| | | | | Exec summary: The 16th anniversary of 9/11 is here... Irma coverage will continue to dominate on Monday... Nielsen data is delayed due to the storm... "It" has bolstered the box office... Don Ohlmeyer has died after suffering from lung cancer... | | The reporters assigned to Naples experienced something rare on Sunday: A direct hit from the eyewall of a major hurricane, followed by the relatively calm eye, followed by the backside of the storm, live on TV. CNN's Chris Cuomo and Ed Lavandera, NBC's Kerry Sanders and Chris Hayes, and Fox's Steve Harrigan and Griff Jenkins were among the crews in Naples when it hit. "The wind noise is just actually incredible," Sanders said. On CNN and Fox, the anchors went quiet for a bit so viewers could hear it for themselves.
This was Hurricane Irma's second landfall... the first came at Cudjoe Key on Sunday morning... but I'm not aware of any journalists who were there. Several storm chasers were in Key West and Big Pine Key... and reporters like CNN's Bill Weir were in Key Largo... so we'll learn a lot more about the condition of the beloved Keys on Monday morning.
This special edition of the newsletter recaps Sunday's coverage and looks ahead to Monday... | | I'm sure I missed a lot of stunning live shots. But with that caveat: The Weather Channel's Mike Bettes had the single scariest view of Irma that I saw. He was parked along US-41 north of downtown Naples. His crew stayed inside the SUV while he stepped out into the 100+ mph winds.
-- ABC's Tom Llamas experienced something similar 2.5 hours later in Fort Myers... He said Irma was "shredding" Fort Myers...
-- CNN's Chris Cuomo and Ed Lavandera were slammed by the eyewall in Naples... and then experienced the relative calm of the eye... during the 4pm hour...
-- Reiterating what I said on Twitter: Spare a thought for the photojournalists and audio engineers and technicians keeping these TV crews on the air... | | Marathon schedules for anchors | | -- What made CNN unique: Virtually all of its coverage was co-anchored from cities throughout Florida. Victor Blackwell, Chris Cuomo, and John Berman all started at 5am... I last saw Berman on air around 3:30pm... I think Cuomo signed off at 7pm...Right now Anderson Cooper is leading the coverage from Tampa...
-- Shep Smith anchored for 10 hours straight... 8am til 6pm... from his "Fox News Deck" in NYC...
-- Brian Williams anchored on MSNBC from 11am til 5pm, and resumed at 8pm... Ali Velshi handled the morning and early evening shifts...
-- The broadcast network anchors have appeared on morning, afternoon and evening programming as well. Lester Holt in Tampa... ABC's David Muir in Naples... CBS's Jeff Glor in Tampa...
-- While some folks will get a few hours of sleep, the cablers will be live all night long... and the marathon will resume on Monday... for instance, NBC will have a special edition of "Today" with Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie from 6am til 10am... | | How's Poynter HQ holding up? | | | Poynter -- a beacon and a classroom and a resource for journalists all across the country -- has a beautiful HQ building right on the bayfront in St. Petersburg, FL. There are big concerns about storm surge. Kelly McBride told me about two-thirds of the staff evacuated... Al Tompkins stayed, and he stopped by the Poynter building around 5:30, and "all was well" at the time... but the heavier winds and rain didn't come until later in the evening. At 5:30 "the bay outside Poynter was very low. The storm sucked water from the bay... but it will be back," he said... | | -- I noticed MSNBC simulcasting key live shots from The Weather Channel, including Mike Seidel in Miami in the morning and Mike Bettes in Naples in the afternoon...
-- From time to time Fox News dipped into Fox's powerhouse Miami station WSVN... I appreciated the opportunities to see local coverage...
-- ABC, NBC, CBS aired many extra hours of coverage on Sunday... NBC says it's up to "12 special reports" so far...
-- The Weather Channel, CNN and others dropped the cable paywall at the height of the storm, so anyone could stream the live coverage without a username/password...
-- CNN.com offered a text-only version of its web site... easier to load in low-bandwidth areas...
-- How'd the WashPost's video unit cover the hurricane? Poynter's James Warren has a look here... | | For some of the millions of people without power, TV wasn't an option, but radio was... WSVN's Brian Entin tweeted that he was trying to be descriptive in his coverage: "Weird to think almost all of our viewers can't see us and are listening on the radio."
South Florida's NPR station WLRN was knocked off the airwaves on Sunday... but NPR PR says "you can listen to them on the WLRN.org stream, the WLRN app, the Florida Storms app, and the NPR One app..." | | Hey, happy birthday, Steve Harrigan | | | Sunday was Steve Harrigan's birthday. The Fox News correspondent was born to cover hurricanes. He was in the right place -- Naples -- and he led the coverage for hours at a time... TVNewser has some of the best Steve/Shep interaction here... | | View from Weather Channel HQ | | I checked in with Nora Zimmett, the senior VP of live TV at The Weather Channel, who's been working almost around the clock since Thursday from the channel's Atlanta HQ. "Cannot believe the energy in here... and out there," she told me. Zimmett is sleeping at the office Sunday night...
-- Re: those aforementioned live shots from Bettes in Naples: "He was amazing. And very safe. People have no idea the lengths we go to to secure our teams..."
-- NYT close-up: David Gelles visited Zimmett and her colleagues the other day... and filed this in-depth story for the Times... | | Don't expect any Nielsen #'s... | | | Nielsen's biggest office is in Tampa... so you can guess what that means for television ratings #'s. "In light of the impact of Hurricane Irma, we have mobilized plans to protect our ability to collect data," Nielsen said in a memo to clients on Sunday. "Until we are able to resume normal operations, no data will be issued. We will keep you updated on the situation and our plans for resuming data release..." | | Oliver's report from the Miami Herald | | Oliver Darcy emails: I've been embedded inside the Miami Herald newsroom since Saturday morning. As Hurricane Irma has pounded the state of Florida with whipping winds and thundering rain, the Herald's newsroom has served dueling roles: a working newsroom and a shelter for journalists and their families. Take a stroll around here and you'll see sleeping bags, mattresses, and even a tent. Rick Hirsch, the Herald's managing editor, told me he welcomed those who didn't have a place to stay, telling employees, "If you intend to bring a pet, the official policy was don't talk to me about it."
Employees and their families bunkered down at the Herald as Irma hit Florida in part because the newsroom is housed in a literal fortress. Read Oliver's full story here... | | | The Herald is owned by McClatchy. "They are our primary nerve center in the storm," CEO Craig Forman wrote on Facebook. "In the battered Florida Keys, where we operate local newspapers, a handful of colleagues braved the storm to provide first-person accounts. In Bradenton, FL, Irma has forced our Bradenton Herald team to evacuate their newsroom and move to safer shelters, homes and hotel rooms. But it's a temporary bivouac, not a retreat; and they continue to provide courageous and steady eyewitness coverage..." | | Nothing brings out the TV/print divide quite like a hurricane. NYT national editor Marc Lacey summed up this disconnect in a tweet on Sunday: "My msg to @nytimes reporters in Florida: do not risk your lives by standing out in the middle of the storm like some of your TV colleagues." Of course, his staffers tell the story by writing dispatches... while TV reporters tell the story by broadcasting the scenes around them... and most people have come to expect like-you-are-there coverage of storms.
-- The NYT's Sopan Deb wrote an entire story about this tension on Sunday. Mark Strassman of CBS told him: "Television is all about visual proof..."
-- A TV exec emailed me this reaction to Deb's story: "The NYT jealousy of television reporting is hilarious. They should look in the mirror and ask themselves why they embed reporters with the military in war zones. They do that for the same reason television sends its reporters into hurricanes. Because we go where the story is."
-- Fusion PR chief and former Miami resident David Ford also wrote about this subject on Sunday: "They Keep Us Informed, So We Can Be Prepared" | | "We're not going to have a 'Harvey' again. It'll be retired. We're not going to have an 'Irma' again. These names are going to be retired. It's the first time to have back to back hurricane names retired since Rita and Stan twelve years ago."
--CNN meteorologist Tom Sater... | | In a 3:30pm tweet, White House social media director Dan Scavino said he was sharing Irma social media intel with President Trump and Vice President Pence on an hourly basis. Then he said: "Here is Miami International Airport. STAY SAFE!!" The video showed water covering the runway. Anyone covering the storm immediately knew this was not a video from MIA. It was illogical. It was actually from Mexico City.
The airport's Twitter account quickly refuted this "fake news." MIA tweeted at Scavino, "This video is not from Miami International Airport." First, he deleted the tweet and pretended like it didn't happen. Later, he posted a correction: "Thank you. It was among 100s of videos/pics I am receiving re: Irma from public. In trying to notify all, I shared - have deleted. Be safe!"
Look, we all make mistakes on social media. But this was a whopper... in the middle of a natural disaster. Newsrooms have social media teams to verify this sort of stuff. Doesn't the U.S. government? | | President Trump talks about the Coast Guard's "branding" | | | When POTUS returned from Camp David on Sunday afternoon, he briefly spoke to the press pool at the WH. He called Irma a "big monster." And he praised the government's emergency planning in Trumpian fashion. "If you talk about branding, no brand has improved more than the United States Coast Guard," Trump said... | | Notice: Few mentions of climate change in all the news coverage | | | Per The Daily Beast's Sam Stein, "the Trump White House has not faced a single question on climate change in last two weeks." He added on Twitter: "There was ONE mention of climate change on the Sunday Shows today, Jake Tapper asking John McCain. No other show discussed it." Later in the day, MSNBC's Ali Velshi brought up the subject while interviewing Bill Nelson... | | Three big political interviews on TV | | Tapper and McCain was one of them... This was McCain's first national interview since receiving the brain cancer diagnosis... it was inspiring and emotional. McCain said he's going in for an MRI on Monday.
The other two big interviews were on CBS... Jane Pauley's sit-down with Hillary Clinton aired on "CBS Sunday Morning," and Charlie Rose's exclusive with Steve Bannon aired on "60 Minutes..." | | "I think he's very presidential," Bannon told Rose. "I think what he does on Twitter is extraordinary. He disintermediates the media. He goes above their head and talks directly to the American people."
A moment later, Bannon mocked the "pearl-clutching mainstream media" for crying foul about certain tweets. "I don't think he needs -- the Washington Post, and the New York Times, and CBS News," Bannon said. "And I don't believe he thinks that they're looking out for what's in his best interest, okay? He's not going to believe that, I don't believe that, and you don't believe that, okay? This is another just standard in judgment that you rain upon him in the effort to destroy Donald Trump."
-- Re: "Trump talking directly to the American people," Bannon added, "You're going to get some good there. And every now and again you're going to get some less good, okay? But you're just going to have to live with it." The two-part interview ended on that note... | | -- Before his McCain interview, Jake Tapper "accepted RTDNA's John F. Hogan Distinguished Service Award" on Friday evening in Anaheim... (RTDNA)
-- Lester Holt accepted the group's Paul White Award... he beamed into the conference via satellite from Florida... he said " if there is one audience who would understand [my absence] it is this one -- my fellow news people..." (TVNewser)
-- Margaret Sullivan's latest column is about reporting on rural America... (WashPost)
-- Tony Romo won some positive reviews for his first week as an "NFL on CBS" broadcaster... (Dallas News) | | It seems fitting that the news of Don Ohlmeyer's death -- too young, even at 72 -- was announced on "Sunday Night Football," the spiritual successor to "Monday Night Football," which he helped launch and then returned to decades later. "With great sadness I have to report on the death of a great pal, a man who was one of a kind, Don Ohlmeyer," Al Michaels said, breaking into the game to announce the news. After a brief run-through of Ohlmeyer's career, Michaels summed it up: "He was truly special and one of a kind."
-- Jim Miller tweets: "He was a visionary who loved both the art and business of television, and had strong opinions on both." | | Brian Lowry emails: Ohlmeyer was a controversial, polarizing figure, but a hugely influential executive in sports and entertainment, both as an executive and a producer. At NBC in the 1990s, he oversaw the network's third-to-first-place turnaround, launching hits like "ER" and "Friends" that anchored the "Must-See TV" slogan. He cut his professional teeth working on numerous sports events, including the Olympics and "Monday Night Football."
Ohlmeyer was frequently combative, labeling perceived enemies like then-Disney president Michael Ovitz "the antichrist," likening Fox's reality programs to "snuff films" and expressing his support for longtime friend O.J. Simpson during his murder trial. "I'm not a great politician," he told me when he left NBC in 1999. In recent years Ohlmeyer had been teaching and painting... | | Mourning the loss of Eric Bolling's son | | Unbelievably tragic news. Eric Bolling's son Eric Chase died on Friday night, just hours after his father lost a high-profile job at Fox. The cause of death has not been announced. A family friend told me on Saturday that an autopsy will take place on Monday. (The friend said there were no further updates on Sunday.)
-- What we know so far: Eric was starting his second year at the University of Colorado in Boulder. His parents learned of his death late Friday night and flew to Colorado on Saturday morning. "Authorities have informed us there is no sign of self harm at this point," his father tweeted. "Please respect our grieving period." | | The 16th anniversary of 9/11 | | The networks will pause Irma coverage on Monday morning to show the moments of silence at 9/11 memorial services in NY and VA. Local stations in NY will carry the 9/11 ceremonies live, as has been the tradition for over a decade. But this will be the first year since 2006 that MSNBC will not replay the "Today" show's coverage of 9/11. A spokesman said the decision had been made to "move away" from the rebroadcast even before Irma.
-- Photographer Bill Biggart was killed while covering the attacks. Six television transmission engineers were killed while working inside the North Tower...
-- What happened inside the network control rooms on 9/11? I wrote this reconstruction of the morning... | | -- Lucia Graves' latest for the Guardian: "The Wall Street Journal's Trump problem" (The Guardian)
-- Coming soon? "Twitter has built a feature that will allow you to post tweetstorms directly inside the app," Alex Kantrowitz reports... (BuzzFeed)
-- Chuck Schumer recounting a call from President Trump about the deal-with-Dems: "He said, 'This was so great!' Here's what he said: 'Do you watch Fox News?' I said, 'Not really.' 'They're praising you!' Meaning me. But he said, 'And your stations' -- I guess meaning MSNBC and CNN -- 'are praising me! This is great!'" (NYT) | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Tuesday: Hillary Clinton's book comes out. Mike Allen has the full list of interviews here...
-- Tuesday: Katy Tur's book about the Trump campaign comes out...
-- Tuesday 1pm ET: Apple's product launch event at its new HQ...
-- Thursday evening: I'll be moderating an event at 92Y with David Friend and Maureen Dowd... details here... | | What are Amazon's TV goals? | | Brian Lowry emails: Amazon is trying to redefine its programming strategy on the fly, canceling period dramas "The Last Tycoon" and "Z: The Beginning of Everything" after one season and telling Variety that it wants to find its own answer to "Game of Thrones."
Read between the lines, though, and it looks like a caution flag to the other new players crowding into the original programming business, given the high cost of developing that kind of signature franchise – about as easy to find as a unicorn – and the tacit admission of failure in opting to redirect its resources... | | | Frank Pallotta reports: "It" made a killing at the box office. The new adaptation of Stephen King's classic novel brought in an estimated $117.1 million for Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema at the North American box office this weekend. This is the largest opening for a film debuting in September, nearly $70 million more than the previous record. According to Warner Bros., it is also the largest opening for a horror movie ever... Read more... | | | Sunday's ceremony just wrapped at the time I'm sending this email... Variety has the fully-updated list of winners here... Both comedy guest actor awards went to "SNL," to hosts Melissa McCarthy (a.k.a. Sean Spicer) and Dave Chappelle... "This is Us" picked up its first Emmy... And HBO's "Westworld" "enjoyed early momentum..." Per Brian Lowry, HBO picked up 19 awards this weekend, and Netflix was on its heels with 15... | | Brian Lowry emails: Ava DuVernay's Netflix doc "13th" won for documentary special on the opening night of the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony, which also saw program awards go to James Corden's "Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special" and "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath" as variety special and informational series.
Other key winners on Saturday were BBC America's "Planet Earth II" as nonfiction series, and ABC's "Shark Tank" and CNN's "United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell" as structured and unstructured reality programs, respectively.
A footnote was that the major networks actually fared pretty well, with ABC (7) and NBC (6) leading the by-network tally, followed by Netflix at 5. Nomination leader HBO, with "Game of Thrones" playing outside the eligibility window, snagged just three... | | | 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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