| | | | | Exec summary: Hope you had a great weekend! Golden Globe nominations come out Monday... Moore v. Jones is in the final stretch... And Disney's launch of "The Last Jedi" is underway... | | President Trump tweeted half a dozen times about "fake" news over the weekend... In the most recent tweet, he complained that there's been "very little discussion of all the purposely false and defamatory stories put out this week by the Fake News Media." (Hope or Sarah, sign him up for this newsletter!)
"They are out of control -- correct reporting means nothing to them," the president said, demeaning an entire class of professionals. "Major lies written, then forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed...a stain on America!"
He's obviously tapping into the outrage over CNN's correction on Friday and other recent media missteps. But can we have some real talk here for a minute? | | All of these things are true: | | Readers/viewers have many genuine complaints about news coverage.
Mistakes are inevitable, but they take on new meaning in this extremely polarized environment.
The hypersonic news cycle and the Twitter echo chamber means that inaccurate stories spread far and wide before being corrected.
"Slow down" is useful advice for journalists, but only a partial solution.
Errors are teachable moments for journalists and readers. But errors are also exploited by bad faith actors. Relatively minor mistakes are sometimes blown up into major offenses.
Corrections are embarrassing, but corrections show a good faith effort to get to the truth.
Many of the loudest critics of the press don't live by the same standards they seek to impose on others. The hypocrisy burns.
But: No amount of hypocrisy or anti-media hatred excuses journalists from doing their jobs carefully.
Some Trump supporters believe the press is participating in a conspiracy to take him down. Some Trump detractors WANT the press to take him down.
These problems aren't going away. | | "Journalists make mistakes," Carl Bernstein said on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." "Our record as journalists in covering this Trump story and the Russian story is pretty good, especially compared to the record of Donald Trump and his serial lying." I interjected: "You're saying our record is pretty good. But why would a Trump supporter believe that given this repetitive string of errors?"
"Well, I don't think a Trump supporter would believe it," he said... "People are looking for information that re-enforces what they already believe instead of the best obtainable version of the truth..."
--> Bernstein also brought up the big mistake he made while covering Watergate, and said, "I wonder if we would have been fired for that mistake instead of continuing on the story..." The Hill wrote up his remarks here... | | Agree/disagree with Frum? | | Also on "Reliable," David Frum made the case that "the mistakes are precisely the reason the people should trust the media."
"Look," Frum said, "astronomers make mistakes all the time because science is a process of discovery of truth. Astrologers never make mistakes, or at least they never own up to them, because what they are offering is a closed system of ideology and propaganda. Faced with wrongdoing circled by lies, the process of piercing the lies to uncover the truth about the wrongdoing is inherently not only difficult but adversarial, because the people are trying to find the truth are offered against bad faith actors engaged in concealment. So, they get partial pieces of the truth. In the process, there are going to be overshoots and undershoots." Watch the full segment here...
--> A counterpoint by RedState's Jay Caruso: "This kind of response will only fuel the anger, not extinguish it..." | | Is it appropriate for the president to call for individual journalists to be fired? | | That's where we are right now. "He should be fired," @realDonaldTrump said Saturday night while assailing Dave Weigel of the WashPost.
Weigel had already been catching heat for tweeting and then deleting a picture questioning the size of Trump's rally crowd. Then Trump chimed in and sent a hailstorm of hateful @replies in Weigel's direction. Here's what WashPost PR told me: "Dave Weigel relied on an inaccurate image in tweeting about President Trump's rally in Pensacola. When others pointed out the mistake to Weigel, he quickly deleted the tweet. And when he was later addressed by the president on Twitter, he promptly apologized for it."
The apology evidently wasn't enough, because Trump's second tweet called for Weigel's firing. The Post is standing by him... | | Fox anchor mistakenly says Weigel was fired | | During a segment about "fake news" on Sunday afternoon, Fox News anchor Leland Vittert said that Weigel "doesn't have a job anymore." "Yeah," his guest Jeff Katz said. Lest you think it was a slip of the tongue, Vittert later said Weigel has "left" the Post.
Per Mediaite's Justin Baragona, Vittert came back later to apologize: "I misspoke... He is still with The Washington Post, and I want, with that, to apologize for my mistake..." | | | I'll be talking about all this with Bill Carter on CNN's "New Day" around 6:45am ET Monday... Keep scrolling for more... Including reactions to the NYT's terrific story about Trump's TV habits... | | Moore running plays from Trump's playbook | | Tuesday's Alabama special election is almost here. It "has become a battle between Roy Moore and you guys" (meaning the media) "and he's going to win," local radio host Dale Jackson told me on "Reliable Sources." Elaina Plott is also predicting a Moore victory; she said it would show other Republicans that "the media is a credible opponent."
Columnist Kyle Whitmire had a very different view: The GOP has created a "reality distortion field" that gives people "license to disbelieve things that they don't want to be true," he said. And what about Moore's opponent Doug Jones? Why isn't he getting more airtime? Whitmire's response: "We don't cover houses that aren't on fire." Video here... | | Jones said Sunday that Moore "is in hiding." Per BuzzFeed, Moore "hasn't held a public event since a Tuesday rally" with Steve Bannon. The pair are scheduled to campaign together again on Monday evening...
--> Sen. Richard Shelby slammed Moore in an interview with Jake Tapper on Sunday. Per CNNPolitics, Jones "will roll out a statewide robocall Monday quoting Shelby's emphatic criticisms..." | | -- Happy birthday to our media team's fearless leader, senior editor for media Alex Koppelman!
-- Margaret Sullivan's Monday column: "How do you use an anonymous source? The mysteries of journalism everyone should know..." (WashPost)
-- "Simeon Booker, intrepid chronicler of civil rights struggle for Jet and Ebony, dies at 99." Emily Langer's obit notes that "few reporters risked more to chronicle the civil rights movement than Mr. Booker..." (WashPost) | | Hoda continuing to fill in on "Today" | | | Hoda Kotb has been sitting next to Savannah Guthrie ever since Matt Lauer was fired on Nov. 29... Kotb will continue to fill in this week, I hear... | | Golden Globe noms on Monday | | | Alfre Woodard, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Bell, and Sharon Stone will announce the noms beginning at 8:15am ET Monday... GoldenGlobes.com will have a live stream... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Tuesday night: Wall-to-wall cable coverage of the Alabama special election...
-- Wednesday 10am ET: SAG nominations...
-- Thursday: The FCC will vote to repeal Obama-era "net neutrality" rules...
-- Thursday night: World premiere of "The Post" in DC... | | About 6,300 people attended Disney's world premiere of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" at the Shrine Auditorium on Saturday night... Rian Johnson dedicated the night to Carrie Fisher... Deadline has a recap of the evening here...
"Last Jedi" reviews are embargoed til noon ET on Tuesday, according to MetaCritic, but our in-house expert Frank Pallotta says the buzz is already very strong. We're less than 96 hours away from the Thursday night showtimes... | | Sirius XM faces celebrity backlash after Steve Bannon rejoins radio show | | CNNMoney's Jackie Wattles reports: Steve Bannon's return to the "Breitbart News Daily" show on SiriusXM is kicking up some celebrity backlash. Actors Seth Rogen, John Leguizamo, and singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge have all promised to boycott Sirius...
Etheridge, the host of an interview show on Sirius, said, "I can no longer in good conscience be a part of my show..." And Leguizamo said he cancelled his satellite radio subscription... Read more... | | -- "Live with Kelly and Ryan" is working. The 9am show is about 650,000 viewers ahead of "Megyn Kelly Today," John Koblin reports in this Monday NYT profile... (NYT)
-- Via NBC PR: "Megyn Kelly will have an exclusive live sit-down interview on Monday, Dec. 11 with three women who have publicly accused President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct." It's the first joint interview with Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey and Rachel Crooks...
-- From Friday: A Q&A with Jezebel's new EIC Koa Beck... (CJR) | | Janice Min's next project | | | Janice Min is teaming up with Nina Tassler "to launch a new TV and digital-media production company -- and women will be running the show," Alexandra Steigrad reports in one of her first stories for the NYPost. "The LA-based startup, slated to launch in the coming months, will focus on projects led by females, including writers, directors and producers..." | | NYT's must-read about Trump and 📺 | | "Trump spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted," Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush and Peter Baker reported in this Sunday must-read. They cited "people close to him" for the four-to-eight-hours figure.
I was struck by this: "During the morning, aides monitor 'Fox & Friends' live or through a transcription service in much the way commodities traders might keep tabs on market futures to predict the direction of their day. If someone on the show says something memorable and Mr. Trump does not immediately tweet about it, the president's staff knows he may be saving Fox News for later viewing on his recorder and instead watching MSNBC or CNN live -- meaning he is likely to be in a foul mood to start the day..." | | Wondering about Thrush's byline? | | | Thrush was suspended three weeks ago... This story was in the works for well over a month... It includes this note at the bottom: "Glenn Thrush contributed to this article before he was suspended pending the result of an investigation into allegations of inappropriate behavior." | | | David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Obama, on Sunday's "Reliable Sources: "I'm wondering, how's the work getting done? Who is making these decisions? If the president is consumed by watching cable television, who is doing the work of sifting through those complex issues and arriving at an answer? Or, is that work getting done?" | | More "Reliable Sources" highlights | | -- Carl Bernstein said pro-Trump TV and radio hosts are "abetting a cover-up" by attacking Robert Mueller's investigation...
-- I asked Senator Ben Cardin about the tit for tat between Russia and the U.S. over news outlets registering as "foreign agents..."
-- Axelrod and I talked about a milestone for his "Axe Files" podcast: episode #200... | | 3 ways to catch up on the show | | | For the record, part three | | | -- "Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme was caught on video Saturday night deliberately kicking a female photographer in the face at KROQ's annual holiday concert in Inglewood." He issued an apology to Chelsea Lauren on Sunday... (LATimes)
-- Anthony D'Alessandro's scoop: "The Orchard has confirmed that it is wrapping up a deal to sell the global rights for 'I Love You, Daddy' back to filmmaker and star Louis C.K..." (Deadline)
-- Here's Brian Lowry's review of the new live-action "Jumanji..." (CNN)
-- And check out the new trailer for Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One..." | | "The Walking Dead" midseason finale | | | Brian Lowry is watching... And he'll have a review on CNN.com overnight... | | | NYT's Brooks Barnes with a recap of the sleepy weekend box office full of holdover films: "Playing in 3,748 theaters, 'Coco' (Disney-Pixar) took in an estimated $18.3 million, for a three-week total of $135.5 million, according to comScore, which compiles box office data. 'Justice League' (Warner Bros.) collected about $9.6 million, for a four-week domestic total of $212.1 million -- a not-very-superheroic sum that has Warner rethinking its management of DC Comics films yet again. Third place went to the tear-jerker 'Wonder' (Lionsgate), which nosed across the $100 million mark in North America by selling about $8.5 million in tickets in its fourth weekend..." | | Why "Coco" is so much more than your average box office hit | | | Sandra Gonzalez writes: How is it Pixar's charming, Mexico-set animated film "Coco," which highlights a culture on the other side of a border wall the current administration aims to expand, found its way to triumph in the age of Trump? Like the film itself, the answer has a tapestry of colors. Read her full story 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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