trump's most prominent media backers have been casting aspersions on Robert Mueller. Maybe Trump received the message? Here's tonight's timeline:
5:25pm: CNBC's Kayla Tausche tweets: "Just spotted leaving the West Wing: Chris Ruddy, Newsmax CEO, close confidant of @POTUS."
6:31pm: Ruddy goes on the "PBS NewsHour" and tells Judy Woodruff that "I think he is considering perhaps terminating the special counsel. I think he's weighing that option."
7:25pm: It's breaking news on CNN. "One of my sources reached out to me just before we went on air and they said there's mass hysteria in the West Wing about this," April Ryan tells Erin Burnett.
8:20pm: Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells CNN's Kevin Liptak that Ruddy "speaks for himself..."
8:44pm: The Daily Caller's Kaitlan Collins tweets: "Ruddy did not meet or speak with President Trump today, a senior White House official tells me." So Ruddy heard about Trump's deliberations from Trump aides? | | Hey, so much for "apprentice week" / "workforce development week..." | | | Fareed Zakaria on Sunday's "GPS:" "My real fear is not that the investigations will yield something. It is that if the investigations yield something, Donald Trump's response might be to fight and fight dirty, no matter the cost to American democracy." | | Sessions speaks on Tuesday... | | | ...And it'll happen in open session, i.e. on camera. The cablers are promoting special coverage starting at 2pm. Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper will anchor on CNN... Bill Hemmer and Shannon Bream on Fox... Brian Williams on MSNBC. On the broadcast side, CBS, NBC and ABC will also air special reports... | | Public Theater defends "Caesar" | | It's opening night. And The Public Theater is standing "completely behind" its production of "Julius Caesar" amid a controversy over its staging of the play in Central Park, which includes a bloody assassination of a ruler who resembles Trump. Frank Pallotta has the full story here.
The theater's artistic director Oskar Eustis spoke on stage before Monday night's performance. Watch the video... | | Corporate sponsor confusion | | The performance is part of the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" program. Delta and Bank of America yanked support for "Shakespeare" on Sunday. Twenty-four hours later, it was the lead story on Fox's "The Five" Monday night. (Seriously? Bigger news than Trump/Mueller?)
At this point, the case against the play and its supporters relies on misrepresentation. The critics are misrepresenting the play, which is an argument against assassination, as a call for it. They're misrepresenting the production, implying that it's unusual for this to be done with "Julius Caesar," when as Frank Pallotta's reporting today showed, it's not even the first time this director has modernized the play with recognizable American figures.
And some folks are misconstruing how corporate sponsorships really work. Lots of companies support the Public Theater generally, but not the summertime park shows specifically. For instance, the Time Warner Foundation, a nonprofit group supported by CNN's parent company, Time Warner, is a sponsor of the theater, but not the Central Park shows. Drudge, Fox and other conservative outlets are mixing this up. A banner on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" claimed "CNN parent company Time Warner sponsors play depicting stabbing of Trump-like Caesar." But the theater's Annual Report lists Time Warner as the founding sponsor of the "Emerging Writers Program." Does anyone really think corporate America should withdraw all $$$ from the Public Theater altogether? | | NBC and Megyn Kelly widely criticized for Alex Jones interview | | Dylan Byers emails: Megyn Kelly and NBC are under fire for giving airtime to InfoWars host Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist who claims that 9/11 was "an inside job" and that the Sandy Hook school shooting was "a hoax." After Kelly shared a 90-second preview on Sunday night, a number of people, including NYC mayor Bill de Blasio and relatives of some of the children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting called on Kelly and NBC to pull the interview.
Weirdly enough, Jones is also calling on NBC to pull the interview because he says the network used "deceptive editing" to make him look like a monster. This is all happening six days before the interview is supposed to air. I just spoke with Liz Cole, the program's executive producer, who said people should wait to judge it until it airs... | | Exclusive: NBC exec says "judge it when you see it" | | Five key quotes from Dylan's interview with Cole:
-- "He's a controversial figure for sure, but as journalists it's our job to interview newsmakers and people of influence no matter how abhorrent their views may be."
-- "He is someone who is worthy of examination, by sitting down with him, there's value in that."
-- "Giving him a platform would mean he goes unchallenged, and that's not the case in any way. He has a platform, he has the ear of the president of the United States... But where is he getting these theories and this information. He criticizes the mainstream media, but what's his process?"
-- "Viewers will see Megyn do a strong interview where she challenges him appropriately... That's the benefit of putting him out there. When someone actually sits down and asks him questions and he has to come up with answers -- there's value to that."
-- "Until you see the full program, in the full context, I wouldn't judge it too much. Judge it when you see it. Megyn does a strong interview, we're not just giving him a platform." | | J.P. Morgan Chase pulling ads? | | "J.P. Morgan Chase has asked for its local TV ads and digital ads to be removed from Ms. Kelly's show and from all NBC news programming until after the show airs, according to a person familiar with the matter," WSJ's Suzanne Vranica reported Monday night. "The company doesn't want any of its ads to appear adjacent to any promotions for the interview, the person added."
-- CNNMoney's Rob McLean reached out, and JP declined to comment...
-- Earlier in the day JP CMO Kristin Lemkau tweeted: "As an advertiser, I'm repulsed that @megynkelly would give a second of airtime to someone who says Sandy Hook and Aurora are hoaxes." | | A bunch of us have been emailing about this tonight. My two cents: I think the outcry about Kelly/Jones comes from a very deep place... a sense that part of the country is being hijacked by extremists like Alex Jones... and the hijackers should not be given a voice on any "traditional" media platforms. Especially not the "National Broadcasting Company." One of NBC's counterarguments is: "CNN interviewed bin Laden..."
--> Media critic Brian Lowry: As Kelly herself noted on Twitter, Jones is a significant enough figure to merit examination, if only due to the validation he's received from President Trump... The irony of the controversy is that one suspects featuring Jones was seen as a means to separate NBC's new star a bit from her Fox News past, by showcasing her grilling someone associated with the right's extreme fringe...
--> Media editor Alex Koppelman: People like Jones aren't going away. If you're going to cover them, you need to do so responsibly, you need to do so carefully, you need to call them out -- but covering your ears and yelling "la la la I'm not listening" doesn't make them disappear. Jones and his allies gained influence and followers for years without any help from the mainstream media, and the past year has shown pretty clearly that continuing to ignore them is a mistake on multiple levels... | | Tuesday's Daily News cover | | -- CNN's Jim Acosta: "As he often does, @PressSec avoided taking questions from CNN today. #courage" (Twitter)
-- The nightly news ratings games continue: "NBC Nightly News Removed Itself From an Entire Week of Ratings" (TVNewser)
-- Bill O'Reilly's former lead producers have new jobs at Fox News... part of a new structure for the programming division led by Suzanne Scott... (Variety)
-- Podcast rec: CNN SVP/"Reliable" newsletter godfather Ed O'Keefe talked with Prem Thakker and Bassel El-Rewini, founders of The Laymen podcast... who happen to be students at Red River High School in Grand Forks, North Dakota! (iTunes) | | Gianforte gets community service, not jail time | | "Body slamming" congressman-elect Greg Gianforte pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault on Monday morning. Judge Rick West sentenced him "to a 180-day deferred sentence, 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger management and a $300 fine along with a $85 court fee," CNN's team reports.
You'll recall that when Gianforte sent a written apology to Ben Jacobs last week, he also pledged to donate $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The group tells me the $$ has not come through yet... | | Lewandowski shopping a book again | | | Oliver Darcy emails his latest scoop: Corey Lewandowski is shopping a book to publishers, according to three sources I spoke with today. One of the sources said bids were due on Friday for the book. The same person said Lewandowski's agent was hoping to fetch seven figures for the deal. Lewandowski had an offer last year from HarperCollins, but that reportedly fell through over concerns about a nondisclosure agreement he signed during the campaign. Publishers were told this time around that Lewandowski had been able to obtain a waiver for the nondisclosure. Lewandowski did not respond to multiple requests for comment... | | Bloomberg had this brilliant story last week: "In Trump's White House, Everything's Coming in 'Two Weeks.'" Toluse Olorunnipa said the president has a penchant for "making and missing deadlines." On Monday there were a couple of new examples:
-- Trump said "he plans to hold a news conference 'in two weeks' on the fight against the Islamic State." Sound familiar? He said the same thing on May 21: "We're gonna be having a news conference in about two weeks to let everybody know how well we're doing." Politico's Nolan McCaskill notes that "no such news conference has occurred or been announced..."
-- Remember the stories about a possible increase in troops in Afghanistan? That was more than a month ago. Officials indicated that a decision was likely by the end of May. But now Trump "is not expected to make a decision on the US strategy in Afghanistan for several more weeks," a senior administration official tells CNN's Jeremy Diamond... | | "Surreal" cabinet meeting | | This was a cabinet meeting "the likes of which, frankly, we have never seen before," Jake Tapper said on "The Lead." He said Monday's photo op was "something of a surreal scene, a cabinet meeting where officials went around the table, and some of them pumped up the president at a time when clearly he's feeling cornered."
Many news outlets fact-checked/narrative-checked Trump's claims about a "record-setting pace" of activity. John Harwood's CNBC column called it "bizarre..." and added: "In more than three decades of covering the White House, I've never seen such an extended public display of flattery for a president from his chosen subordinates. At moments it resembled the kind of fawning that some of the strongmen rulers Trump has praised — such as Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte — might receive from their deputies..." | | | ...We found out that the Secret Service "has no audio copies or transcripts of any tapes recorded within" Trump's White House. The WSJ broke the news after the agency responded to its FOIA request. Other news outlets have similar requests in... | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Check this out by CNN's Mitra Kalita: "The 10 secrets to great journalism hidden away in 'Master of None'"
-- Out with the NYT public editor, in with the "Reader Center," a new initiative designed to connect the paper to the readers... how, though, is TBD, Poynter's Ben Mullin reports. What we know is the new desk won't be a replacement for what Liz Spayd did, it'll be more of "a convener," infusing "reader-centered thinking" across the newsroom...
-- Fascinating: Fox has "quietly started offering a national, 24-hour feed on Hulu's live-streaming TV service in more than 70 markets where it hasn't come to agreements on streaming with local affiliate stations," WSJ's Shalini Ramachandran reports... | | Four big Facebook stories... | | ...Flagged by An Phung:
-- Per the WSJ, "Facebook is building a feature that would allow users to subscribe to publishers directly from the mobile app..."
-- One of Facebook's first scripted series? Per THR, the company is "near a deal to revive" Nicole Byer's show "Loosely Exactly Nicole," which was cancelled by MTV...
-- Related to that: "Publishers are happy to take Facebook's funding for original video programming, but several existing and potential content partners expressed doubts that the company is committed to short-form shows for the long run," Digiday's Sahil Patel reports...
-- According to a new Pew study, 85% of Americans now get some of their news from a mobile device. The increase is "driven by older adults..." | | | "My god what a brutal own on the publishing industry," BuzzFeed's Charlie Warzel tweeted, sharing this headline: "Facebook in talks for lease at Chronicle building or 181 Fremont." Yes, the San Francisco Chronicle building, which has been refashioned as a tech hub in recent years... | | | Yesterday I wrote that Wednesday is President Trump's 70th birthday. Actually he's 70 now, and he'll turn 71 on Wednesday. Also, I mistakenly listed Matt Lewis's former employer, The Daily Caller, instead of his new employer, The Daily Beast. Thank you to the readers who caught these mistakes! | | | Rumors are swirling about why production of "Bachelor in Paradise" was suspended on Sunday. It seems clear that there's a tape... and allegations of sexual misconduct... according to TMZ and other sources. Variety says the ABC show has not been "cancelled," merely halted... | | Lowry reviews "Celtics/Lakers" | | | Brian Lowry emails: While the latest edition of the current rivalry between the Cavaliers and Warriors might end tonight, beginning Tuesday ESPN goes back to chronicle "Celtics/Lakers: Best of Enemies," in a five-hour, two-night affair that captures how the Larry Bird/Magic Johnson-led teams of the 1980s "saved the NBA." Like all of ESPN's best "30 for 30" documentaries, this one goes beyond the games to put basketball and the two cities in cultural context... | | | For the record, part three | | | By Chloe Melas:
-- Elizabeth Banks did an interview with THR in which she talks about there not being enough strong roles for women her age -- she's only 43! She's decided to take matters into her own hands. Read the interview here...
-- I got a chance to speak to Mark Hamill who says he can't imagine life without "Star Wars" and explained why he's "mad" Carrie Fisher is gone... | | | "Reliable Sources" highlights | | | All the President's Secrets | | Simple question: Why is President Trump keeping so many secrets? He's acting like a man with a lot to hide. That was the subject of my essay on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." I tallied up all the disparate examples of Trump and his White House withholding information and keeping secrets: Potential "tapes." Golf outings. A possible change in Afghan war troop levels. Tax returns. "Covfefe." The president's position on climate change.
So why all the secrecy? That's the question I keep coming back to. Why is the president acting like a man with so much to hide? Here's the essay in video form... You can share it on Twitter here... | | About the Reality Winner case... | | | It's a "cautionary tale" for reporters and leakers, NYT's Adam Goldman told me. Goldman was careful not to criticize Winner or The Intercept directly, but he said journalists and especially their editors who deal with classified material "need to be thinking about ways to protect the people providing them information." CNNMoney's Jackie Wattles has a full recap of the segment here... | | | Tim O'Brien was sued by Trump a decade ago, and the resulting deposition did not go well for Trump. Talking about Mueller, O'Brien told me Trump has "played ping-pong over the years, but this is the Super Bowl..." | | -- The Daily Beast's Matt Lewis said yes when I asked if it's fair to be saying that this is a "White House in Crisis:" "Every day it seems like there's another major story or scandal or revelation that drops..."
-- Political analyst Jeff Greenfield agreed. Talking about the Comey hearing, he said, "in this case, the hype was accompanied by reality, which isn't always the case..."
-- Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery said Comey's stark warning about Russian meddling has been overshadowed: "It should not be seen through a partisan lens..." | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Email us... we're at reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every email. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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