| | | | Until Sunday evening, Harvey Weinstein thought he might hang on to his position at The Weinstein Company. But the company's board met on Sunday, unbeknownst to him, and decided to terminate his contract. A source with knowledge of the matter told me Weinstein knew he might be fired at some point -- but wasn't expecting it to happen on Sunday night.
What a difference three days makes. Until Thursday, when the NYT investigation hit, Weinstein seemed like a larger-than-life media mogul, albeit one whose power had diminished over the years. Now he's been forced out of the company he co-founded. The source told me the board's decision had a lot to do with the next wave of stories that's expected -- i.e. more stories about Weinstein's behavior toward women. (Scroll down for details about that...) | | -- Sunday night's announcement came from four directors, including Harvey's brother Bob...
-- Board members were furious "not just about revelations" of settlements with accusers, but also "his public attempts to defend himself," the WSJ reports...
-- The NYT interviewed board member Lance Maerov, who "said it has been brought to their attention that Mr. Weinstein violated the company's code of conduct at some point in the past week. But he would not specify what the violation was..."
-- Harvey had no immediate comment about his firing...
-- David Boies is assisting Weinstein with employment/unemployment matters... while Charles Harder is handling other matters...
-- Per the WSJ's Ben Fritz, "Bob and Harvey Weinstein together own 42% of Weinstein Co. Minority owners..." | | What about the company? Who knew what, when? | | Jake Tapper tweeted the key questions Sunday night: "So the Miramax partners had NO idea this had been going on for decades? And Weinstein paid all those settlements out of his own personal $$?"
-- Related: Upworthy's Laurie Stark tweeted: "Remember: The Weinstein Company didn't fire Harvey because they found out he was a sexual predator. They fired him because WE found out." | | Will more A-listers speak out now? | | Sandra Gonzalez emails from L.A.: Will more Hollywood A-listers feel empowered to speak about Weinstein now that he's officially been pushed out? As we pointed out on Friday and the NYT pointed out on Sunday, the lack of response from Weinstein's famous friends -- and top actors/actresses period -- has been notable and disappointing. Frankly, there's no avoiding the topic. (But "SNL" did on Saturday night.)
We're just at the start of award season here, and with at least one major movie premiere this week (Disney's "Thor: Ragnarok") it's time for celeb publicists to get those talking points in order. Of note: Benedict Cumberbatch is in "Thor: Ragnarok" and stars in The Weinstein Company's next release, "The Current War," set for release in November... | | NYT: Weinstein tried and failed to enlist support from top agents | | | "Weinstein has tried to rally support," Brooks Barnes reported in the aforementioned NYT piece. "According to two people briefed on the matter, who naturally spoke on the condition of anonymity, he reached out to top agents at William Morris Endeavor and Creative Artists Agency and asked them to sign a letter of support and release it publicly. They said no." | | "I see this as a tipping point. This is the moment we look back on and say, 'That's when it all started to change.'"
--Jenni Konner, executive producer of HBO's "Girls," speaking to the NYT... | | -- TheWrap's Sharon Waxman, formerly of the NYT, says she dug into Weinstein's behavior for a 2004 story... but The Times "gutted it under pressure..."
-- 🔌: Waxman and I will be on CNN's "New Day," Monday around 8:45am ET...
-- Page Six says New York mag "fumbled its own Weinstein expose" a year ago... The mag says "we couldn't get the story to the point where we had sufficient confirmation and sourcing to publish..."
-- BuzzFeed's Anne Helen Petersen: "For women, knowledge of abusive men — obtained via gossip or whisper networks — isn't frivolous or titillating. It is a means of survival..."
-- On WashingtonPost.com: "'When did you meet YOUR Harvey Weinstein?' Thousands share workplace sex assault stories online..." | | | Via Jodi Kantor's Facebook page, this was the scene in the NYT newsroom when the editors pressed publish on Kantor and Megan Twohey's story. Notice exec editor Dean Baquet's presence... and the "TRUTH IS HARD" pin on the cubicle in the foreground... | | Friday: Weinstein Co. kept the door open | | | In a Friday statement, board members said they supported Weinstein's choice to take a "leave of absence," and they left the door open for him to return to the film company someday. "Next steps will depend on Harvey's therapeutic progress, the outcome of the Board's independent investigation, and Harvey's own personal decisions," they said... | | Lisa Bloom announced via Twitter that she had resigned from Team Weinstein. (According to the NYT, some board members did not approve of her approach... details here...) Around the same time, a source confirmed that Lanny Davis had also stopped representing Weinstein. So that left David Boies and Charles Harder.
Perhaps most ominously, some clients said they might stop working with Weinstein Co. For instance, Mika Brzezinski tweeted: "I have a three-book deal with Weinstein Books, through Hachette. I can't go forward with those books unless Harvey resigns..." | | Sunday: Damaging new stories | | | I can't emphasize this enough: There are more stories in the works, by more news outlets, including The New Yorker. The board's Sunday night statement alluded to "new information about misconduct..." | | Monday: New accuser speaks on NBC | | HuffPost's Yashar Ali had the first interview with Lauren Sivan, a TV news reporter who came forward and accused Weinstein of committing a lewd act in front of her. She said it happened in 2007. After the story came out, she tweeted, "For those asking why I waited? YOU try telling that story 10 years ago. Only possible now because of women with bigger names far braver than me."
NBC sought to book her, and confirmed on Sunday night that she'll be on "Megyn Kelly Today" on Monday morning -- Sivan's first TV interview about Weinstein. Some viewers will no doubt recall Kelly's own experience being harassed by Roger Ailes... | | Cosby, Ailes, Trump, O'Reilly, Weinstein... | | On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," I said we are in the middle of a profound cultural shift in this country, emphasizing the word middle. We're not all the way there yet. The political Republican versus Democrat arguments about "who's the bigger hypocrite" are a sideshow. This is really about how all men of all political leanings -- especially men in powerful positions -- treat women. Power imbalances still exist at many media companies and at many other kinds of companies.
It's a good sign, I said, that these terrible stories are finally coming to light. The Gretchen Carlsons and Ashley Judds and Rose McGowans deserve our respect. But America still needs to make it easier for all women to speak up and have equal pay, treatment and positions of power. And that won't happen so long as it is only women fighting... | | "That's changed radically just in the last two years" | | Ryan Murphy speaking with The New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum at TNY Festival over the weekend:
Murphy: "In this society, most women have a Harvey Weinstein in their life. There is always a minefield you navigate when you're a woman... I know my way around an Oscar-winning lady or two, and whenever he would come up in conversation, there was always this 'ick' or 'ugh' type of reaction. All of the women I spoke to would say that. All of them. I wondered what was up with that."
On a more optimistic note, Murphy added: "I see it every day -- how men in the business used to behave and now how quickly you are slapped to the ground if you try that in a corporate environment. That's changed radically just in the last two years." | | -- A moving tribute to the Las Vegas victims: "SNL" opened with Jason Aldean speaking and performing a Tom Petty cover... (CNNMoney)
-- Margaret Sullivan's Monday column: "Hillary Clinton thinks the news media was unfair to her. She's right." (WashPost)
-- Jim Rutenberg's Monday column: About Bob Iger, Disney and 2020... (NYT) | | Trump v. Corker (or is it Corker v. Trump?) | | What's Senator Bob Corker really saying with Sunday's tweet heard 'round the Beltway? "It's a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning," he wrote. He's saying, not for the first time, that he doubts President Trump's stability. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Republican chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee is raising questions about Trump's fitness for office.
My question: Is there any bigger story in politics today than the fitness of the President of the United States? That's what Corker is getting at... | | Corker's tweet far surpassed Trump's tweet... | | | In case you're wondering: Corker's single "adult day care" tweet has picked up about TEN TIMES as many Twitter shares (retweets) as any of Trump's tweets about Corker. Right now it's 100,000+ versus 10,000 each... | | Then Corker spoke to the NYT... | | This interview will drive morning show conversations, and deservingly so... Corker told the NYT's Jonathan Martin and Mark Landler that all of the Senate Republicans, "except for a few," share his concerns about Trump... "I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it's a situation of trying to contain him," Corker said...
--> According to JMart, Corker wasn't speaking off the cuff... This was a well-thought-out interview... "Corker is effectively staging a slow-rolling public intervention with Trump..." | | | Charlie Sykes, author of the new book "How The Right Lost Its Mind," on "Reliable Sources:" "I think what you're seeing is people willing to SAY what people have KNOWN for a long time... Guys like Bob Corker, I think, have reached the point where it's like, can we not pretend that the emperor is not naked? Can we not pretend that the emperor is not unstable?" Here's the video... | | Calling this what it is: a stunt | | VP Mike Pence was in Las Vegas honoring the victims of the massacre on Saturday. Then he flew home to Indiana. He showed up at the Colts-49ers game on Sunday... left the stadium when some of the 49ers kneeled during the National Anthem... issued a detailed statement just a few minutes later... and then headed back out west for a fund-raiser in L.A. If it walks like a stunt and it talks like a stunt...
--> Via Rene Marsh, here's the price tag for the trip... | | Trump has lots of time to tweet on Monday... | | | Monday is Columbus Day. It's going to be "a rare day for President Trump: No public events scheduled, per White House guidance just distributed," WashPost's Philip Rucker wrote. Lots of time for "rage-tweeting," the Toronto Star's Daniel Dale quipped... | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Check out this weekend Twitter thread by a FB executive, tweeted from a personal account, offering a rather candid reflection on the challenges the company faces... (Twitter, TechCrunch)
-- Fast Company looks at how Giphy might just have what it takes to challenge the duopoly: it has the largest distribution of six-second content across platforms, and their ads have the benefit of not looking like ads... (Fast Company)
-- Facebook might be enlisting the Weekly Standard as a fact-checking partner... (Quartz) | | Dove apologizes for offensive ad | | | "Dove apologized this weekend for a social media post that the company says 'missed the mark' representing black women," CNNMoney's Jackie Wattles reports. The offensive ad was a three-second GIF showing "a looping image of a black woman removing a dark brown t-shirt to reveal a white woman. She then removes her beige t-shirt to show a third woman." Dove posted it on Friday and took it down on Saturday... | | | CBS sports writer Jason La Canfora said on TV Sunday morning that Colin Kaepernick would stand for the national anthem if he signed with another NFL team. The AP sent out an alert about the news. But then La Canfora said he never actually asked the quarterback about the issue. What a confusing story... a bad look for both CBS and the AP... CNNMoney's Jill Disis has the details here... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Monday night: The Murrow Awards in NYC...
-- Wednesday night: Quartz's five-year anniversary party...
-- Thursday: Jason Aldean resumes his tour in Tulsa after cancelling several tour dates in the wake of the Las Vegas attack...
-- Friday: Variety's Power of Women event in Beverly Hills...
(PR people: You can add items to the calendar! Email me) | | Dems drafting bill aimed at social media ads | | | We ran out of time for this interview on TV, but I taped a conversation with Senator Amy Klobuchar about her proposed bill that would require social media companies to disclose details about political ad buys. Klobuchar and Mark Warner will be introducing the legislation later this month. Here's video of our interview... | | Highlights from Sunday's show | | -- "We're not stenographers," Wash Post exec editor Marty Baron said... If you're a media junkie, you'll love what Baron had to say about the Post's quest for the truth...
-- "We've broken down our immunity to false information, hoaxes, and propaganda," Charlie Sykes told me...
-- Confidential sources should be used sparingly, but sometimes they're the "only way to get important information," Joanne Lipman said...
-- Brian Karem said Trump is "punking us" in the press and trying to create distractions by calling things "fake news..." | | Listen to the podcast here... | | "Fox & Friends" host says she doesn't want to "come across as being in the tank" for Trump | | Oliver Darcy emails: In a profile published Sunday, "Fox & Friends" co-host Ainsley Earhardt lamented about bias in the "mainstream media," telling Business Insider that it "can be frustrating to see a one-sided story" play out on the news. Earhardt continued to say "we are inflicting opinion in our newscasts like never before." The "Fox & Friends" co-host finally added, "I do not want to come across as being in the tank for [the Trump admnistration] or kissing their tails. I mean, I want to be a journalist, I want to ask tough questions." All of this seemed pretty rich coming from Earhardt, who co-hosts a program some have joked should be called "Trump & Friends."
Has Earhardt watched her own show? Where were these tough questions she wants to ask when she interviewed Trump earlier this year? The last time she interviewed the president, Earhardt lobbed up so many softballs Mediaite's Colby Hall said it basically amounted to state-run television. It's easy to sit back and talk about how you want to ask tough questions. Show us, Ainsley... | | Speaking of the president being interviewed by "Friends..." | | On Sunday's "Reliable," I pointed out that the president's last formal, sit-down TV *news* interview was way back in May... when NBC's Lester Holt interviewed him at the White House... since then, Trump's only TV chats have been with "friends" like Geraldo Rivera, Pat Robertson and most recently Mike Huckabee.
The caveat here is that he's given interviews to journalists from the NYT and Reuters, among other outlets. And he's held a # of informal press conferences. But the traditional three-camera shoot with a top TV journalist? Nope, none of those since May... | | Trump taking credit for coining the term "fake news" !? | | CNN's Chris Cillizza writes: "Donald Trump has a grandiose view of himself and his centrality to, well, everything. He is the first mover. He comes up with things. Like the idea of putting the words 'fake' and 'news' together."
Here's the Trump quote in question: "The media is really, the word, one of the greatest of all terms I've come up with, is 'fake.' I guess other people have used it perhaps over the years but I've never noticed it. And it's a shame. And they really hurt the country. Because they take away the spirit of the country."
Cillizza's reaction: "This is not satire. Even though it does sound exactly like Dr. Evil's memory of his father in 'Austin Powers:' 'He would make outrageous claims, like he invented the question mark.'" | | "Blade Runner 2049" misfires at the box office | | | Frank Pallotta writes: "Blade Runner 2049" took the top spot at the box office this weekend, but it failed to meet expectations. The sequel to the 1982 science fiction classic brought in an estimated $31.5 million during its opening in North America. That's way less than the $50 million it was expected to pull for its debut. The sluggish box office numbers come as a bit of surprise... Read more from Frank here... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... I 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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