| | | | Exec summary: Networks are moving more crews to the Carolinas in advance of Hurricane Florence. Local newsrooms are making contingency plans to stay online during and after the storm. Safety considerations are paramount. We'll have much more on that later this week... but here are the latest updates on a couple other big stories we've been following, including the Les Moonves scandal...
| | At a tumultuous moment for CBS Corporation, this is some very good news for its publishing division, Simon & Schuster.
Bob Woodward's book "Fear" is already one of the biggest publishing success stories of the year. And it technically won't be on bookshelves til Tuesday morning.
The publisher is printing one million copies of the book to keep up with all the pre-orders and expected in-store sales. "We have reprinted six times for a total of seven to meet extraordinary demand -- that will put one million books in print before we've even gone on sale," a Simon & Schuster spokesperson told me Monday evening.
THE TAKEAWAY: "Fear" has firmly established itself as a hit. In fact, it outranks almost all the other Trump-related books that have gained attention this year, with the notable exception of "Fire and Fury." Here's my full story with Jamie Gangel...
| | Donald Trump, Bookseller of the Year | | Two timely reactions to "Fear:"
WSJ's Jason Gay: "If the publishing industry doesn't name Donald Trump Bookseller of the Year, it's an outrage..."
NYT's Sopan Deb: "It's amazing that any book proposal about the White House can confidently include 'President's Twitter account' as a core tenet of its marketing and publicity plan..."
| | Trump: "I'll write the real book!" | | What a revealing comment from POTUS on Twitter on Monday morning -- first he called Woodward's book a "joke," then "just another assault against me," and said, "I'll write the real book!"
The REAL book. WaPo book critic Carlos Lozada said this is "just another time the president argues that he is the only real purveyor of truth, that the only person you can believe is him, that all else is fiction."
REALITY CHECK: "Trump's assault on Woodward riddled with contradictions," as Annie Karni documents here...
| | What's it feel like to have POTUS calling you an "idiot" and a liar, etc?
Woodward's answer to Stephen Colbert on Monday's "Late Show:" Trump "has his First Amendment rights and he can say anything, but the great editor at the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, during Watergate used to always say when there was a contest back and forth that 'the truth emerges' and the truth will emerge on this too."
| | Woodward says people are "underestimating how serious all of this is" | | Earlier in the day, Woodward spoke with Savannah Guthrie on the "Today" show. He said "I've never seen an instance when the president is so detached from the reality of what's going on."
Woodward said Trump's conduct "has not been treated seriously enough." Some of the things "that Trump did and does jeopardizes the real national security."
Speaking with Rachel Martin on NPR, he added, "I think, also, that we're underestimating how serious all of this is. People took actions to protect the country because the president wanted to do things like withdraw from a trade agreement in South Korea..."
| | Woodward's next TV interviews | | Here's an incomplete list of what is coming up: "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Tuesday night... "The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino" Wednesday afternoon, "Anderson Cooper 360" on Wednesday night, "Washington Week" with Robert Costa on Friday...
| | "Fear" is selling well outside the US too | | It's not just a U.S. bestseller. It's also No. 1 online in Canada, the UK and Germany. And foreign rights to the book have been sold in 16 countries ahead of publication day, according to the publisher...
| | Some gentle trolling by S&S | | I recieved a copy of "Fear" from Simon & Schuster on Monday. The press release that came with the book contains a long list of supportive quotes about Woodward -- from Mike Allen, David Maraniss, Joe Scarborough, Playbook, USA Today, etc -- and at the end of the list is a quote from none other than President Trump. It's from the Trump-Woodward phone call that happened last month. "I think you've always been fair," Trump told Woodward...
--> 🔌 I'll have more on all this on the 7am hour of "New Day..." | | -- Adam Clymer has died. The former chief Washington correspondent of the NYT was a giant in the Times newsroom and beyond. This obit by Sam Roberts captures what made him so special... (NYT)
-- "Lots of news on social media? Yep. Lots of accurate news on social media? Nope: That's the mindset of the typical U.S. news consumer in 2018, according to a new Pew Research Center report on news use on social media platforms..." (NiemanLab)
-- Julianne Escobedo Shepherd is succeeding Koa Beck as the EIC of Jezebel... (NYPost) | | Bill Carter covered Les Moonves for decades. His must-read analysis for CNN.com:
"It's possible that we were all watching the most effective performance of Leslie Moonves's life. The show is over now."
| | Here's what happened on Monday | | -- Norah O'Donnell addressed the news on "CBS This Morning." She repeated what she said after the Charlie Rose scandal: "This has to end..."
-- CBS filed its 8K with the SEC. The document contained all the details about Moonves' exit package. CBS is placing $120 million in a trust, and we won't find out if Moonves gets the $$$ for several months.
-- Moonves "resigned," per the SEC filing. Will he eventually be fired "for cause?" Will this case end up in arbitration? TBD. Here's my full story...
-- The filing also indicated that CBS will not release the results of the current law firm investigations into Moonves' conduct. THR's Eriq Gardner has more here...
-- New acting CEO Joe Ianniello sent out a memo to staffers. The title: "Looking forward." Here it is...
-- I checked, and right now there's no timeline for the board's search for a "permanent successor" to Moonves...
-- Via THR's Jeremy Barr: "CBS has withdrawn from the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, per new agenda. Les Moonves was supposed to speak for the network on Wednesday afternoon..."
-- Julie Chen said she is taking a few days off from "The Talk..."
-- CBS stock closed down 1.5%.
| | Among the details in Keach Hagey and Joe Flint's reconstruction of events: "On Aug. 15, Mr. Moonves was accidentally copied on an email to the entire CBS board detailing damaging findings in the law firms' investigations and discussing how to proceed should he need to be put on leave, according to people familiar with the matter."
Wow.
Read the full story here... Especially re: the board's factions and actions... This is going to be a corporate governance case study for a long time... | | Frank Pallotta was at the Ed Sullivan Theater for Monday night's "Late Show." He says Colbert opened with a mock announcement that said "tonight's episode of 'Undercover Boss' starring Leslie Moonves will not be shown" because it was "accidentally sealed in a stainless steel container, which was inadvertently shot into the heart of the Sun."
Colbert commented in his monologue that "It's never a good sign when you're a subject of a Ronan Farrow double dip." More...
| | Brian Lowry emails: There's a school of thought — articulated here in a radio interview by BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield — that there wouldn't be any big-tech buyers for a company like CBS, noting that those deep-pocketed players can build their own assets from the ground up, and that CBS is small potatoes by comparison. But at the right price, what a CBS or Viacom do provide could be useful to those efforts — namely, established intellectual property and a library of content, which can be used to flesh out the new offerings into broader services and platforms. That's the whole rationale, after all, behind the Disney-Fox deal, which is inspiring others to contemplate the best ways that they can bulk up...
| | "Shari Redstone Retakes Control of CBS, But Options May Be Few" | | | That's the headline on Lucas Shaw's latest for Bloomberg. Read on... | | | Brian Lowry emails: Some good news for two entities that could use it — the NFL, and CBS. Per the network, Sunday's opening-day football coverage averaged 17.1 million viewers, up 29% over last year... | | -- The new third hour of "GMA" debuted on Monday... and Cosmo published this profile of co-host Sara Haines... (Cosmo)
-- I missed this the other day: David Gelles, senior broadcast producer of "The Situation Room," is CNN's new executive producer for political and special events programming...
-- The NYT is introducing a daily "On Politics" newsletter, curated by Lisa Lerer... (NYT) | | Did this reporter make up sources? The Houston Chronicle is investigating | | Houston Chronicle reporter Mike Ward has resigned after "questions were raised about whether individuals quoted in one of his stories were real people." Now the paper has hired "an independent, highly respected journalist to review Ward's work for the last year, or further, if necessary, and determine whether any reporting transgressions occurred," Chronicle editor Nancy Barnes told readers on Monday.
"When this investigation is complete, we will publish a full accounting of our findings," Barnes said. "We owe our readers nothing less." | | Some "sunny" news in Colorado | | An Phung emails: Former reporters and editors of The Denver Post who left the paper amid budget cuts formed a new online news site that officially launched on Monday. The Colorado Sun is funded by Kickstarter and blockchain company, Civil Media, which has doled out $1 million in grants to support dozens of news organizations.
"We're going to do the kinds of deep, investigative watchdog, explanatory and long-form narrative that is just very difficult for others to produce anymore with cut backs," co-founding editor Larry Ryckman told KUNC in an interview... | | Counting down to the Primetime Emmys | | | First-time Emmy Awards hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che are on the cover of this week's Variety... The cover and story will be out on Tuesday: | | | Speaking of the pair... Che, Jost, and Kent Sublette "will return as co-head writers for the upcoming 44th season" of "SNL," Variety reports. "The three served as co-head writers last season on the NBC sketch-comedy season. Not returning to serve alongside them next season will be Bryan Tucker, who is stepping down to a position as senior writer..." | | Amanpour's expansion on PBS | | Monday marked the first night of the hour-long "Amanpour and Company," a PBS version of Christiane Amanpour's CNN International program.
One of her first guests was counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway. I wrote about their exchange re: the president and the press... | | Lowry recommends "Swiped" | | Brian Lowry emails: Aside from making married folk feel happy to be out of the dating pool, the HBO documentary "Swiped: Hooking Up in the Digital Age" carries a pretty significant message — namely, that the technology of dating apps has put us in uncharted waters, in evolutionary terms.
Nancy Jo Sales adapted her Vanity Fair piece, with the even more alarming title "Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse," into this provocative film...
>> "Swiped" premiered Monday night... It'll be on VOD on Tuesday... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Lisa Respers France emails: Celebs rallied around Serena Williams on Monday after an editorial cartoon was released that many viewed as sexist and racist...
-- Chloe Melas emails: Meryl Streep became the unwitting star of the US Open...
-- Sandra Gonzalez writes: "The Television Academy honored late host Anthony Bourdain on Sunday with multiple wins at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards..." | | How to catch up on "Reliable" | | | Watch all the video clips on CNN.com... Listen to the show as a podcast via Apple, Stitcher, TuneIn, or Spotify... Or watch the full show through CNNgo or VOD... | | -- Was the NYT right to grant anonymity to the op-ed writer? We delved into that question on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." Hear from Carl Bernstein and Sarah Ellison here. Ellison said she thought the writer's argument is "disingenuous."
-- Going back to the issue of fitness for office: Tony Schwartz said "this guy is not stable..."
-- Why should readers trust anonymous info at all? I asked Bernstein and Patrick Healy... Here's what they said...
-- "Is White House producing Fox News segments?" That's how it looked last Thursday night... | | Reuters editor speaks out | | With Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo sentenced to seven years in prison in Myanmar, EIC Stephen J. Adler spoke with me about what's next... He said the "whole trial showed an entire lack of due process and rule of law...."
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Thanks for reading! Email me your feedback... See you tomorrow...
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