| | | | | Exec summary: Press Forward launches in DC, Apple buys Texture, Hulu wins the bidding war for "Little Fires Everywhere," Taylor Swift releases a new video, and more... Plus a few of Tuesday's headlines foreshadowed... | | From CNBC to the West Wing? | | | Fourteen months into the Trump presidency, the Trump-TV feedback loop is stronger than ever. He gets policy ideas, talking points, and even personnel advice from conservative cable news shows. The latest case in point: His possible hiring of CNBC's Larry Kudlow to replace Gary Cohn. AND: Fox's John Bolton has also been mentioned as a H.R. McMaster replacement... | | From my latest column for CNNMoney:
-- Last week Trump pardoned former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, five days after Saucier pleaded his case on "Fox & Friends." Saucier's lawyer told HuffPost that getting booked on Fox was strategic...
-- Fox's Jesse Watters and Sebastian Gorka were at the W.H. for dinner with Trump last week...
-- Axios reported that Trump surprised embattled V.A. secretary David Shulkin "by dialing in" Fox's Pete Hegseth, another candidate for the job, on speaker phone during a meeting... | | | On Monday evening CNN reported that Trump has told people that Kudlow is his pick to replace Cohn, but "Kudlow hasn't been formally offered the job yet and hasn't decided whether he would accept it." Kudlow is a "senior contributor" to CNBC... A network spokeswoman declined to comment on the prospect of him leaving... | | The embargo on this House Intel Committee news lifted at 6pm. Now the GOP's conclusion -- no evidence of "collusion" -- is being embraced by pro-Trump partisans and is being scrutinized by others. I noticed a banner on Fox during the 6pm hour that said "CASE CLOSED." The headline on FoxNews.com right now: "WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE?" Other sources are pointing out that the case is wide open... But Trump celebrated the finding in ALL CAPS on Monday night. Jeremy Herb and Manu Raju have a full story on CNN.com...
-- THE SPIN: On Monday night Sean Hannity told viewers that the GOP report proved "what we've been telling you for over a year: That the media and the Democrats have lied to you. There is no Trump-Russia collusion..."
-- WHAT MATTERS: Justin Miller tweeted: "The Russian active measures campaign wouldn't have worked as well, or maybe at all, without Trump. It's not about collusion, it's about complicity..." | | -- NYT: "Republicans in House Say No Collusion, but Mueller's Case Grows"
-- CNN previewing Tuesday's special election: "Republicans brace for a potential upset"
-- USA Today's exclusive: "Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general, says Robert Mueller is 'not an unguided missile'"
-- NYT: "Conceding to N.R.A., Trump Abandons Brief Gun Control Promise" | | In bookstores on Tuesday... | | | Michael Isikoff and David Corn's "Russian Roulette." Corn's Mother Jones has a list of the book's scoops... | | When will the Stormy Daniels interview air? | | Lots of people are asking me this Q... But there are no new updates... CBS producers are working on verifying claims she made in the interview, and there's no formal air date yet. Here's my story...
--> Paul Farhi tweeted: "Stormy Daniels (and her team) have gotten very good at keeping her in the news. It's almost, um, Trump-like..." | | -- The power of "60 Minutes:" White House officials were "alarmed at education secretary's '60 Minutes' performance..." (CNN)
-- I joined SE Cupp on Monday's "Unfiltered..." We talked about Trump, drugs, and UFOs... Check out the podcast via Apple or your favorite pod app...
-- An ICE spokesman based in SF has resigned, "citing what he says are falsehoods being spread by members of the Trump admin..." (CNN)
-- Coming Tuesday: POTUS is attending a "fundraising dinner" party "in or near Beverly Hills," but "few stars" are expected, Paul Bond reports... (THR)
-- Also on Tuesday: ABC's "World News Tonight" will celebrate a 25-54 demo victory over "NBC Nightly News..." This has been years in the making... | | Nancy Dubuc replacing Shane Smith | | Tom Kludt emails: Vice is on the verge of replacing the only CEO it has ever known, Shane Smith, with A+E Networks CEO Nancy Dubuc.
Variety's Cynthia Littleton broke the news on Monday, and other outlets confirmed it. Smith, of course, was more than just the top exec at Vice; he was its co-founder, and the face of the company. So this is a watershed moment.
The Vice change hasn't been announced yet, but Dubuc's exit from A+E was announced on Monday... She will be replaced on an interim basis at A+E by her predecessor Abbe Raven... | | More from Tom Kludt: It was only a month ago when the WSJ reported that Vice missed its 2017 revenue target by more than $100 million, raising anxiety levels among investors and casting doubt on the company's long-anticipated IPO. I can't say definitively that it was a precursor to Monday's news, but it's probably naïve to separate them. At any rate, Dubuc will be taking over Vice at one of the most precarious times in its history. Along with the serious questions over its long-time financial viability, Vice is still reckoning with its notorious history of misogyny and workplace harassment.
CONTEXT: Dubuc has a history with her new employer. In 2015, Vice launched its Viceland cable channel in partnership with A+E Networks (which has a stake in the channel). That will also become one Dubuc's challenges, as Viceland continues to post anemic ratings... | | Tom adds: You might be hard-pressed to find a media company today more closely identified with its founder and top executive than Vice and Smith. The big Q: What will Smith's new title and role be?
--> The WSJ says Smith "wants to focus more on long-term strategy, deal making and content creation..." He "plans to remain heavily involved at the company..." | | Peter Kafka tweeted: "In 2009, the big magazine publishers built their own digital service so they wouldn't be cut out by Apple or Google. Now they're selling to Apple."
Here's Kafka's full story about Monday's announcement... He says the publishers "are happy with the deal..." And he calls the acquisition "a message from Apple to big publishers: We like you..." | | Dylan Byers interviews Eddy Cue | | Dylan Byers interviewed Apple SVP Eddy Cue on stage at SXSW... I recommend subscribing to Pacific for Byers' own recap of the session... But here are a few of the takeaways:
-- CNN's Selena Larson quotes Cue's comment re: Apple's forthcoming shows: "We hope we bring some amazing, great-quality stuff. We'll have a few surprises..."
-- The key: "We think there are ways to leverage technology to make the viewing experience even better..." | | | Alex Webb tweeted: "Remember how Shira Ovide suggested last week it would make sense for Apple to sell a bundle comprising iCloud, video and news? Well..." And he linked to the Texture news. Here's Ovide's column... | | -- "ESPN's tricky NFL problem." SBJ's John Ourand reports: "ESPN and NFL executives privately describe their relationship as the worst it's ever been..." (SBJ)
-- Bloomberg reporter Devin Banerjee is joining the LinkedIn news team... "As Facebook veers from news, LinkedIn is expanding its operation..." (BI)
-- "Digital media veteran Jon Miller, backed with money from TPG, is going shopping for websites," Peter Kafka reports. "They bought Fandom last month, and they want more..." (Recode) | | | "Strong" and "solid" are the words I'm seeing in headlines about the "American Idol" ABC premiere ratings. It was Sunday's most-watched show, with 10.3 million viewers, only down 9% from the last "Idol" season premiere on Fox. In the 18- to 49-year-old demo, "Idol" "scored a 2.3 rating, topping ABC's internal estimate," the LAT's Stephen Battaglio reports... | | What about the reviews? Viewers were divided over the new iteration of the show, Lisa Respers France reports...
--> This review says the show "packs an Epcot Center's worth of anti-cynicism." It is "kind and gentle and proficient and fakey: Disneyfied in the classic sense..." | | Lowry's reaction to the ratings: | | Brian Lowry emails: The ratings for "American Idol" should produce sighs of relief at both ABC and Fox. While the number is pretty good -- especially by the standards of what ABC¹s been doing on Sunday nights -- it's not the kind of performance, given the high cost of the show, which would have Fox rueing the day that the network was foolish enough to take it off the air.
As for "O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession?," it's hard not to play the "What if?" game, in terms of the kind of audience it would have reached if Fox had broadcast the interview as originally intended a dozen years ago...
--> And about that interview: Jeffrey Toobin says it was "ludicrous..." | | | Brian Lowry adds: Meanwhile, it's a big month for Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark, with ABC having just cast Robin Tunney as the lead character in a pilot that's basically a wildly embellished version of Clark¹s experience, and Clark hosting a new A&E series, "Marcia Clark Investigates The First 48," which premieres on March 29... | | Richard Deitsch to The Athletic | | | SI sports media guru Richard Deitsch tweeted: "Thrilled to announce I'm joining The Athletic starting late next week. I'll be covering sports media & hopefully some women's hoops, too. Podcast will continue as well..." | | Fox's new marketing campaign | | Oliver Darcy emails: Fox News on Monday unveiled a new marketing push. The tagline? "Real News, Real Honest Opinion." The first promo for the campaign, which started to air on the network Monday, featured hosts from both the news division and opinion lineup standing before a green screen to the tune of dramatic music. See the ad here…
A curious trait to highlight: The debut promo for the Fox News ad campaign also highlighted a characteristic one might not attribute to the network: responsibility. In fact, it was the first trait Fox News chose to highlight in its debut promo. Which is an odd marketing push, coming from the network that hyped conspiracy theories about the death of Seth Rich, among other things over the past year... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- The death of advertising? "Hedge funds have amassed bearish bets of more than $3 billion against the world's largest advertising companies in an attempt to profit as the industry undergoes wrenching disruption and slowing growth..." (FT)
-- Via Jordan Valinsky: David Chang "is launching Majordomo Media" to make TV shows and podcasts... (THR)
-- Zerlina Maxwell and Joyce White Vance are MSNBC's newest political analysts... (Twitter)
-- Mattie Kahn talked with women on TV news who get interrupted by men all the time... And asked "what they're thinking" when it happens... (Elle)
-- Have you noticed the new "Mute Site" feature in Google Chrome? BI says it's an improvement... (BI) | | Targeting harassment in the ad industry | | | Chloe Melas emails: Time's Up has announced an initiative to combat sexual harassment in the advertising industry -- "Time's Up/Advertising." This is the organization's first industry-specific effort since the campaign was launched in January and it was started by 180 women in leadership positions in advertising, in partnership with The Advertising Association, NABS and WACL. They will host a series of meetings later this month in New York, Chicago, SF and L.A. to adopt agency training and education policies... | | "Press Forward" event on Tuesday | | Press Forward -- an advocacy group that began when Mark Halperin, Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer accusers started talking via social media -- is having a formal launch event on Tuesday in DC. "It will be the first time we've all come together publicly since the media sexual harassment stories broke," co-founder Eleanor McManus tells me. Organizers will be talking about "implementing initiatives and goals that are impactful and long-lasting."
>> Judy Woodruff will moderate a panel discussion with Jake Tapper, Ted Koppel, Sara Just, Ari Wilkenfeld, and others on Tuesday at the National Press Club... Details here... | | | Per McManus, Press Forward's first group interview will be with CNN's Alisyn Camerota... It's being taped right after Tuesday's launch event... Air date on "New Day" TBD... | | Met Opera fires conductor James Levine | | | This investigation began after an NYT story. And now: "The Metropolitan Opera fired the conductor James Levine on Monday evening, ending its association with a man who defined the company for more than four decades after an investigation found what the Met called credible evidence that Mr. Levine had engaged in 'sexually abusive and harassing conduct,'" the NYT's Michael Cooper reports... | | "I think there's a very good chance that Putin knows some things about Donald Trump that Mr. Trump does not want repeated publicly."
--Megyn Kelly to Chris Matthews the other day, discussing her interview with Putin... | | | "Donald Trump Jr. appeared to take questions from an attentive gaggle of chocolate bunny reporters in a perspective-bending viral photo that made the online rounds Monday," CNN's Andrew Dunn writes... | | "For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist." | | "To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It." National Geographic's April issue is all about race... So EIC Susan Goldberg wanted the magazine to hold up a mirror... Check out her editor's letter, and the rest of the issue, right here...
-- Why "The Race Issue" in the first place? "There is no scientific basis for race. It's largely a made-up label. And you can't understand 21st-century America without it..." | | | For the record, part four | | | -- Jon Christian exposes how an "insanely popular YouTube channel is making bank off fake science..." (The Outline)
-- Megan Thomas emails: David Sims shares his take on the "Toothlessness of Saturday Night Live's Political Humor..." (The Atlantic)
-- Cazzie David, Larry David's daughter, "is set to star in, write and executive produce comedy Half-Empty for Amazon Studios..." (THR)
-- Justin Ray describes Carlos Maza as "Brian Stelter meets NowThis." Decide for yourself, here's the full profile! (CJR) | | YouTube: "The great radicalizer?" | | Oliver Darcy emails: Is YouTube the "great radicalizer"? That's what Zeynep Tufekci contended Monday in the NYT. And her argument seemed compelling. Tufekci wrote that as she watched Trump rallies on YouTube, she began to notice YouTube recommend videos from white nationalists and fringe elements on the right. So she created another account, and started watching videos about Hillary Clinton. On that account, YouTube started recommending her conspiratorial videos that appealed to the left. Read her piece here…
>> The conclusion? "It seems as if you are never 'hard core' enough for YouTube's recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes.Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century." | | Hulu wins bidding war for "Little Fires Everywhere" | | | "In a competitive situation, Hulu has landed 'Little Fires Everywhere,' a limited series based on Celeste Ng's bestselling book, toplined and executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Scandal star Kerry Washington," Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reports. The project, written by Liz Tigelaar, "has received a straight-to-series eight-episode order..." | | Dissecting T-Swift's new video | | Via Lisa Respers France, here's Taylor Swift's new "Delicate" video decoded...
Megan Thomas flagged Vulture's review, which is titled "Taylor Swift Now Welcomes Your Disgust:" "It's a daring move by Swift to cripple one of her best new songs with some of the corniest physical motions ever committed to film just to use the corniness as a kind of loyalty oath. Major artists have thinned out the ranks of their fans with clumsy maneuvers before, but for Swift to do so on purpose is remarkably spiteful. In less than two years she's gone from being sabotaged by others to accidental self-sabotage; now she's self-sabotaging on purpose." Uh-oh. Here's what it's all about... | | Coogler, DuVernay and a box office first | | "Black Panther," in its fourth week, bested "A Wrinkle in Time" at the box office over the weekend. This is a sign that "Time" underperformed expectations. But it's unprecedented in this way: "It's the first time films by black directors with $100 million plus budgets have ever placed in the first two box office spots," Lisa Respers France writes...
--> This is getting lots of attention: "Here's Why You Shouldn't Compare 'A Wrinkle In Time' With 'Black Panther'"
--> ICYMI: "Ryan Coogler Praises Ava DuVernay For Making 'The Impossible Look Easy'" | | Rave reviews for Kay Cannon's directorial debut | | | Megan Thomas emails: Tina Fey's protégé and "Pitch Perfect" writer Kay Cannon is getting rave reviews for her directorial debut. "Blockers," which stars Leslie Mann, is a comedy about three parents trying to prevent their daughters from having sex on prom night. Cannon introduced the film its SXSW premiere on Saturday night by saying, "I am a woman. I directed something. It's rated R. And a comedy. And studio-released. And I feel pretty good about that." VF has more on the film's resonance in the midst of the #MeToo movement... | | Brian Lowry emails: NBC promoted "Rise" pretty heavily during the Olympics, but this earnest, fact-based drama about a high school theater program -- which plays like a cross between "Glee" and "Friday Night Lights" -- hits too many familiar notes.
Read Lowry's full review here... | | | Beyoncé and Jay-Z have announced a new joint tour. Lisa Respers France has all the details here... | | How to catch up on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" | | "Dangerous" threats to journalists? | | | Salena Zito, who was at Saturday's rally, said Trump's "fake" news gripes were "part of the shtick," April Ryan responded: "This is not shtick. It's not comedy. This is real and it's dangerous." Watch/read a recap of the segment here... | | The Stormy story: It's about money, not sex | | | WSJ reporter Michael Rothfeld, part of the team that broke the Stormy Daniels payoff story, joined me on Sunday's show. "Where the money came from" is a big part of the story, he said. The focus is on the money, not the alleged sex... | | Meet the NYT's gender editor | | | Jessica Bennett, the gender editor of the NYT, also joined me on Sunday's "Reliable..." We talked about the new "Overlooked" obits project, plus Tucker Carlson's decision to launch a monthlong series called "Men in America" during Women's History Month... Bennett and I concluded that the series would be wonderful in April, but scheduling it in March was an act of trolling... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | | | | |
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