| | | | | Hello new subscribers! This nightly newsletter is about the media biz -- everything from the Trump beat to "This Is Us." It's the news ABOUT the news -- written for media CEOs in mind -- and I love your feedback. Just reply to this email to send in a message. Scroll down for Super Bowl followups... But first... | | I guess President Trump doesn't know what "treason" is. Either that, or he thinks it's OK to criticize his opponents by casually throwing around such a serious word. Or... he's just trying to tick people off?
On Monday he complained that some Dems didn't stand and applaud during his SOTU address last week: "They were like death and un-American. Un-American. Somebody said, 'Treasonous.' I mean, yeah, I guess, why not. Can we call that treason? Why not."
Everyone knows "why not." But his audience ate it up. NRO's Dan McLaughlin says Trump was "playing this for laughs, and getting them." He argues the real problem is that Trump's "basically openly mocking the idea that words in politics mean anything at all."
That's one way to view it. I view it as part of a pattern. Since the speech, Trump has also bragged that his SOTU was the highest-rated ever ❌ and claimed the reaction polls were "fake" ❌. Saying the sitters were "un-American" is another ❌. So what do we chalk this up to? Ignorance? | | Have we all developed "antibodies?" | | | Jeffrey Toobin on CNN: Trump "has violated so many norms of behavior, in terms of how we expect public officials, not just presidents of the United States, how to behave. It is so grotesque. It is so appalling. But I think we've all developed antibodies, that we say, 'oh, well that's just him.' I just wonder what the cost is, in terms of the future of our civic discourse..." | | | In any other news environment, a 1,175-point drop in the Dow would be the ONLY story. But right now the market scare is competing with many other stories. Here's Matt Egan's mainbar story for CNNMoney about the "worst point decline in history." Asian markets are plunging and Dow futures are trending downward at the time I'm writing this email, so the markets will remain a top story on Tuesday morning... | | Trump was speaking at a manufacturing plant in Ohio when the Dow went from -700 to -1,500. "One by one," each of the cable newsers cut away from the president to cover "the massive sell-off," Mediaite's Justin Baragona wrote.
I didn't turn on the TV til the Dow was down 1,000. That's around the time Fox News cut in. CNN's Jeff Zeleny spoke with a White House aide who "said it was jarring to have the president's speech cut off by Fox." CNN's Stephen Collinson wrote more about the "embarrassing split-screen moment..." | | -- The title of Chris Cillizza's newsletter tonight: "Live By The Dow. Die By The Dow."
-- How did the Dow fall 800 points in ten minutes? Danielle Wiener-Bronner explains it here...
-- Andy Borowitz's satirical take: "Trump Considering Firing Dow Jones Industrial Average" | | +1 to what MSNBC's Benjy Sarlin tweeted: "People love imagining these scenarios of 'Hoo boy, how will the president handle *this* event that contradicts all his prior rhetoric?'"
There was a lot of this on Monday re: Trump's trumpeting of the markets. Sarlin had a simple answer: "He'll tweet it's someone's fault then forget about it and move on. This scenario never really goes anywhere..." | | | Can Newsweek survive this period of turmoil? On Monday EIC Bob Roe and executive editor Ken Li were fired, along with reporter Celeste Katz, effective immediately. As Hadas Gold explains here, this was just the latest shock after several weeks of terrible stories, from a D.A. investigation into the company's financial practices... to a report that it hired an editor after he was dismissed from Reuters for alleged sexual harassment... to a BF report about allegedly shady traffic practices... | | Reporters punished for probing their parent company? | | Hadas Gold emails: Newsweek was doing the admirable role of reporting on itself and its owners, no matter how uncomfortable the stories. But now staffers believe that may have contributed to the firings, because Katz was a byline on every story Newsweek wrote about its own troubles. Now we can add some fresh reporting: Rumors were swirling that Josh Saul and Josh Keefe were also fired -- the two had also contributed to some of Newsweek's articles about their own company -- but as of Monday night, the two are still in place. Saul is on vacation, sources said, and hasn't yet been notified of any change in his status. Keefe was supposed to be fired, a source with knowledge of the situation says. His email account was even deactivated. But an editor stepped in, and Keefe was told he still has a job...
--> More from Gold's story: The drama is far from over. One senior writer, Matthew Cooper, has already resigned in protest. Staffers are bracing for what's next, and many are already searching for new jobs...
--> David Uberti's latest: "What the Hell Is Going on at Newsweek?"
--> Danielle Tcholakian writes: "Journalists Shouldn't Be Fired for Investigating Their Own Publications" | | Soooo who's running Newsweek now? | | | Hadas Gold adds: Both Newsweek and International Business Times are owned by the same parent. Nancy Cooper, an editor at IBT, will take over as editor of Newsweek on Tuesday... | | -- Important: Six of the music industry's "most powerful women" rebuked the Recording Academy in a letter to the board of trustees on Monday... (NYT)
-- The #TimesUp initiative has now raised $20 million... (Deadline)
-- Boris Kachka has a new look at the trouble inside WNYC in the wake of harassment revelations... (The Cut) | | Vegas mystery: Who killed this story about Wynn? | | An astonishing headline on the front page of Monday's paper in Vegas: "Las Vegas Review-Journal killed story in 1998 about Steve Wynn sex misconduct claims."
The paper had different owners back then, of course, and the paper is now owned by Wynn's rival casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. So this is a complicated story to say the least. But the allegations against Wynn came out in the WSJ last month, and Monday's Review-Journal story filled in some of the backstory. Someone -- it's unclear who -- blocked publication of an investigation into Wynn twenty years ago... | | "I tried to tell this story 20 years ago" | | | The writer of the 1998 story, Carri Geer Thevenot, spoke with the WashPost's Erik Wemple on Monday... Here's Wemple's piece... | | New exec editor at Teen Vogue | | | "Teen Vogue has named Samhita Mukhopadhyay its first executive editor," MediaPost reports. "She will oversee the brand's editorial team and work on brand strategy, reporting to Chief Content Officer Phillip Picardi." Teen Vogue EIC Elaine Welteroth exited last month, and Condé dropped the title. Mukhopadhyay's work at Mic "leading the site's coverage on topics like Standing Rock, Islamophobia, the Black Lives Matter movement, trans issues and college sexual assault" make her "a logical fit for Teen Vogue..." | | Clinton lends a land to Lanny Davis's new book | | Robert Costa reported via Twitter: "Hillary Clinton attended a book party tonight in Washington for Lanny Davis." Why is this notable? Because his book is subtitled "How FBI Director James Comey Cost Hillary Clinton the Presidency." 🤔
The book comes out on Tuesday. Per Costa, "she didn't make any remarks but her presence there was a statement of its own..." | | FBI agent becomes CNN analyst | | | Josh Campbell resigned from the FBI last Friday... And started work as CNN's newest law enforcement analyst on Monday. On "New Day," he said he's concerned about the "political attacks" against the FBI... and said he couldn't speak out to "defend the bureau" while still working there. So: "I made the difficult decision to leave a career I love, an organization I still love and will always love, in order to defend it." Here's the transcript of his "New Day" appearance... | | -- "Viacom is close to acquiring VidCon," Ricardo Lopez reports... (Variety)
-- "Facebook is talking about expanding its TV-like service, Watch, into a rival to Google's YouTube by opening the platform to more individual creators..." (CNBC) | | | Twenty four hours later, Jamie and I are still coming down from our Super Bowl high. This is a great 538 piece: "How The Eagles Went From Catastrophe To Champion In Two Years..." | | NBC averaged 103.4 million viewers via TV | | Frank Pallotta emails: That's good, right? Right? Well, depends on who you ask.
Last year's game averaged 111 million viewers via traditional TV. This year, 103.4 million. A 7% drop in this increasingly fragmented TV landscape is unsurprising. But it's another sign that the league's ratings have peaked. Sunday night ranks as the "least watched" Super Bowl since 2009... | | | From Richard Deitsch's post-game report for SI: "Given the ratings drops for the league during the regular season and postseason and the overall declines in linear viewing, the NFL and NBC should be very happy with a small drop..." | | | NBC reported an average of 2 million streaming viewers during every average minute of the game. That's the closest thing to a TV rating # we have for web streaming. And it's another record for Super Bowl streaming. Every year is the "most streamed Super Bowl ever," while at the same time the #'s on TV erode a bit... | | Alexa topped the Ad Meter | | Here's the full story about USA Today's ad meter results...
Brian Lowry emails: Amazon's Alexa ad also topped Ad Age's list. (I would have gone with Tide and Australia tourism, which finished second and third.) Looking over the list, though, merely reinforced the first impression that in terms of creativity, this was not only a relatively safe year, but a pretty weak one... | | | --> Chris Cillizza: Some of the ads "seemed to be an answer or rebuttal to the vision of America offered up by the president..." | | Baier lost a bet to Tapper | | | Via TMZ: Fox's Bret Baier "was rooting for the Patriots and made a bet with Eagles fan Jake Tapper. Winner had to donate $250 to the charity of the other anchor's choice." Tapper won... And the $$$ is going to homeless military vets... Homes For Our Troops. | | | THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM... | | Breitbart enforces its "editorial standards" | | Oliver Darcy emails: Even for Breitbart, there are some things that cross the line. That proved to be the case on Monday morning when the website deleted an inflammatory tweet that imagined a future in which Muslims rid the world of the Super Bowl. "We have deleted a tweet that did not meet our editorial standards," the far-right website announced. The tweet had been widely criticized, with many saying it was racist...
--> A reminder from Darcy: This isn't the first time that Breitbart has had issues with anti-Muslim tweets. Back in June, two Breitbart employees posted anti-Muslim tweets following the London terror attack. At the time, the comments were ripped by other Breitbart employees, who told me the messages were "appalling," "terrible," and "dumb." One of the writers who had posted some of those incendiary messages was fired from the website...
--> Fox's Howard Kurtz on Breitbart's radio show last week: "I think Breitbart has really evolved and matured into a site that I go to every day..." | | "Journalist Protection Act" | | | Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell introduced a bill on Monday, the Journalist Protection Act, "which would make it a federal crime to harm a journalist in the field with the intent of impeding their work," THR's Jeremy Barr reported. Swalwell, a cable news regular, said "I seek to protect the CNN journalist as much as I seek to protect the Fox News journalist..." | | Here's how to catch up on Sunday's "Reliable" | | | For the record, part three | | | -- What?! "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services threatened to ban a reporter from participating in the federal agency's telephone news conferences after he refused to delete three sentences from a published story that apparently had rankled CMS Administrator Seema Verma..." (Health Journalism)
-- A Twitter user named Shaun Usher posted a fake Trump tweet about the "Dow Joans" on Monday. Bret Stephens, John Harwood, and a few other journos fell for it. "Sweet mother of god," Usher wrote. "Not for one second did I think people would believe that to be genuine..." (Twitter)
-- A fantastic Philip Bump lede: "There are two types of numbers in the world of President Trump: numbers that prove how good he is as president and numbers that don't exist..." (WashPost) | | | The NYT "is asking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to unseal secret documents related to the wiretapping of Carter Page." Of course, "even the existence of such material" is normally "a closely guarded secret." But the NYT is arguing that "Trump lowered the shield of secrecy surrounding such materials" by declassifying the Nunes memo, so now the usual norms don't apply... | | "There is no way to refute bad-faith criticism" | | | Brian Lowry emails: Setting aside his central point about the FBI, Jonathan Chait makes an especially astute observation here about the cumulative effect of decades of conservative criticism designed to discredit mainstream media outlets: "An institution that attempts to prove its good faith by opening itself to criticism and acknowledging failure will merely provide more grist for its bad-faith critics. On the other hand, if the institution closes itself off to introspection, it risks taking on the partisan qualities it was accused of having and becoming a mirror image of its critics. There is no way to refute bad-faith criticism. The mainstream news media has spent decades trying to disarm Republican attacks on its credibility... None of these concessions have met with even cursory approval." | | Hugh Grant settles phone-hacking case | | | Chloe Melas emails: Hugh Grant has settled a phone-hacking case against British media company Mirror Group Newspapers. In a statement to CNN, Grant said he will donate the full undisclosed amount of damages to Hacked Off, a free-press campaign that formed in 2011 after the UK's News of the World was accused of hacking the phones of politicians and celebrities, including Grant. Read more... | | A turning point for "This is Us" | | "This Is Us" averaged 27 million viewers on Sunday night thanks to its post-Super Bowl time slot. And what an episode it was... Brian Lowry was impressed... And so was I...
--> New tonight: Sandra Gonzalez has this story about Milo Ventimiglia's experience filming the pivotal episode... | | Lowry reviews the new "Cloverfield" | | Brian Lowry emails: Netflix received some immediate gratification for its surprising decision to launch "The Cloverfield Paradox" immediately after the Super Bowl. But the glow seemed to fade once people began to watch the movie, which, offering some explanation why Paramount opted to dump a project initially headed for theatrical release onto the streaming service. Moreover, the harsh critical response -- mine among them -- likely reflects some irritation on the part of critics, who no doubt weren't thrilled after being compelled to rush over and watch the movie after a day, for many, of nachos and beer...
Read Lowry's full review here >> | | Ryan Murphy's "The Politician" picked up by Netflix | | | Megan Thomas emails: The streaming giant made a two-season straight-to-series order of a new hour-long political comedy from producer Ryan Murphy. Ben Blatt, Barbara Streisand and Gwyneth Paltrow are in talks to star, according to Deadline... | | | The annual Oscar nominees luncheon was held on Monday... Here's the class photo... Variety has the version you can zoom in on... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Steven Tyler's back-in-time Kia commercial provoked all sorts of feelings...
-- Pink defended her Super Bowl performance after some criticism...
-- "You know when alcohol is in your system you do dumb stuff." That's how Kevin Hart explained attempting to rush the Super Bowl trophy ceremony after his beloved Eagles won... | | | Megan Thomas reports: "John Mahoney, best known for his role as 'Martin Crane' on NBC's 'Frasier' has died, according to a statement from his publicist. He died in Chicago on Sunday, following a short illness. Mahoney was 77 years old." Read more... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... I love the feedback, corrections, suggestions, and tips. Thank you... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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