| | | | | THR's Matthew Belloni said it best: "Today will probably end up being a very important day in the history of the entertainment business." Disney is parting ways with Netflix and setting up rival streaming services. Plus, there's breaking news about the lawsuits against Fox News... and word of a stunning email exchange between Reed Hastings and Peter Thiel... Scroll down for full coverage... but first, oh yeah, this bit of news... | | | That's what NBC's Lester Holt called it Tuesday night. Here's Chris Hayes a little bit later on MSNBC: "Today our president, speaking from the golf course he owns in New Jersey, appeared to threaten nuclear war with the country of North Korea." | | The standoff with North Korea heated up in a big way on Tuesday. Military analysts are all over television. So are those ominous maps showing the range of N.K. missiles. For the viewers and readers who are just picking up fragmentary info -- headlines and sound bites here and there -- this is frightening. (Make no mistake, for many of the experts, it's frightening too.)
What responsibility do reporters and TV producers and analysts have in this situation? To somehow help cooler heads prevail? And if so, how? | | Don't lose sight of the role of (sanctioned?) leaks in driving this story...
6:30am: POTUS retweeted a "Fox & Friends" item about U.S. spy satellites detecting N.K. "moving anti-ship cruise missiles to patrol boat." Nikki Haley's reaction on Fox a little while later: "It's incredibly dangerous when things get out into the press like that..."
12:30pm: The WashPost scoops that N.K. "has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles." Part of the Defense Intelligence Agency's analysis was read out loud to a Post reporter. Trump's remarks at Bedminster came about three hours after the story landed, giving newscast producers and home page editors a new lead... | | Good thing there are Harry Truman clips on YouTube | | | Major Garrett on the "CBS Evening News:" "Trump's rhetoric sounded very much like a speech Harry Truman gave after the first U.S. atomic bomb strike at Hiroshima." CBS yanked the 1945 video off this YouTube channel. Anderson Cooper quoted the same Truman passage on Tuesday's "AC360." Truman promised a "rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth..." | | "...The world has never seen before" | | | ...Trump promised "fire, fury, and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before." The Toronto Star's Daniel Dale, who studies Trump's words as carefully as anybody, had heard this before. Dale pointed out in a column that "the world has never seen before" is a "pet phrase" of the president's. In fact, Trump said it just a minute before the N.K. threat, while on the subject of drugs coming through the southern border: "We're being very, very strong" at the border, he said, "the likes of which this country certainly has never seen that kind of strength." This is important context... Hopefully the morning shows will pick up on it... | | Clapper's appeal to the media | | | James Clapper on "AC360:" "I would also appeal to those in the media to tone down the rhetoric as well, because the rhetoric itself now has become quite incendiary, and I just don't think it's very productive to engage in this dueling banjo rhetoric back and forth, which is quite provocative..." | | | "Tone it down" was a theme across the cable landscape on Tuesday night, mostly w/r/t to Trump's rhetoric. Former Ash Carter speechwriter/Georgetown U lecturer Patrick Granfield on Fox News: "I think it's helpful to dial down some of the rhetoric." Senator Ed Markey on MSNBC's "All In:" "The president needs to tone it down..." | | | --> When I tweeted these quotes, VOA W.H. correspondent Steve Herman responded: "Based on my previous discussions with #DPRK officials, they believe news on CNN and other U.S. media can be dictated by U.S. government..." | | -- @Pinboard: "Big morning tomorrow for Fox and Friends, as the show's producers decide whether to lead us into nuclear war."
-- Nate Silver: "No idea what the right military strategy is in North Korea, but I worry that Trump might think it's good politics to provoke a conflict."
-- David Frum: "Threatening war without really meaning it, without allies, without Congress, and having convinced 60% of US public your every word is a lie?" | | Do Americans trust the president's words? | | That last point from Frum is worth underscoring. Monday's CNN poll showing that only 24% of Americans say they trust all or most of what they hear from the White House is devastating. As John Avlon said on "New Day," it's a "national tragedy."
In this column, I asserted that widespread distrust of the W.H. is not just a sign of Trump's weakness, it's also a sign of the national news media's strength. But when it comes to this N.K. threat, are Americans taking the president's words seriously? Will he gain the trust of his skeptics?
-- Related? I said on CNN that Trump's fibbing sometimes seems "almost pathological..." What do you think? | | Packets of "praise-filled news stories" for POTUS? | | Yes, Trump receives a collection of TV chyrons about himself, Dylan Byers reports.
On Tuesday afternoon, Vice News published this story saying that Trump received twice-daily packets including "screenshots of positive cable news chyrons (those lower-third headlines and crawls), admiring tweets, transcripts of fawning TV interviews, praise-filled news stories, and sometimes just pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful." Vice said "some in the White House ruefully refer to the packet as 'the propaganda document.'"
-- For the record: W.H. officials who spoke to Dylan disputed Vice's characterization of the packets, but acknowledged that Trump did receive a collection of television news screen-shots and chyrons in the wake of various events. They stressed that the collection was not limited to positive coverage...
-- Obama W.H. comms director Jen Psaki told Dylan: "It is safe to say that President Obama was never given and never requested a packet of clips about chyrons of any kind. If he had, we would have assumed it was some sort of April Fools' Day stunt..." | | "Don't believe the polls" and the day's other developments | | There are several OTHER Trump-related stories that need to be called out... for example...
-- On Tuesday afternoon POTUS told his Twitter followers not to believe "Fake News Suppression Polls." If any other president said something like that, media types would have been astonished, and rightly so...
-- He also said the WashPost and NYT were "reluctant to cover the Clinton/Lynch secret meeting in plane," parroting a story that's popular in conservative media circles. Erik Wemple tried to put that B.S. to rest in this blog post...
-- Stephen Miller said on Fox that Trump is "the best orator to hold that office in generations." Andrea Mitchell responded thusly on Twitter: "I covered Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama...."
-- Seb Gorka suggested in an interview on MSNBC that the Minnesota mosque bombing (in which thankfully no one was injured) may be a "fake hate crime." BuzzFeed has the details...
-- What's Michael Flynn Jr., son of the former National Security Advisor, doing on Twitter? He's pushing to get H.R. McMaster "fired from his father's former position..."
-- Tuesday's must-read: Molly Ball writes about "The Trump Show" going on and on: "The presidency in crisis! How can this possibly be sustained? Where will it end? What is going to happen? But the answer is right in front of us: It's happening right now, on an endless loop..." (The Atlantic) | | | 🔌: I'll be on CNN's "New Day" talking about all this at 6:45am ET Wednesday... | | -- Via CBS PR, more good news for Stephen Colbert: "'The Late Show' wins the week by +900,000 viewers, its largest margin of victory ever..." (Deadline)
-- LaSharah Bunting, who took a buyout from the NYT, is the Knight Foundation's new director of journalism programs... (Richard Prince's Journal-isms)
-- Happy 12th anniversary to "The Situation Room" and anchor Wolf Blitzer... here's how TVNewser covered the launch back in 2005... (TVNewser)
-- Nick Bilton's latest on Mark Zuckerberg: "He's probably going to seek higher office one day, and it looks like he's already preparing for the job..." (VF) | | The WSJ's lead: "Disney just became the biggest cord-cutter Hollywood has ever seen."
Erich Schwartzel and Joe Flint write: "The world's largest entertainment company said Tuesday it is starting two online streaming services to offer its sports, movies and television programming directly to consumers, a broadside at distributors old and new, including cable providers and Netflix. As part of the strategy, Disney said it would pull future movies from Netflix, an announcement that sent shares for the streaming service down 7% in after-hours trading..." | | As Recode's Peter Kafka notes here, "we've seen this coming for a while, but it's still a big deal."
Disney titles will come off Netflix in 2019. Disney is acquiring a majority stake in BAMTech, the MLB's streaming arm, at a cost of $1.58 billion. Details from CNNMoney's Ahiza Garcia...
-- Bob Iger quoted here: Taking control of BAMTech and launching direct-to-consumer services "mark an entirely new growth strategy for the company..." | | Brian Lowry emails: I had the same thought as Variety's Cynthia Littleton upon hearing about Disney pulling out of its relationship with Netflix -- namely, that even if it doesn't turn out to work, CBS was smart to test whether it could take the middle man out of the deal with its CBS All Access service.
At the very least, Disney's decision should send a shudder through these streaming services, if only because an outfit like Netflix -- already spending money at an astonishing clip -- might have to pay more to secure its access to programming if more players choose to start going it alone... | | | -- Variety's Andrew Wallenstein: "Netflix's first-ever acquisition was all about life after its Disney output deal..." | | Letterman's return to TV! | | Nice timing for Netflix... to have this news a few hours before the Disney splash... Sandra Gonzalez reports: David Letterman's untitled one-hour series will feature one in-depth interview per episode, as well as in-the-field segments, when it debuts on Netflix in 2019. There will be a six-episode first season.
Kudos to Letterman for this quote in the press release: "Here's what I have learned, if you retire to spend more time with your family, check with your family first. Thanks for watching, drive safely." 👏 👏 | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Breitbart's Matt Boyle published a bizarre story claiming a NYT reporter's correspondence with government employees proves the paper is "soliciting anti-Trump bureaucracy leakers." Splinter's David Uberti took it apart... (Splinter)
-- Highly recommended: Franklin Foer, former editor of the New Republic, wrote for The Atlantic about Chris Hughes' time owning TNR. "The pursuit of digital readership broke the New Republic -- and an entire industry," Foer says... (The Atlantic)
-- Also check out BuzzFeed's deep dive into how your News Feed is being hijacked by "partisan news," with a breakdown of all the major players... (BuzzFeed News) | | Late-breaking scoop from the NYT... | | Wigdor wanted $60+ million | | "At a confidential mediation proceeding in late July, the lawyer Douglas H. Wigdor asked for more than $60 million to settle several disputes with Fox News and 21st Century Fox," NYT's Emily Steel reported Tuesday night, citing "two people familiar with the matter."
"Those cases included gender-and racial-discrimination lawsuits against the company that Mr. Wigdor had filed on behalf of more than 20 current and former employees in the last several months" AND the Rod Wheeler suit, which hadn't been made public yet. "The company would not accept Mr. Wigdor's offer and no resolution was reached," and Wigdor subsequently went public with the explosive Wheeler suit... Read more here... | | "More Bad News for Rupert Murdoch's Sky Takeover Bid" | | | That's the headline on Lloyd Grove's latest for The Daily Beast. "Rupert Murdoch's long-delayed ambition to acquire all of Europe's profitable Sky Television hit another snag on Tuesday," he reported, "when the Britain's Conservative government asked regulators to consider" Wheeler's new allegations "against Fox News." Karen Bradley has given Ofcom an August 25 deadline... | | Here's another headline from the Beast... | | | "Fox News Is Like Porn for Aggrieved Men." Seriously. Erin Gloria Ryan makes the case that "it's starting to seem like Fox News is a sexism organization that dabbles in news rather than the other way around..." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- The first results are in from Google's "Ad Experience Report" tool, evaluating and scoring websites based on design and ad creative. The group of websites deemed "failing" also includes some media sites: Forbes, the LA Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Orlando Sentinel. Deemed worthy of a "warning:" Lifehacker, CBS News and the New York Daily News... (Digiday)
-- Vox analyzed 17 months of "Fox & Friends" transcripts... Here are the findings... (Vox) | | Nick Wingfield's NYT story about Silicon Valley's culture wars contains an email exchange between Reed Hastings and Peter Thiel, both Facebook board members, about Thiel's support for Trump.
Hastings wrote in an email last August that Trump, if elected, "would destroy much of what is great about America." He told Thiel this: "I see our board being about great judgment, particularly in unlikely disaster where we have to pick new leaders. I'm so mystified by your endorsement of Trump for our President, that for me it moves from 'different judgment' to 'bad judgment.' Some diversity in views is healthy, but catastrophically bad judgment (in my view) is not what anyone wants in a fellow board member." | | In Google memo author, conservative media finds a martyr | | Tom Kludt emails: If there's anything we've learned in the age of Trump, it's that "conservative media" can't be treated like a monolith. While alt-right upstarts like Breitbart have cheered the president, august conservative publications like National Review and the Weekly Standard have been more wary. But every once in a while, there comes a story -- or rather, a controversy -- the blurs those divisions and brings the two camps in ideological harmony.
The uproar this week over an internal memo written by a Google engineer qualifies. The 3,300-word, 10-page document has been described as by critics as an "anti-diversity" screed, but to writers at National Review and the Weekly Standard, the reaction was severely overblown. And Breitbart has promised to publish interviews with Google employees who intend to draw attention to "witch hunts" at the company led by "social justice warriors." Read Tom's full story here...
-- Related: Conor Friedersdorf says too many headlines about the memo "labeled the document 'anti-diversity,' misleading readers about its actual contents." Read his full column here... | | $20 million for The Young Turks | | The Young Turks, the liberal YouTube network famous for its political commentary and Bernie Sanders support, is planning to double the size of its newsroom with the $20 million in VC funding it just raised. WSJ's Lukas Alpert had the advance on the news.
"We've got the content side figured out pretty well, ranked No. 1 in the news vertical in all the rankings, but it's time to build out the rest of the business," co-founder Cenk Uygur told BI's Maxwell Tani... | | Remembering Glen Campbell | | | Via CNN.com: Glen Campbell, the upbeat guitarist from Delight, Arkansas, whose smooth vocals and down-home manner made him a mainstay of music and television for decades, has died, his family announced on Facebook on Tuesday. He was 81. | | Lowry reviews "Mr. Mercedes" and "Get Shorty" | | Brian Lowry emails: Two more premium dramas based on known properties are premiering this week: "Mr. Mercedes," a Stephen King adaptation that will air on DirecTV's Audience Network; and "Get Shorty," an Epix series based on the Elmore Leonard novel previously turned into a movie. The shows reflect the ongoing glut of such fare, as such services -- overlooking concerns about "peak TV" reaching its saturation point -- seek to brand themselves and prove that they can compete with HBO and Netflix, as Hulu has recently done, notably, with "The Handmaid's Tale."
Read Lowry's full column here... | | Fox in "preliminary" talks for "King of the Hill" return | | | Sandra Gonzalez reports: Fox is exploring the possibility of bringing back one of its classic animated shows -- "King of the Hill." Fox Television Group chairman Dana Walden told a group of reporters on Tuesday that the company has had a conversation with EPs Mike Judge and Greg Daniels about staging a possible return for the comedy. "We had a very preliminary conversation," she said. "Given what's going on in the country, I think they had a point of view about how those characters would respond. But, again, it was one meeting and I hope to revisit it." The show ended way back in 2009... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa France:
The "Bachelorette" finale happened, and Rachel Lindsay got her guy, a ring and the cover of People magazine...
-- Here's what Anna Faris said about Chris Pratt in an interview before their split...
-- Sinead O'Connor posted a tearful video about being mentally ill that had fans worried about her safety...
-- Rihanna's sexy Instagram photos caught her ex Chris Brown's attention -- and fans were not happy about it... | | | Email us at reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every message. The feedback helps us craft the next day's newsletter! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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