| | | | | Politico's Friday night headline: "CNN error extends run of journalistic mishaps." NYT's Sydney Ember summed it up this way: "CNN gaffe caps a rough week for the news media." President Trump seized on the news to criticize the "fakers" at a Florida rally. Here's what happened... | | Oliver Darcy writes: On Friday afternoon CNN corrected an exclusive report that said candidate Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. had received an email providing a web address and decryption key that would allow them to access hacked documents from WikiLeaks before the documents were publicly available. When first published Friday morning, the story said the email was sent to the Trumps on September 4, 2016. It was corrected to say that the email was actually sent on Sept. 14, one day after WikiLeaks made the documents public.
--> CNN's original story relied on multiple sources who "described" the email. The story unraveled when the WashPos obtained a copy of the email in question, which CNN did not have, and reported the September 14 date. A CNN spokesperson said as soon as the network reviewed its reporting and independently confirmed the story was wrong, it moved to make the correction on TV and online. Here's Darcy's full story about the correction... | | CNN standing by the reporters | | With ABC's suspension of Brian Ross still in the news, Oliver and I immediately asked CNN PR about the status of the two reporters who filed the story, Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb.
A CNN spokesperson said there will not be disciplinary action in this case because the reporters followed CNN's editorial standards process, which requires review and approval of the use of anonymous sources. (Recall that ABC said Ross's faulty reporting on Dec. 1 "had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process.")
-- Erik Wemple quoted a CNN source: "People don't get fired at CNN for making a mistake. They get fired when they don't follow editorial procedures..."
-- Numerous journalists rallied around Manu on Twitter. Politico's Blake Hounshell: "Manu is a very hard-working, careful reporter." Jake Sherman: "One of the finest journalists I've ever known..." | | CNN says the sources were mistaken -- not malicious | | On Friday morning, the original story about Trump and WikiLeaks was in heavy rotation on CNN TV and was the lead story on CNN.com. Other networks scrambled to match the reporting. CBS did match it, complete with the erroneous date. The network issued a correction. NBC's followup did not include a date, but it did confirm the thrust of the report, as Wemple noted here.
So who were the confidential sources that led CNN and then CBS astray? My Twitter feed was full of journalists saying CNN should out the men/women. "They burned you, so you should burn them" was the idea. But CNN PR says the network does not believe that the sources intended to deceive the reporters... | | Trump pretends to thank CNN | | Trump's first mention of "fake news" at Friday's rally was met with a huge roar of approval. "Did you see all the corrections the media's been making?" He said, "they've been apologizing left and right." Without naming Ross, he said ABC's "fraudster" should have been "fired," and he repeated his sue-ABC recommendation.
Then he turned to CNN: "They apologized, oh thank you CNN, thank you so much," he said sarcastically. "You should have been apologizing for the last two years." For the record, CNN has not apologized... | | | Toward the end of the rally, Trump complained about "fake polls," including one that CNN reported earlier in the day. (I'm guessing he was referring to new Pew poll that has him at 32% approval.) "They'll have to apologize for that one," he said. Without missing a beat, he segued to this: "We need honesty. We need some love in the country. I'd love to bring both sides together if that's possible..." | | Fox's error about that yearbook | | "No, Roy Moore accuser didn't admit she forged his signature in her yearbook," PolitiFact said Friday afternoon. The fact-check was prompted by several false claims from pro-Trump/pro-Roy Moore media outlets and blogs.
FoxNews.com got it wrong in a web headline. Beverly Young Nelson told ABC that she added "notes" underneath Moore's inscription, but said "he did sign" the yearbook. Fox posted an article titled "Roy Moore accuser admits she forged part of yearbook inscription" and corrected it after commenters pointed out the misuse of the word "forged..." | | | -- Vox's Jane Coaston writes: "Far-right media sites are doing Moore a big favor: They're giving voters an alternate version of reality so they don't have to admit they support someone accused of child molestation..." | | 🎧 "Reliable" podcast with Margaret Sullivan | | | On this week's "Reliable Sources" podcast, I asked Margaret Sullivan about her recent trip to Alabama... Moore's campaign against the media... the optics of endorsements... and much more. Check out the podcast on iTunes... or through other podcast services... And read Julia Waldow's recap here! | | This Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | | We'll be talking about all of these issues... Trump's rally, CNN's mistake, editorial standards, etc... with Carl Bernstein, David Frum, Elaina Plott, David Axelrod... plus two Alabamians, Kyle Whitmire and Dale Jackson... and we'll have Senator Ben Cardin. Questions? Ideas? Email me. See you Sunday at 11am ET on CNN... | | -- Veteran news anchor Maria Elena Salinas signed off from Univision on Friday... "It's time to go find other audiences," she told the AP in an exit interview... (AP)
-- Paul Waldman's latest, citing my Thursday column about Fox's anti-Mueller drumbeat: "How Republicans are immunizing their voters against whatever Mueller uncovers..." (WashPost)
-- Trump likes to call the WashPost the "Amazon Washington Post." So this is notable: Over the summer, "twice he asked me if I thought Amazon was a monopoly," hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman said on CNBC... (CNNMoney) | | | "The parent company of the Boston Herald filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday and will look to sell the newspaper to Gatehouse Media LLC," Reuters reports. "The sale to Gatehouse, which publishes daily and weekly newspapers in Massachusetts, is pending court approval. Financial details were not disclosed..." | | "On Point" host Tom Ashbrook suspended | | Another public broadcaster is coming under scrutiny. "Boston University and WBUR are suspending Tom Ashbrook, host of 'On Point,'" the late morning program that airs on NPR affiliates across the country, WBUR reported Friday afternoon.
Why? "Some allegations" were received by BU and WBUR. The station won't get into the details of what was alleged. Ashbrook said he is "stunned at the situation" but "there's a process and I respect the process."
There was even more media news out of Boston on Friday... | | A resignation at the Boston Globe | | | Boston talk radio was abuzz Friday morning about a Boston Globe reporter who resigned under pressure amid allegations of inappropriate behavior. Later in the day, the Globe published a lengthy story about the paper's own self-examination, but chose not to identify the employee "because his alleged conduct did not involve physical contact, threats, or persistent harassment, and editors determined it is highly unlikely the newspaper would have identified the accused, or written about his conduct, if this situation had arisen at another private company." While that's obviously a controversial decision, the story is remarkably transparent in several ways... | | NBC News is conducting a "culture assessment" and requiring "harassment-prevention training for all its employees," NBC's Claire Atkinson reports. VF reported on Thursday that an outside firm is providing the training...
-- More: Andy Lack said in a memo that the post-Matt Lauer review will take "several more weeks..." Per THR, "the initial interview list contains roughly 40 employees, and Lack said 'that number will expand as more is learned through the process...'" | | | Katie Couric's first public comment about the Lauer scandal came in a response to an Instagram commenter. "It's incredibly upsetting and I will say something when I'm ready to." | | Kantor and Twohey writing a book | | Penguin Press will publish a book by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey about "the sexual abuse and harassment scandals that have convulsed the nation over the past two months," NYT's Maggie Astor reported Thursday night.
Penguin Press president and EIC Ann Godoff "made the deal for the book's North American distribution rights with Ms. Kantor's and Ms. Twohey's literary agent, Elyse Cheney. No publication date has been set." This will be Twohey's first book. Kantor's first book, "The Obamas," was a bestseller in 2012... | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
--Trump's use of the phrase "fake news" has crossed borders, Politico Magazine observes. Politicians and state media in at least 15 countries have used the phrase to challenge real news and quash dissent... (Politico)
-- Daniel Funke writes about a law proposed in Ireland that would criminalize the sharing of "fake news" and make those responsible go to jail and be fined €10,000... (Poynter)
-- Here's one for the 280 skeptics: Based on SocialFlow data, BuzzFeed concludes that longer tweets are being retweeted and liked twice as much as shorter ones... (BuzzFeed) | | Congressional press gallery responds to RT's criticism | | Hadas Gold emails: Last week RT's congressional press credentials were yanked because the production company which produces their work in the United States was forced to register as a foreign agent with the DOJ. In a statement, RT said it was unfair, considering other outlets like NHK and China People's Daily were also registered under FARA.
On Friday, the executive committee of the Radio & Television Correspondents' gallery said that NHK will stay credentialed, noting that it is not actually NHK that has registered under FARA, but a U.S.-based company with some links to NHK, NHK Cosmomedia America, Inc. | | Seth Rogen's stand against Bannon and SiriusXM | | Julia Waldow emails: Seth Rogen says he has cancelled his upcoming interviews on SiriusXM over the company's decision to bring Stephen Bannon back to radio through "Breitbart News Daily," which airs on the satellite radio network's "Patriot" channel.
SiriusXM's spokesperson responded, in part, by saying that "SiriusXM takes no political position of our own across our more than 175 channels, but we are here to provide an open forum no matter where listeners stand on the political spectrum..." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Recommended reading: Ken Doctor breaks down the "three fault lines redrawing the U.S. media business" as we head into 2018: the drive for scale, the Google/Facebook duopoly, and the FCC... (Nieman Lab)
-- A new study by American University explores the benefits of "engagement design," or how principles of game design could help increase audience engagement in news... (AU)
-- The chairman of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Terry Savage, will step down in 2018, after 33 years with the event... (AdWeek) | | "YouTube Advertising Crackdown Puts Some Creators Out of Work" | | | The crackdown "is inadvertently depriving some creators of as much as 80 percent of their monthly sales," Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw reports... | | | For the record, part four | | | -- Correction: Yesterday for some inexplicable reason I quoted "Kevin Rice" when I meant "Peter Rice." My apologies to both Rices... Here's the Variety story, which got it right...
-- Here are the seven reporters that will be part of ProPublica's Local Reporting Network, and the newsrooms they will be working from... (ProPublica)
-- Apple is close to acquiring the media-identification app Shazam? That's what TechCrunch is reporting... (TechCrunch) | | "Big Little Lies" season two is really happening | | Sandra Gonzalez writes: No lie: "Big Little Lies" is officially coming back for another season. The critically acclaimed drama will once again mark a collaboration between stars and executive producers Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, with David E. Kelley once again set to executive produce and write. Most of the cast is also expected to return, per HBO, with negotiations underway.
-- More: Andrea Arnold, who won an Academy Award in 2005 for her short film "Wasp" and recently directed episodes of "Transparent," will direct the entire seven-episode season, taking over the job held by Jean-Marc Vallée in Season 1...
-- The second season will be "partially based" on a story by "Big Little Lies" author Liane Moriarty, the network said... | | "Star Wars" fans brace for "Last Jedi" | | Frank Pallotta emails: Audiences in galaxies both near and far, far away are less than a week away from "Star Wars: The Last Jedi." The next installment of the space saga opens in U.S. theaters next Thursday night, and analysts are having a hard time predicting the film's opening (I've heard everything from $190 million to $215 million).
We'll get our first taste of reaction following the world premiere in L.A. Saturday night, and then we hit lightspeed to the opening next weekend... | | Brian Lowry emails: It's going to be difficult to escape "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" this month. Coupled with all the other announced projects, it's caused some fretting about whether Disney risks saturating that far-away galaxy. It's still early, but the answer is not likely.
--> Here's Lowry's full column, "'Star Wars' galaxy leaves plenty of space to navigate..." | | "A Departure With Implications for Investors: Disney's John Lasseter" | | | Brian Lowry emails: Elsewhere in Disney news, the NYT's James Stewart asks whether John Lasseter's sabbatical ought to be enough to move the studio's stock. As important as Pixar is, given the massive scale of the company, that feels like a reach... | | | For the record, part five | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Dylan Farrow's opinion piece for the LA Times is getting a lot of attention. She's asking why her adoptive father Woody Allen, whom she has accused of molesting her when she was a child, hasn't suffered the same fate as others in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal...
-- "The Crown" star Matt Smith has an idea of who should play Meghan Markle on his series, should it go a few more seasons...
-- I sat down with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and talked about a home for abused girls he's opened near Atlanta. Janie's House takes its name from the hit song he wrote, "Janie's Got A Gun..." | | | 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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