| | | | | Exec summary: A new leak about leaking... Unanswered Q's about Facebook... strong "Sunday Night Football" ratings... insights from Lachlan Murdoch and Bob Bakish... plus, Sean Spicer is on "Jimmy Kimmel Live..." and Jim Rutenberg's story about Russia state-owned media is a must-read... | | Trump White House aides sometimes pressure media executives about reporters and commentators they don't like -- but it happens in private. On Wednesday it happened on-camera for all to see.
From the White House podium, Sarah Sanders said Jemele Hill's tweet calling President Trump a "white supremacist" was a "fireable offense by ESPN." It was a highly unusual moment -- a W.H. official seemingly recommending that a Trump critic be booted from a TV network. Some media types spoke out against the chilling nature of the comment by Sanders. But others focused on Hill's original claim, which Sanders called "outrageous." To get caught up on this story... what Hill said, how the conservative mediasphere reacted, how ESPN distanced itself from her comments... read my full story here... | | Hill had no immediate response to Sanders. Neither did ESPN. There was no mention of the controversy on Hill's 6 p.m. talk show "SC6." But her co-host Michael Smith expressed support for her by saying "you're looking at the best team on TV" at the very start of Wednesday's show.
Look, ESPN finds itself in an exceedingly difficult position here. Maybe the network will decline to comment further, and let Hill's on-air work speak for itself... | | "It is time we stop pretending..." | | Hill is far from the first person to call POTUS a white supremacist or make similarly incendiary statements. The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote just last week that Trump's "ideology is white supremacy." The WashPost's Wesley Lowery called Coates' piece "a more meticulously reasoned transcript of every black writer group text" he's been in since the election.
So yes, these conversations are happening -- often in private, occasionally in public. So what makes Hill different? Why the controversy this time? Well, partly it's that ESPN has been under unique scrutiny by conservative groups and sports world rivals...
-- I was struck by this: ESPN's veteran NFL reporter Jim Trotter expressed support for Hill and told SI's Richard Deitsch: "Black folk are tired and we have to recognize some of the things that are going on in this country and we have to be honest about it and meet it head on. If you are black and know the history of our country, you can understand her frustration. It is time we stop pretending it is not true..."
-- The National Association of Black Journalists also backed up Hill on Wednesday night... | | -- Fox's framing: Is there an "ESPN double standard? Fired Curt Schilling reacts..."
-- The Federalist publisher Ben Domenech tweeted: "The WH and Trump supporters should want Jemele Hill calling him a white supremacist every week..."
-- Peter Beinart to conservatives: "If you think the Google guy deserved to keep his job on free speech grounds, don't you have to defend her too?"
-- NYDN sports columnist Carron J. Phillips: "ESPN knew who Jemele Hill was when they hired her, and they knew what they were getting when they decided to make her the co-host of her own daily SportsCenter. Which is why it has been frustrating to watch a company give someone so much, but then do little to protect one of their best assets and talents..."
-- Dylan Byers tweeted: "The call for the ESPN firing is intended as a distraction to get the media going. Move on to bigger things..." | | 1,000 letters to the FCC about CNN | | | The NY Daily News "obtained about 1,200 pages of FCC complaints about 2017 Trump news coverage" through FOIA. "More than 90%" of them "focus on CNN, and the term 'CNN' appears more than 8,600 times. By comparison, complaints about NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News total fewer than 100 combined." Jason Silverstein says hundreds of the complaints "call for CNN to be taken off the air or lose its broadcasting license, which the FCC cannot do..." | | | FACEBOOK AND THE 2016 ELECTION | | One week after Facebook's initial disclosures about Russia-linked ad purchases in the run-up to election day, the company still hasn't detailed "where the ads actually appeared," or "any of the specific ad content," Mother Jones points out. The site's headline: "Facebook Is Still Hiding Crucial Russia Intel From the Public."
-- The Daily Beast notes: "Users may never know if they were targeted during the election -- or are still being targeted now..." | | | A "red-hot" focus of Mueller's team... | | Today in "stories Mark Zuckerberg hates to see..."
"Russia's effort to influence U.S. voters through Facebook and other social media is a 'red-hot' focus of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation," Bloomberg's Chris Strohm reported Wednesday, citing "U.S. officials familiar with the matter." He said Mueller's team "is seeking additional evidence from companies like Facebook and Twitter about what happened on their networks..." | | | "Leaks about efforts to stop leaks" are always fascinating and at least a little bit funny. So hats off to BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner for this one: A memo from National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster directing "top officials to warn staff against leaking information in a government-wide training program." BuzzFeed's subhed on the story: "We got the memo...." | | Geidner wasn't the only beneficiary of confidential sources on Wednesday. Here's a sampling of the day's other scoops...
-- ABC News: "Treasury Secretary Mnuchin requested government jet for European honeymoon."
-- NBC: "Trump FEMA Nominee Withdraws After NBC Questions on Falsified Records."
-- Two exclusives in one day by CNN's Manu Raju: "Susan Rice told House investigators why she unmasked senior Trump officials" and "Justice Department declines Senate request to interview FBI officials over Comey firing." | | "Sunday Night Football" ratings are finally in, and they're up! But… | | | Frank Pallotta emails: After a Nielsen ratings delay due to Hurricane Irma, "Sunday Night Football" ratings are finally in, delivering good news for the NFL and NBC. The Giants-Cowboys season opener brought in a TV audience of 24.2 million viewers. That's up 5% from last year's Patriots-Cardinals opener. So what does that mean? Well, for me, TBD. The hurricane affected TV ratings in several different ways this weekend, and Giants-Cowboys is a more popular match up than Pats-Cards was, so I'm not exactly sure what the early numbers are saying just yet. Stay tuned... | | -- BREAKING: "Boomer and Carton" co-host Craig Carton has resigned amid Ponzi scheme charges... (NYPost)
-- Smart piece by Mat Honan: "Apple's Best Product Is Its Media Strategy..." (BuzzFeed)
-- Alexander Nazaryan's latest: "Since the return of Steve Bannon, Breitbart News has published close to 40 articles about him..." (Newsweek) | | | If you're reading this before 11:30pm, heads up, Sean Spicer is on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." If you're reading this after midnight, click over to our Media section page to read Frank Pallotta's recap of the interview... | | Today at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference: | | Fox's list of "five core TV brands" doesn't include Fox broadcasting | | AdWeek's Jason Lynch reports: "21st Century Fox executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch said that one of his company's top priorities is to 'focus on our five core television brands.' He went on to list those brands: National Geographic, FX, Fox Sports, Fox News and Asian-based Star TV. But missing from the list was Fox, the company's broadcast network. Though Murdoch didn't explain specifically why Fox didn't make the cut, he noted later in the discussion that 21st Century Fox has strong sports and news offerings," i.e. programming that's more likely to be watched live, with ads...
-- Lachlan also said he's "very confident" about ad trends, except on the local level... he attributed the "soft" local ad market to the retail industry's troubles...
-- Key quote: "Make no mistake, everyone will go direct-to-consumer." He means every major media company... soon... "in the short-to-medium term..." | | Lots of talk about the tough summer box office | | | Lachlan "attributed the disappointing summer box office to the lack of hit animation films..." Cinemark CEO Mark Zoradi said movie release date decisions were the primary cause... AMC Entertainment CFO Craig Ramsey said "moviegoing goes through some cycles..."` | | Viacom says sports-free bundle will have a soft launch by the end of this year | | "Viacom CEO Bob Bakish didn't announce the launch of a $20-a-month, sports-free pay TV bundle — but he came close — at" the event, Deadline's David Lieberman reports.
Bakish said "we are highly confident that a product will exist at this price point in this calendar year." He expressed confidence about quickly getting to a point "where all distributors offer all price points," including a lower-priced option without sports channels. "You don't want to churn consumers," Bakish said. "You want to upsell and downsell them..." | | Viacom feeling more and more confident about Trevor Noah | | | Per Lieberman, Bakish also went out of his way to praise "The Daily Show With Trevor Noah:" "Every sequential month, including in August, is his most watched month. He now has the largest audience of millennials in late-night TV against everybody. Jon Stewart was on the network for 18 years. Jon Stewart did not become Jon Stewart in one year. Trevor is in a very good path." | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Alaska's largest newspaper, the Alaska Dispatch News, was officially sold this week. Here's how the daily's former owner "demonstrated her faith in paper and ink," then came face to face with losses and bankruptcy... (LA Times)
-- When partisan politics meet "The Real World": Vice is casting an "experimental unscripted series" in which participants from "all walks of life and political extremes" live together in D.C.... (THR)
-- The NYT-owned gadget and tech site The Wirecutter is dropping the "the," and folding in The Sweethome... (NYT)
-- ICYMI: Does labeling stories as "fake news" on Facebook actually dissuade people from reading them? A new study from two researchers at Yale University concludes that tags can "backfire..." (Nieman Lab) | | Check out this CNN Digital doc... | | This town all but assures fake news will be a problem in 2020 too | | | CNN's Isa Soares traveled to Veles, Macedonia, the shady heart of the "fake news" industry, because she wanted to meet the people who churn out bogus stories and cash in from the clicks. A self-described "pioneer" of "fake news" told Soares that he's already gearing up for the 2020 U.S. election... Watch and read the special report here! | | Tom Kludt emails: There was plenty to mine in Bill O'Reilly's interview with THR's Marisa Guthrie, but this exchange stood out to me:
"How many subscribers do you have?"
"So we're never going to say. But it's hundreds of thousands."
It reminded me of the late comedian Mitch Hedberg, who had a great joke that went like this: "I cannot tell you what hotel I'm staying at, but there are two trees involved." O'Reilly can't tell you how many subscribers have signed up for premium content (namely his nightly podcast) on his website, but he will tell you that it's in the "hundreds of thousands." Fledgling podcasters, take note: what you lack in empirical evidence, you can more than make up for with unwavering conviction... | | How much influence does O'Reilly still have? | | | Kludt adds: Are those figures legit? Maybe. I've had an on again-off again debate with colleagues over just how much influence O'Reilly commands in his post-Fox life, and there's no question that his star had faded since he was sacked at the network. But he also has a fiercely loyal following, as I saw first hand in June when I took in O'Reilly's show out on Long Island. And O'Reilly clearly thinks he has something with his online venture. He told THR that he's not all that interested in partnering with a bigger company because his own enterprise on BillOReilly.com is "extremely lucrative." Earlier this summer, he unveiled a brand new set. And old "O'Reilly Factor" regulars like Dennis Miller have begun to join him. It's not crazy to think that he could turn his website into a meaningful platform... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Alexandra Steigrad snagged a rare interview with Anna Wintour... (WWD)
-- Running in the October issues of both Esquire US and Esquire UK: An in-depth profile of George Osborne, the former chancellor of the exchequer who has taken over London's Evening Standard... (Esquire)
-- MoviePass has been "overwhelmed with orders" after slashing the price from $30 a month to $10... (Bloomberg)
-- Here's a preview of YouTube chief business officer Robert Kyncl's new book about YouTube... (Recode) | | Everyone is talking about Rutenberg's NYT Mag cover story... | | Julia Waldow emails: It's a must-read. Jim Rutenberg traveled to Moscow to assess how Russia has used RT and Sputnik to create "the most effective propaganda operation of the 21st century so far, one that thrives in the feverish political climates that have descended on many Western publics." It'll be on the cover of this Sunday's NYT Mag...
-- Sarah Posner's take for WashPost: "Rutenberg's piece isn't the first effort to lift the veil on this insidious threat, nor will it be the last. But it's a crucial contribution to our understanding of the true nature of what can only be described as a Russian propaganda war -- in particular, how it is aimed at dividing us from one another, and undermining our own trust in our own institutions..."
-- MSNBC's Ari Melber to Rutenberg on Wednesday's "Beat:" "Jim, looking at your article, at the end of the day, is it just sort of a bummer? I mean, put the politics aside, you finish an article like yours, and you think, 'Gosh, it's only going to get worse, and there is no truth, and it's going to be abused by all these foreign entities.'" Hey, Rutenberg said, at least folks are aware of these info wars... | | | HRC's book remains #1 on Amazon... on Wednesday the press tour took her to the "Today" show, "The View," and "Anderson Cooper 360," among other outlets... she told Cooper she thinks it's time to abolish the Electoral College... | | Three more media critiques by Clinton | | Yesterday I wrote about Clinton's numerous complaints about news coverage of her life and her campaign. Today, three more:
-- Talking with The New Yorker's David Remnick about how her campaign tried to warn people about Russian meddling before election day: "Everybody in the press basically thought we were overstating, exaggerating, making it up..."
-- Talking with Vox's Ezra Klein: "I don't think the press did their job in this election, with very few exceptions..."
-- Talking with Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie: "Our press, which is such an essential part of our country, our democracy, has to take some hard look at how it covered what was the first reality TV candidate..." | | LAT: Directors are "increasingly interchangeable" | | | Brian Lowry emails: This Los Angeles Times story examines the recent firings of directors off high-profile projects, including the ninth "Star Wars" movie and Han Solo stand-alone. As the story notes, though, such changes aren't necessarily new, and several of the more notable ones lately have involved "Star Wars" or superhero franchises where the studio behind them, Lucasfilm and Marvel, are working with elaborate, interlocking universes and actually approach individual films as cogs in a larger machine. The money quote comes from ICM Partners' Chris Silbermann: "When you are talking about a globally branded film, like a Marvel movie, executives are more like brand managers -- they are very involved in the project..." | | Lowry reviews "American Assassin" | | | Brian Lowry emails: "American Assassin" is a conspicuous attempt by Lionsgate and CBS Films to create their own action franchise. But the movie, based on Vince Flynn's novels, plays like "The Bourne Identity" for Dummies... | | Rihanna's new makeup line throws all kinds of shade | | | Melissah Yang emails: Rihanna's new makeup line is throwing all kinds of shade at the beauty industry -- literally. Fenty Beauty launched last week with 40 foundation colors, and people are loving the inclusive range. Many of the foundation's deep tones are sold out, illustrating the high demand for makeup that caters to women of color. Here's my full story... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- "Today" co-host Kathie Lee Gifford is mourning the death of her mother. Joan Epstein was well known to the morning show's viewers because of her appearances and her daughter's warm words. Epstein, who was 87, died Tuesday...
-- Yep, she's a Jr. Tennis great Serena Williams introduced the world to her newborn daughter on Wednesday. The little girl shares her father's name: Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. She also shares a Grand Slam title with her mother, as little Alexis was in her belly when Williams won the Australian Open in January...
-- Judge Judy gave students the gift of debate in the form of the new Sheindlin Forum at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism...
-- Liam Neeson might be "Taken" a break. The 65-year-old actor say he feels like he's aged out of playing those action roles that require him to have a "very particular set of skills..." | | | 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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