| | | | | Exec summary: Scroll down for details about Sacha Baron Cohen's secret Showtime series, YouTube's newest tweaks, The New Yorker's union talks, and more... | | Was this just typical hyperbole from Sean Hannity? Or was he... right? "We are only moments away from one of the most important and consequential decisions in American history," Hannity said at the top of the 9pm hour Monday.
I flipped to CNN for President Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, and then to MSNBC for Rachel Maddow's reaction. In one key way, she agreed with Hannity. This nomination "comes at a time when the choice is fraught and consequential in ways that have never applied to any other U.S. president EVER," she said.
Maddow reminded her viewers of Trump's legal exposure and said "if the president ends up, himself, in the cross hairs of the ongoing special counsel's investigation, any number of the elements of his defense may end up before the U.S. Supreme Court -- and, therefore, potentially before the nominee he has named tonight."
Anderson Cooper noted on CNN that Kavanaugh has argued presidents "should be shielded from civil and criminal litigation until they leave office." Some Dems are claiming that's a top reason why Kavanaugh was selected. The debates are just beginning... | | Maddow framed it this way: "Can the president be subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury? Can a president be criminally indicted? Can the president pardon himself? Can the president pardon others if the goal of those pardons is to weaken the case against himself or his family? Can individual states bring prosecutions against people the president has pardoned, if he pardons them for those reasons? All of those questions are considered, more or less, to be unsettled as matters of American law." Which means if "push comes to shove," this nomination will be "critical to the president's personal fate in a way we have never seen before," she said...
>> The banner on MSNBC just now: "How Judge Kavanaugh could impact Mueller probe"
>> SE Cupp tweeted: "If you're going to insist Kavanaugh's position on presidential exemption from indictments and investigations truly makes him an extreme choice, I am going to politely remind you eight others get to overrule him..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: It is striking what a difference the image of Kavanaugh's family beaming behind him made from a perception standpoint. A real example of how pictures matter... | | | NBC's Chuck Todd: "A very confirmable pick." ABC's Terry Moran: "A classic Washington establishment candidate." CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic: "I think he's got a very strong fighting chance..." | | Jan Crawford on CBS: "With this nomination, President Trump may well do what Republican presidents have tried to do for 40 years -- and failed -- and that is to turn the Supreme Court in a more clearly solidly conservative direction, away from what they see as the real excesses of the Warren court. This is a generational pick that could affect generations to come."
For that reason, I shook my head when NBC and ABC went back to regular programming after two very short minutes of analysis. CBS gave it a third minute, then wrapped. Why not go til 9:30 ET? Why not show off the news divisions for a few more minutes? | | On Fox, Sean Hannity started promoting the pick immediately. Jeanine Pirro gushed, "He's perfect!"
Laura Ingraham was in the East Room for the announcement... She applauded... Then she walked outside to host her 10pm show, with Leonard Leo right beside her... | | Bream at the court, until... | | Fox's SCOTUS correspondent/11pm anchor Shannon Bream was at the Supreme Court, where liberal groups held protests on Monday night. She was going to anchor from there at 11, but it "got a little too rowdy," she said.
At 9:31, she tweeted: "Very few times I've felt threatened while out in the field. The mood here tonight is very volatile." At 10:22, she followed up: "Literally had to bail... Moving the show back to the safety of the studio." This is obviously concerning... Journalists in the field should never feel threatened... | | Pete Williams scooped POTUS | | | Trump made it almost all the way to 9pm ET without a leak. So close! At 8:52pm, NBC's Pete Williams reported that Kavanaugh would be the pick. The AP flashed the same news just before 9. Several eagle-eyed reporters in the East Room noticed that Kavanaugh's parents were in the room... | | -- "A court in Myanmar on Monday charged two jailed Reuters journalists with obtaining secret state documents, moving the landmark press freedom case into its trial stage after six months of preliminary hearings..." (Reuters)
-- New LAT boss Norman Pearlstine named his leadership team on Monday: Scott Kraft is managing editor, Kris Viesselman is "chief transformation editor and creative director," and Kimi Yoshino is deputy managing editor, "overseeing sports, business, arts, entertainment and lifestyle coverage..." (LAT)
-- Erik Wemple's followup on Ezra Klein's "Reliable Sources" comments about reducing coverage of Trump's rallies: Fox News, by airing the rallies lies, "lets President Trump lie on live television, for hours and hours..." (WashPost) | | What YouTube is doing about misinfo videos | | The problem crops up almost every time there's a big breaking news story: People post videos full of misinformation on YouTube. Whether the "fake news" makers are trying to spread propaganda, or just make a quick buck, the effect is the same: The videos end up confusing users who just want accurate information. Now YouTube says it's taking action against this kind of exploitation of breaking news situations.
"We're making changes to put more authoritative content in front of people," YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan told reporters on Monday. At a press event in New York, Mohan said YouTube's algo has been tweaked so that news-related searches will show results from more reliable outlets.Here's my full story... | | $25 million investment... | | Monday's event was about promoting YouTube as an ally of news publishers. YouTube's efforts wrap into Google's $300 million, three-year Google News Initiative.
YouTube says $25 million will be spent on "innovation funding" grants for news organizations and for more support staff at the company. Robert Kyncl, YouTube's chief business officer, said YouTube isn't trying to fund specific news coverage -- rather, the grants are about seeding "long-term sustainable skills" for web video. He also announced a "working group" for YouTube execs and news outlet reps to "help us shape the future of news on YouTube..." | | -- Harvey Weinstein "pleaded not guilty to three additional sex crime charges in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Monday..." (CNN)
-- Disney is consolidating its NYC workspaces and moving downtown... In a $650 million deal, it'll build a new East Coast HQ at 4 Hudson Square... "GMA" will remain in Times Square, though... (NY Post)
-- The History channel's "Evel Live," starring Travis Pastrana, was the "No. 1 cable special of 2018, excluding news and sports," with 3.5 million viewers on Sunday night... (TheWrap)
-- Dean Baquet says the NYT ran too many stories about Alan Dershowitz recently. "It's a big place and different desks made their own plans. We should have coordinated better and done fewer." (The Daily Beast) | | Press relations changing at EPA? | | Hadas Gold emails: Now that Scott Pruitt is gone, the contentious, at times condescending and very rocky relationship with the press may be smoothing out. Monday was Andrew Wheeler's first day in charge, and Politico reports that Wheeler, who is the acting administrator, is "aiming for less secrecy" by publishing his full calendars frequently, announcing his speaking and travel plans in advance and holding briefings for media on major policy announcements.
Pruitt's tenure was marked by groups pursuing litigation for public records, reporters being blocked from public events with the secretary, secrecy around his travels and events, and often combative interactions and statements with beat reporters.
"As with any change in leadership you can expect a change in approach, and in this case a change in tone as well," EPA public affairs official John Konkus told Politico... | | -- Bobby Ghosh is joining the editorial board of Bloomberg Opinion... (Talking Biz News)
-- Recode's Kara Swisher is becoming a contributor to the NYT's Opinion page... (NYT)
-- CBS News is adding another correspondent at the White House: Weijia Jiang... (TVNewser) | | | BIG MOMENT FOR CONDÉ NAST... | | New Yorker mag recognizes staff's union | | Tom Kludt's latest: "A little more than a month after staffers at The New Yorker declared their intention to form a union, the magazine's top editor said that management won't stand in the way. In a note to employees on Monday, David Remnick struck a message of unity in describing a constructive negotiating process with the NewsGuild, the union with which magazine staffers organized."
"We have agreed on a process to voluntarily recognize the New Yorker Union," Remnick said... Read more here... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- "Jane Chu, the most recent head of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), will join PBS as an arts adviser..." (PBS)
-- Jerry O'Connell is lined up to host a Bravo late-night talk show called "Real Men Watch Bravo..." (TheWrap)
-- Drake's fifth album, "Scorpion," has crossed the one billion mark in total streams. "It's the first time an album has hit this milestone in just one week," Chloe Melas reports... (CNN) | | This is a must-read edition of Dylan Byers' PACIFIC newsletter... Following up on the NYT's scoop about the recent town hall meeting at HBO... Byers says "AT&T wants HBO to transform itself from a boutique for smart, high-minded shows into a 24/7 operation like Netflix that produces more content and drives more user engagement." More...
>> Brian Lowry's take: The NYT story seemed to send a bit of a shiver through the creative community, which likely explains why the session was leaked to the Times in the first place...
>> The competition: "Even when underestimated, Netflix's ever-escalating, industry-leading content spend remains a point of fear and fascination in the media industry," Matthew Ball writes in his REDEF essay. He says Netflix isn't being reckless, it's just playing a game no one else dares..." | | How did Sacha Baron Cohen pull THIS off? | | Sacha Baron Cohen's secret Showtime series was officially announced on Monday. The first episode of "Who Is America?" -- featuring Dick Cheney -- will air on Sunday night. Frank Pallotta has the details here...
Showtime is being VERY tight-lipped about the series. Matt Drudge tweeted out a list of guests on Monday -- Cheney, Sarah Palin, Howard Dean, Alberto Gonzales, Bernie Sanders, Trent Lott, David Petraeus, Ted Koppel. Showtime wouldn't confirm or deny the list.
Drudge's warning: "Lots of tricks played. Both Republicans and Democrats are getting caught up in the madness..." | | Counting down to Thursday's Emmy noms... | | | Brian Lowry emails: With TV shows following more irregular production schedules for various reasons, the Emmy nominations can be influenced as much by what isn't eligible as what is. Cases in point: "Game of Thrones," which returns to the ballot after taking a year off, and "Veep" and "Better Call Saul," which will sit out this year's race. Read more... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- On Monday Justin Bieber confirmed his engagement to Hailey Baldwin in a long, glowing social media post...
-- "Wonder Woman" star Gal Gadot was a real life hero after she dressed in character and surprised staff and patients at a children's hospital...
-- Tab Hunter was an iconic 1950s actor who late in life shared his story of being a heartthrob in Hollywood while also being a closeted gay man. He died Sunday at the age of 86 after he collapsed in his longtime partner's arms... | | Here's how to catch up on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" | | | On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," I spoke with three immigration reporters who have been covering the border separation story really closely -- the Houston Chronicle's Lomi Kriel, the Arizona Republic's Rafael Carranza and the Texas Tribune's Neena Satija. They are fighting for answers to basic questions about the children. "It's really chaos," Satija said... Watch the segment here... | | What would Trump do without Fox? | | On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," I tried to step way back and point out just how unusual the Trump-Fox alliance is, lest we all start to get used to it. No president has ever endorsed a network to this degree before: Promoting it, telling people when and where to tune in, while trashing all of its rivals. And no network has ever propped up a president quite like this before...
My point: This is new. And weird. And we shouldn't get used to it. There's been almost a merger between a culture war TV station and a culture war president. In the essay, I asked, rhetorically, "What would Trump do without Fox?" | | Rethinking how Trump's rallies are covered | | Vox's Ezra Klein says newsrooms need to rethink how Trump rallies are covered. We got into it on the "Reliable Sources" podcast... And some of the highlights aired on Sunday's show. "There's nothing new here," Klein said. So what's the point? "When we let him decide what we cover... What are we crowding out?"
When I remarked that Trump -- through his VOLUME of comments at rallies -- generates dozens of stories, Klein interjected. "WE make these decisions," not Trump, he said. More... | | Thanks for reading! Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts straight to me:
brian.stelter@turner.com
Thank you! | | | | | | |
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