EXEC SUMMARY: The Golden State Warriors just ensured there will be a Game Six. Scroll down for four stories involving the NYT, three streaming biz stories, two new Apollo podcast guests, one Sinclair "Code Red" update, and the latest from Code Conference...
What do you hear?
Democrats apparently had high hopes for Monday afternoon's hearing about the Mueller Report with John Dean and other witnesses. But the crash landing of a helicopter in midtown Manhattan shifted cable news attention from DC to NYC. The hearing reached a fraction of the audience it otherwise would have attracted.
Rep. Steve Cohen blasted the control room decision-making in an interview with MSNBC's Ari Melber later in the day. "The president's guilty" of obstruction of justice, Cohen said. "I think we had a successful hearing. It's just how many people saw it I don't know. It should have been on MSNBC, it should have been on CNN, it should have been on Fox, and not just on C-SPAN 3."
But how impactful would the hearing have been, really? Or to put it another way: What are you hearing about? The Republicans seem to have a more clear and consistent message (the other side is out to destroy Trump) than the Democrats do.
>> Speaking with CNN's Chris Cuomo on Monday night, Bill Maher said impeachment is the right thing to do, despite his reservations: "I'm sick of winning. He's right. I'm sick of winning. His winning."
Favreau says impeachment hearings are "the only way to take the microphone away from Trump"
Obama aide turned "Pod Save America" co-host Jon Favreau tweeted on Monday: "Impeachment hearings are the only way to ensure television coverage of Trump investigations. It's the only way to take the microphone away from Trump. If you're still against it, fine, but don't expect regular hearings to command the same kind of media attention."
>> Related: During Monday's hearing, Dean said lawmakers have a "public education" role. "This report has not been widely read in the United States, it's not even been widely read in the Congress from some of my conversations, but I think it's a very important function that the committee is serving by bringing these matters to public attention..."
Dean's response to Trump | | Trump called Dean a "loser" and criticized Dean's CNN contributor role on Monday afternoon. Dean responded this way on "AC360" Monday night: "I'm honored to be on his enemies list. I was able to make Nixon's at the end, so I'm pleased that I'm on Trump's, given my feelings about the threat he is to this country."
Tuesday's hearing: "Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 1"
The House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee will convene at 2 p.m. Tuesday for "Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 1: The Free and Diverse Press." David Chavern, Gene Kimmelman, Sally Hubbard, Matthew Schruers, Davd Pitofsky, and Kevin Riley will be testifying.
>> Here's my table-setter: "Can newspapers be saved from Big Tech? This proposal aims to try."
BREAKING
US submits formal Assange extradition request
"The United States has submitted its formal request to the United Kingdom to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a US official with knowledge of the matter," CNN's Laura Jarrett and Kate Sullivan reported Monday evening... "Now that the formal extradition package is in, the Justice Department is unlikely to mount additional charges against Assange..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- An Phung flagged this: Thomas Erdbrink, the Tehran-based correspondent for The New York Times, has been barred by Iran's authorities from working "for the past four months." The paper notes that "Erdbrink's absence from the news report has become increasingly conspicuous because of escalating tensions between the Iranian authorities and the United States..." (NYT)
-- Esquire digital director Michael Sebastian is succeeding Jay Fielden as EIC... And Nick Sullivan is becoming creative director... (NYPost)
-- Deepest condolences to Simon Maloy's family, friends and colleagues. Media Matters announced on Monday that the veteran staffer has "passed away after a year-and-a-half-long battle with colon cancer." TPM collected many of the remembrances here... (MM)
"Fox News crosses the line on Joe Biden"
That's the headline on Chris Cillizza's latest, in reaction to this Daily Beast story about Fox News hosts "pushing rumors about Joe Biden's health."
"Trump — and his surrogates, including those at Fox — showed they were willing to do anything and everything to get him elected in 2016," Cillizza wrote. "These baseless hits on Biden's health — more than a year before the election — suggest they'll be following that same blueprint again."
The latest from Code Conference | | (Photo: Asa Mathat for Vox Media)
Sara Ashley O'Brien emails: I'm here in very hot Scottsdale for Recode's Code Conference. Speaking on stage Monday afternoon, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki apologized to members of the LGBTQ community who were hurt by the company's decision regarding Steven Crowder and Carlos Maza. But, she said, she stands by the decision to keep up Crowder's anti-Maza videos that contain homophobic harassment and racist slurs. YouTube "wants to support this community but from a policy standpoint, we need to be consistent," Wojcicki said. Here's my recap.
Wojcicki seemed nervous on stage -- and appeared wholly unprepared to answer Q's about regulation. When asked what it would mean for YouTube if antitrust concerns forced a breakup with Google: "I don't know. I've been really busy this week working with all these other concerns," she said. Eventually she added: "We would figure it out."
Mosseri's argument
More from Sara: Later in the day, FB's Andrew Bosworth and Instagram head Adam Mosseri were also asked about antitrust concerns. Mosseri made the case that it would be "exponentially more difficult, especially for us on Instagram, to keep people safe," if Insta were not part of FB. His reasoning: There are more people working on issues around safety and election integrity at FB as a whole than there are people at all of Instagram. Here is Recode's recap...
>> Kara Swisher set the tone for the three-day gathering by releasing this "manifesto for Code 2019" on Monday afternoon...
HBO severs relationship with Vice
Oliver Darcy emails: HBO announced on Monday that it had canceled the Emmy-award winning "Vice News Tonight," ending the partnership the two networks had enjoyed for the past seven years. Monday's news can be broken down into five key points:
>> Josh Tyrangiel, who oversaw "Vice News Tonight," said he's leaving the company at the end of the month. He said in a note to staff that he "could use a break before contemplating" his next move…
>> Nancy Dubuc suggested in her memo to employees that the move to end the show was due to "leadership and content strategy changes over at HBO" following AT&T's acquisition of WarnerMedia (which also owns CNN)...
>> An alternative explanation: The program was expensive to produce and its ratings didn't justify the cost...
>> Vice has a new partner: Hulu. It has a news-centric show in production for the streaming service. THR first reported the news, which a person familiar confirmed to me…
>> No layoffs are coming as a result of the show's cancellation, a Vice spox told me… But some skeptical staffers are eyeing the exits...
Vice taps Murdoch-world veteran
Darcy adds: In her Monday email to staff, Dubuc announced that former New York Post publisher and CEO Jesse Angelo will be joining Vice as president of global news and entertainment. As Joe Pompeo noted in his VF tick-tock, some former Vice employees found Angelo to be a curious choice. But he is a longtime friend of James Murdoch, who sits on Vice's board of directors…
Somber mood music
One more from Darcy: All of this news comes during a period of significant upheaval for Vice, which is no longer the brand that so many outlets clamored to associate themselves with. In the last few months alone, we've seen the Disney write-down, the cancellation of "Vice Live," and the slashing of 10% of Vice staff. There's been a head-spinning amount of change at the company. And Dubuc has pledged to make Vice profitable very soon...
Critics bemoan NYT's decision to drop editorial cartoons
A month and a half after the NYT errantly published an anti-Semitic cartoon in its international edition, the newspaper has decided to do away with editorial cartoons altogether.
The decision was revealed when one of The Times' cartoonists, Patrick Chappatte, published a blog post linking the paper's decision to the recent controversy. But James Bennet, the editorial page editor, said the decision was being contemplated "for well over a year." He noted that the domestic edition of the NYT doesn't carry cartoons, and now he's bringing the overseas edition "into line." Here's my full story...
Supreme Court takes Comcast race discrimination case
CNN's Ariane de Vogue reports: The Supreme Court will hear a case "that could make it more difficult to bring a race discrimination challenge."
It stems from Comcast and Charter's decision not to carry TV channels owned by Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios Network. "The specific issue in this case is exactly what plaintiffs have to show to make out a race-discrimination claim under one of the more significant federal civil rights statutes," CNN analyst Steve Vladeck says.
Comcast's statement on Monday: "There has been no finding of discriminatory conduct by Comcast against this plaintiff because there has been none. We believe the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision was incorrectly decided. At this stage, the case is about a technical point of law that was decided in a novel way by the 9th Circuit. We hope the Supreme Court will reverse the 9th Circuit's unusual interpretation of the law and bring this case to an end."
>> The Charter legal battle is separate, as THR's Eriq Gardner explains here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Comcast "has pulled out of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council..."
-- Stacia Philips Deshishku is the new VP and GM of ABC Radio...
-- Lydia Moynihan and Charles Gasparino's latest for Fox: DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim and FCC chair Ajit Pai "met Friday to discuss the proposed merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint, as final negotiations for the $26 billion deal appear to be drawing to a close... A final government decision on the merger could come as early as this week..."
-- Daniel Lippman has word of a DC leak hunt: "Chamber of Commerce ends contract with consultant after WSJ investigation..."
Bleacher Report's path
Digiday's Sahil Patel has some new #'s showing Bleacher Report's growth: The brand "has been making a series of investments in longer-form content, events, commerce and a portfolio strategy that is centered on key portfolio brands such as House of Highlights and B/R Football. That has helped put the WarnerMedia-owned publisher on a path to make north of $200 million in revenue in 2019." Details...
| | No more "Code Red" days?
 Sinclair still isn't commenting about the status of Joe Crain, the local weatherman who spoke out against his station's over-the-top "Code Red" weather alerts last week. Crain hasn't been on the air at WICS in Springfield, Illinois, since last Wednesday, the day of his viral monologue.
"His job may now be on the line," CNN's Eric Levenson wrote Monday. But Crain has a lot of support: "Several companies have stopped advertising with the station in solidarity with Crain and his commentary against the corporate decision-makers."
Maybe this is a coincidence, but the station hasn't hyped anything as "Code Red" worthy since last Wednesday, either. A source inside Sinclair quipped to me, "Now THIS is like a 'Code Red' -- the community is beyond irate." A spokesman for Sinclair did not respond to our requests for comment on Monday...
>> Because this involves conservative-leaning Sinclair, there are political overtones. One of the state's two Democratic senators, Dick Durbin, expressed support for Crain and criticized WICS for "overstating the danger to our community..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- This is a great piece by Andrew Heyward about Fox's DC station, WTTG, and its GM Patrick Paolini's approach to local news. "Paolini has pushed the limits on original production, productivity, promotion, and personality..." (Cronkite News Lab)
-- NYT's "The Daily" is "delving deeper into European politics with a weeklong series to help grow its global audience..." (Digiday)
-- A great read by Brian Resnick and Julia Belluz: "How librarians, pirates, and funders are liberating the world's academic research from paywalls..." (Vox)
-- Sports Business Daily's superb media newsletter is outside the paywall today... Here's a look at Fox's plans for Pebble Beach, NBC's profit potential for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, and more... (SBD)
Goldberg's high hopes for Gawker
Gerry Smith is out with a big BW profile of Bustle boss Bryan Goldberg, who now owns the Gawker brand. Goldberg says "I want Gawker to be a peer of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and the Atlantic. It won't happen on Day 1. We probably won't be there a year in. But can we be there five years in? The answer is yes..."
Episode three of our Apollo 11 podcast
"Apollo 11: Beyond the Moon" is holding steady on Apple's top 100 chart for TV and Film podcasts. Episode three is now out -- it features my interview with JoAnn Morgan, the first female engineer at Cape Canaveral and the only woman present in launch control during the Apollo 11 mission. Plus, the author of "Hidden Figures," Margot Lee Shetterly. Hear the pod via Apple, Spotify, or Stitcher...
| | A 27-minute phone call to CNBC
The Trump-TV feedback loop was especially strong on Monday. When Chamber of Commerce exec Myron Brilliant criticized Trump's "weaponization of tariffs" on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Monday morning, Trump picked up the phone and called "Squawk" co-host Joe Kernen to hit back. You may recall that Trump and Kernen are known to chat off-air. Brilliant wrapped at 8:13... and at 8:28 Kernen said "we had an interested viewer" who "wants to make his case." By 8:36, Trump was on CNBC's beeper line... The call went on for 27 minutes... And Chris Cillizza pulled out the "27 most dubious lines" from it...
Personally, I liked Philly Inquirer reporter Bob Fernandez's framing: "Trump tweets Comcast vitriol at MSNBC and NBC. And then calls Comcast-owned CNBC to push agenda."
Trump's antitrust talk
Trump leaned on one of his favorite phrases, "there's something going on," when Kernen asked whether Silicon Valley has an antitrust problem.
Trump noted the EU's hard line against Google et al -- suing for billions of dollars -- and said "we should be doing what they're doing." But as is so often the question with Trump: Was he setting policy or just shooting the you-know-what with a pal?
--> On Page One of Tuesday's NYT: "Smaller Rivals Aim Slingshots At Tech Rivals," by Jack Nicas and Karen Weise...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Good catch by Drew Harwell: "People who searched on Google for the Mueller report have been told the document is 'fiction,' a baffling falsehood that highlights the fallibility of and threat of misinformation from the world's most influential search engine." After he inquired, "Google said the search result was an error and would be fixed shortly..." (WaPo)
-- Aaron Rupar's argument: "Trump's interested in breaking up Big Tech for all the wrong reasons..." (Vox)
-- The Post is out with a new count: "Trump has made 10,796 false or misleading claims over 869 days..." (WaPo)
Can the WHCA do more to combat all the lying?
One of the reporters gunning to be president of the White House Correspondents' Association, Shirish Dáte of HuffPost, is running on this platform: "We as an organization need to be more concerned about getting lied to as a matter of course — and the American public getting lied to, through us — than about access." Erik Wemple spoke with Dáte about it...
"More aggrieved than ever"
There aren't as many Trump-mood stories as there used to be. Remember when the Post would quote "17 sources," that sort of thing? But hey, here's a new one by Politico's Andrew Restuccia: "The cycle of lashing out and hitting back is a familiar pattern for Trump. As his presidency reaches the 2.5-year mark, he is more aggrieved than ever, telling advisers that he believes he'll never get fair treatment from the media and establishment politicians that he believes hate him..."
Acosta's book comes out Tuesday
"We have to stand for the truth. We're not just here to report the news. We're here also to defend the truth," Jim Acosta said on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." If you missed the interview, you can watch parts 1 and 2 on CNN.com. Acosta's book "The Enemy of the People" hits bookshelves Tuesday...
Alec Baldwin may not be done with Trump, after all
Surprise, surprise... We've seen this play before... 🙄
Frank Pallotta emails: Alec Baldwin made headlines last week when he told USA Today he was "so done" playing Trump on "SNL." But on Monday, while doing a promotional interview for ABC's "Match Game," Baldwin told Vulture's Joe Adalian that he doesn't really know yet if he'll play the commander-in-chief next season.
"Lorne was responsible for coercing me into doing '30 Rock,' which was the best job I've ever had in my life," Baldwin told Adalian. "[He] is somebody that I trust, and after I have a nice conversation with him, we'll see what the future holds. We'll see."
| | Viacom planning BET+ streaming service
WSJ's Ben Mullin broke this news on Monday: Viacom's BET Networks "is preparing to launch a streaming-video service aimed at African-American audiences, according to people familiar with the plans, as the media giant pursues new business lines to counter the decline of its traditional pay-TV operation." Tyler Perry is on board to promote and supply programming for the service, BET+, which is "is slated to launch in the fall."
>> Per Mullin, "pricing isn't final, but Viacom executives expect it to cost more than the company's Comedy Central Now service, which is $3.99 a month..."
Reality check
A sobering line in Dade Hayes' Deadline story about BET+: "There are more than 200 streaming services in the U.S."
Matthew Ball posted an on-point Twitter thread about this on Monday. He said he wasn't subtweeting anyone in particular. But his point was that as more and more of these streamers launch, he recedes to the "often missing Q of what consumer problem they solve." Most are being launched, he said, to "solve an internal business need, not an unmet audience wants."
Ball: "With a baseline layer of Netflix + Amazon, plus likely Apple, and at least Hulu or Disney and a premium net, what problem does new service X solve? Why does someone want it? Or are they just being forced to add it (temporarily) for *a* show?"
WarnerMedia orders "Dune: The Sisterhood"
Variety's Joe Otterson reports: "WarnerMedia's streaming service has given a straight-to-series order to the sci-fi project 'Dune: The Sisterhood.' The series hails from Legendary Television..."
Brian Lowry's take: Increasingly, it looks like the streaming wars are going to be driven by big intellectual property — one reason to be bullish about Disney's chances — and especially sci-fi and fantasy. Enter WarnerMedia's announcement of a planned "Dune" series, "set in the universe" of Frank Herbert's novels. Notably, 'Dune: The Sisterhood' will be produced by Denis Villeneuve ('Blade Runner 2049'), who's also directing the film reboot of the franchise that's due to be released in November 2020...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Clever? "Steven Spielberg is penning a horror series for Quibi that users will only be able to see when their phone knows it's dark outside..." (Variety)
-- Borys Kit's latest: "Behind Fox's 'Dark Phoenix' debacle..." (THR)
Not a snub!
Brian Lowry emails: As pet peeves go, it was gratifying to see a lot of people respond to a tweet in which I took THR to task for labeling Jeff Daniels' failure to win a Tony — the award went to Bryan Cranston for "Network" — a "snub." The "snubs and surprises" story has become a common adjunct to awards coverage, but increasingly news outlets really distinguish between not winning and having somehow been collectively rebuffed by one's peers. Given Cranston's track record, this felt like a particularly egregious example of the practice... | |
ICYMI...
On Sunday's "Reliable Sources" telecast, we discussed Laura Ingraham's cringe-worthy interview with the president at Normandy... News coverage of the 2020 race and Joe Biden changing his stance on federal funding to pay for abortions... The recent police raids of a newsroom and a reporter's home in Australia... And YouTube's new white supremacy ban. Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or listen to the show in podcast form via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app...
| | | Thanks for reading! Send me your feedback, tips, ideas here. See you tomorrow... | | | |
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