| | | | | Back to work, back to school, back to the newsletter. If you're new here, this is our nightly roundup of media news. And this is one of my favorite days of the year -- when Labor Day gives way to that new-season, new-school-year feeling. So here's our special preview of the week ahead and the season ahead... | | BREAKING: Tronc buying the NY Daily News | | The NYT's Sydney Ember and Andrew Ross Sorkin broke this news on Monday evening: Mort Zuckerman has agreed to sell the New York Daily News to Tronc. The press release went out just as I was about to hit send.
In a sign of the perilous times for newspaper publishers, "the deal carries a price tag of $1 and the assumption of operational and pension liabilities," Tronc's Chicago Tribune reports.
-- Daily News EIC Arthur Browne will now be the publisher as well... But maybe not for long... He was planning on retiring, and Tronc says he has "agreed to stay until the end of 2017." Here's my full story...
-- From the internal memo: "For the newspaper that once emblazoned the immortal words 'Ford to City: Drop Dead' across its front page, I can only imagine today's cover reading 'Mort to News: Carry On'!" | | "August proved to be downright terrible for President Trump," Chuck Todd said on MSNBC Monday. And September is shaping up to be the president's toughest month yet. There's North Korea, the DACA decision, Harvey recovery, Irma on the horizon, tax reform dilemmas, government funding drama, tension with Mitch McConnell, opposition from other GOP lawmakers, etc...
-- Also driving the news cycle: Hillary Clinton's book comes out on 9/12... and there's a steady drip-drip-drip of Russia news as Robert Mueller's investigation and two other probes continue apace...
-- Quote of the day: In Tuesday's WSJ: "'Mitch?' the president said when Mr. McConnell fell silent in one call. 'Are you there?'" | | >> Will Sanders "get back?" | | In the W.H. press shop: Will there be a permanent communications director? Or will Hope Hicks stay "interim?" Will the trend of on-camera briefings continue?
-- A related Q: Will the briefings become more informative? On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," we showed how Sarah Huckabee Sanders deflects Q's by saying "I'll get back to you..." IJR wrote it up here... | | Prime time changes at Fox News? | | | There's a Fox News lineup change looming. One of the Key Q's: will Eric Bolling return to Fox? It's been a month since he was suspended. On Monday Jason Chaffetz sat in his seat. If he doesn't return, what will the ripple effects be? We reported on those talks between Fox and Laura Ingraham several weeks ago. Will she take over an hour of prime time? If so, how will that affect other hosts? Does Fox have some surprises in store? | | >> Elsewhere on the air... | | | Megyn Kelly's 9am show will debut on NBC on September 25... I'm wondering if interim anchor Anthony Mason will get the permanent "CBS Evening News" post... And I'm wondering if there's a single new show on the broadcast networks that is garnering tons of excitement... Personally the ads for "Young Sheldon" have piqued my interest, but little else has... Meanwhile, HBO is about to premiere "The Deuce," and in October Netflix will premiere "Mindhunter..." | | >> Some of this fall's events... | | | Apple's new product reveal on 9/12... the Emmys, hosted by Stephen Colbert, on 9/17... "Star Trek: Discovery" launches on CBS All Access on 9/24... ONA's annual conference starts 10/5... AMC's "The Walking Dead" returns on 10/22... Taylor Swift's album launches on 11/10... | | AT&T-Time Warner deal news coming soon | | | AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner (including CNN and this newsletter) is expected to take effect in the next 60 days. (Possibly sooner.) AT&T has received the necessary approvals in 17 out of the 19 jurisdictions that are weighing in on the deal... Chile gave the thumbs up on Monday... the two remaining jurisdictions are Brazil and the U.S. The Justice Department's merger review process is on track... once DOJ announces a consent decree with AT&T, the deal will close very quickly... though the official word continues to be "by year end." | | >> Keeping an eye on these media biz angles... | | | Sinclair will work to fend off opponents of its Tribune TV acquisition... Facebook will continue to try to woo journalists and media companies... I'm wondering if Apple will wow the marketplace with some TV show deals... And if more startups will "pivot to video" while insiders roll their eyes... I'm also interested in Snap's struggles... plus Rupert Murdoch's still-pending Sky deal... | | >> Lots of unanswered questions | | How will NFL ratings hold up this season, given last season's declines? What will the FCC decide to do about "net neutrality?" Will Charter be sold? Will there be any news on the Univision IPO front? How severe will cord-cutting losses be? What new kinds of bundles will take shape? Will the ad market improve? Will ESPN hire Katie Nolan? Will Greta Van Susteren find a new network? What about Eric Bolling? Will John Oliver and HBO prevail in the Murray Energy lawsuit? Can Hollywood shake off its "worst summer in more than a decade?"
I'm sure there are Q's I'm forgetting... email me with Q's you have... | | -- Tuesday morning: Fox Sports 1 launches its new morning show "First Things First," 6:30 til 9:30am...
-- Tuesday night: "American Horror Story: Cult" debuts on FX...
-- Wednesday morning: Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her dad on "The View..."
-- Thursday night: the NFL season kicks off with the Patriots versus the Chiefs on NBC...
-- Thursday night: Bernie Sanders on the "Late Show with Stephen Colbert..."
-- Friday: the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference begins in Anaheim...
-- Friday: "It" arrives in theaters... | | -- Regnery Publishing, the home of Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter and other conservative authors, "says it wants nothing to do anymore with The New York Times and its best-seller list," David Bauder reports... (AP)
-- WSJ EIC Gerard Baker tweeted this little bit of media criticism Monday night: "ESPN just quit deciding set of best match of US Open -- gripping DelPotro v Thiem -- to show opening games of Federer. You cannot be serious..." (Twitter)
-- How's Axios doing? Robert Allbritton told the FT that "I honestly don't see that much of them." Really? Seconding what Dylan Byers tweeted the other day: "This is ridiculous. Axios AM newsletter is talk of town in DC, NY, SF, LA... & Allbritton is very much preoccupied with them..."
-- A loss for anyone who cares about coverage of Native Americans: Indian Country Today Media Network, the publisher of Indian Country magazine and a related web site, "is taking a hiatus to consider alternative business models..." (Indian Country) | | Saturday: The AP's Jason Dearen in TX and Michael Biesecker in DC co-bylined this exclusive: "Toxic waste sites flooded; EPA not on scene." Dearen "surveyed seven Superfund sites in and around Houston during the flooding. All had been inundated with water, in some cases many feet deep." The EPA said its staffers hadn't been to those sites yet. This graf must have embarrassed the agency: "AP journalists used a boat to document the condition of one flooded Houston-area Superfund site, but accessed others with a vehicle or on foot. The EPA did not respond to questions about why its personnel had not yet been able to do so."
Sunday: The agency fired back, saying Biesecker wrote an "incredibly misleading story" from "the comfort of Washington." Like I said, Dearen was on the scene in TX. Notice how Breitbart amplified the EPA's attack by calling the AP "fake news."
-- Important point: "The statement did not point to any specific factual inaccuracies in Saturday's story... and the AP has not offered any corrections on the piece," Politico's Matthew Nussbaum wrote... | | >> AP exec editor responds | | | AP exec editor Sally Buzbee's statement: "AP's exclusive story was the result of on the ground reporting as well as AP's strong knowledge of these sites and EPA practices. We object to the EPA's attempts to discredit that reporting by suggesting it was completed solely from 'the comforts of Washington' and stand by the work of both journalists who jointly reported and wrote the story." | | Awaiting the DACA decision... | | Politico's Eliana Johnson broke the news on Sunday night: "Trump has decided to end DACA, with 6-month delay." The Trump admin is set to confirm this on Tuesday morning... Jeff Sessions is scheduled to hold an 11am briefing about it. The advisory says "the Attorney General will not be taking questions following the briefing..."
-- It's "one thing to be for ending DACA in theory," Stuart Stevens tweeted Monday. "But wonder if anyone is prepared for scenes of 800K kids & young adults being deported..." | | -- "Fox & Friends Weekend" co-host Clayton Morris said goodbye to the network on Monday. He's leaving TV for the real estate biz: "Decided that it was time to leave the noise behind and help people build wealth..." (TVNewser)
-- Former Fox News contributor Richard Grenell is being nominated to be Trump's ambassador to Germany... (CNN)
-- Margaret Sullivan's latest: "The best thing journalists can do is to relentlessly explain the beliefs, scope and scale of antifa, and to resist conflating it with liberal groups. And most important, to challenge politically motivated efforts to create a false equivalency between antifa and the rising tide of white supremacy. There is no comparison..." (WashPost) | | | Over the weekend Hillary Clinton "promoted a new media platform" that "ostensibly collects and verifies facts," BI's Bryan Logan reports. "The website, called Verrit, advertises itself as a portal that 'contextualizes noteworthy facts, stats, and quotes for politically engaged citizens.' The site's mantra, touted at the top of every page, is 'Media for the 65.8 million,' a reference to the popular-vote total Clinton received." So what is it? Details here... | | Ty Cobb asks a reporter: "Are you on drugs?" | | | BI's Natasha Bertrand was surprised to see this email in her inbox at 1:35am Saturday: "Are you on drugs? Have you read anything else on this???" The email was from White House special counsel Ty Cobb. Bertrand tweeted out a screen grab of the email on Sunday... I asked her on Monday if she'd received any followups from Cobb since then, but the answer is no... "I've reached out for comment twice since his email to me..." | | Murdoch beats Zuckerberg for the rights to India's Premier League | | "Rupert Murdoch is betting big on the future of cricket," CNNMoney's Ivana Kottasova writes. "His media group has just agreed to pay $2.6 billion for the global TV and digital rights to India's Premier League for the next five years... The IPL competition runs for just two months a year but its value to media companies has soared as the global audience has exploded..."
>> Murdoch beat out Mark Zuckerberg. Recode's Peter Kafka writes: "Facebook just tried to pay $600 million for a five-year-deal to stream Indian cricket matches... The fact that Facebook was willing to put up that kind of money is a big, bold declaration that the company will write real checks in order to get its hands on must-see sports content..." | | The end of The Cambodia Daily | | | CNNMoney's Leezel Tanglao emails: The Cambodia Daily, an English-language paper based in Cambodia, announced its end on Monday after 24 years. The paper says the closure is the unfortunate result "of extra-legal threats by the government to close the Daily, freeze its accounts and prosecute the new owner for the actions of the previous owner..." | | | "Reliable Sources" highlights | | | Fox News stars claim the Trump-Russia story is over (it's not) | | | Many questions about Russian interference in the election are unanswered. Multiple investigations are underway. But you should take a look at how conservative media heavyweights have been spinning this. They talk about Russia in the past tense, like it's "over," like it's been settled, like Trump has been completely vindicated. That was the subject of my essay on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." I showed these video clips and wondered why they're pretending like the investigations are over. Watch... | | Credit for "Trump and Friends" | | | During the essay, I had a slip of the tongue when referring to "Fox & Friends," and I said "Trump & Friends" would be an apt name for the show. Mediaite said I came up with a new name for "F&F," but I don't deserve any credit (or blame!) for the "Trump & Friends" title. Jim Warren has been using it for months in his excellent morning newsletter for Poynter... | | "Journalists aren't all heroes, but they're not all enemies. Journalists are human." That was Will Bunch's point when we spoke on Sunday's show. Bunch, the national columnist for Philly.com, opined that Trump's Saturday evening slap at the media (the Coast Guard saved people by "going into winds that the media will not go into") showed a "pathological" anti-media bent on the part of the president.
"It's very political," he said. "The one thing that really holds Donald Trump's base, one third of the American people together, is hatred of the media, contempt, you know? And he realizes that he's dividing the country, but he's unifying his base at the same time. It's a political strategy to be sure." | | -- Harvey the storm is over, but Harvey the story is just beginning. Here's what Harry Shearer told me...
-- Is Trump's media diet changing? Sarah Westwood says this is "hugely significant..."
-- "I didn't actually want to be a journalist." Watch our interview with Maggie Haberman and her father Clyde... | | Four ways to catch up on the show | | | For the record, part three | | | -- NBC/MSNBC has signed Bloomberg View and Gadfly exec editor/Trump biographer Tim O'Brien as a contributor...
-- Jim Warren's latest: "The New York Times is looking for nonprofit funding. Will it succeed where others have failed?" (Poynter)
-- Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails: School's back in session, so in CJR, Mark Effron reflects on what lessons journalism students should be taught in the aftermath of Charlottesville... (CJR) | | "As if by some universal law of media physics, then, the Naughty Nineties have imploded to become the Tawdry Teens. All truth is malleable and all secrets are exposed, as a nation watches compulsively, which is how we watch reality TV."
--David Friend, author of the new book "The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido," in a Sunday op-ed in the NYT... | | Lisa Respers France emails: Monday was #BeyDay a.k.a. Beyonce's 36th birthday. It's pretty much a national holiday for fans, and this year hubby Jay-Z got fans at his "Made In America" music festival to sing her happy birthday...
-- Friends and family members including former First Lady Michelle Obama also got in "Formation" in honor of Bey's special day. Us Weekly has details here... | | Angelina Jolie returning to work | | | "Angelina Jolie says she plans to return to work after taking 'over a year off' to deal with a complicated 'family situation' following her split with Brad Pitt," THR's Stephen Galloway reports. "Speaking at the Telluride Film Festival, where her new movie about Cambodia, 'First They Killed My Father,' had a well regarded debut (it's set to be released in select theaters and on Netflix on Sept. 15), Jolie also said she would one day like to give up acting in favor of directing, if possible. She said she had not yet committed to her next project, though a Maleficent sequel is likely to happen this year..." | | | Email 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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