TGIF. Brian Stelter here with Oliver Darcy at 11:44pm on Thursday, July 21 with the latest on Snap, Charles Homans, Vanity Fair, YouTube, "Nope," and more. But first... As seen on TV Thursday's prime time presentation by the House's 1/6 committee was the most Fox-centric hearing yet – and none of it was shown live by Fox. |
House lawmakers brought up the right-wing network by name half a dozen times. They revealed, through witness testimony, that Donald Trump's dining room TV was tuned to Fox during the siege of the Capitol. They confirmed what journalists like Maggie Haberman reported in the immediate aftermath of the riot: That Trump sat back and watched the show instead of upholding his oath of office. For that reason, the committee members showed Fox clips repeatedly. They used Fox's live coverage of the riot to lay out the timeline of events. And they showed previously published texts between Mark Meadows and Fox personalities like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham to underscore that so many of Trump's allies urged him in real time to call off the mob. Hannity was live on Fox when the texts were showcased – but he was busy talking about President Biden. The main Fox News Channel did not air a single minute of Thursday's hearing. Live coverage was relegated to Fox Business, the low-rated sister channel. Other right-wing outlets, like Newsmax and The Daily Caller, also ignored the hearing. I know this is not surprising but it is important to document, lest anyone think that the United States was united in watching this summer's series of hearings about 1/6. Far from it. As Rep. Adam Kinzinger said in his closing remarks, "The forces Donald Trump ignited that day have not gone away. The militant, intolerant ideologies. The militias. The alienation and the disaffection. The weird fantasies and disinformation. They're all still out there, ready to go. That's the elephant in the room." So with that in mind, here's a survey of Thursday night's TV landscape... Tucker boasts about not showing the hearing "If you've ever been in a TV control room, there's a huge bank of monitors that shows everything that's on TV," Carlson told his viewers about midway through his Thursday program. He pretended to be surprised that the hearing was on. "One of our producers just said that on every other channel, they're playing some kind of January 6th hearing," he said. "January 6th? As if that's the biggest thing going on in America right now." Carlson then said "no one wants to watch it" (untrue), said that on Jan. 6 "some guy in viking horns wandered around on mushrooms and made weird noises" and "that was kind of it" (untrue), and said that none of the attackers "had guns" (untrue). Carlson jammed all three of those falsehoods into 10 seconds. He concluded his screed by mocking the press, claiming that the riot "makes the people covering it feel like they lived through Vietnam." He sneered: "More lifestyle liberal narcissism." That was the only reference to the 1/6 hearing on Carlson's show. The rest of the program was filled with the usual anti-vaccine, anti-immigrant type rhetoric one might expect. One hour later, Hannity brought up the hearing repeatedly, but denounced the committee; blamed Democrats for security failures on Jan. 6; said Capitol Hill needs a "better perimeter" with fences and walls; condemned Dems for "violent rhetoric" in the past; said Congress should convene a committee about the summer of 2020's riots; and called the 1/6 committee "a one-sided political smear that does nothing to improve our lives." Later, his guest Mark Levin said "this is a rogue committee that is appointed by Nancy Pelosi to stop Donald Trump from running for president." And yet, despite Carlson and Hannity and Levin's best efforts, Thursday's revelations will still seep through to at least some GOP media viewers and readers... A night of "infuriating" testimony If you were offline during the hearing, check out the CNN team's takeaways here. CNN.com's banner headline right now says "Trump refused to act as democracy was under attack." The NYTimes.com headline is "Jan. 6 Panel Assails Trump's 'Complete Dereliction' of Duty." NBC's banner says "Trump resisted aides' pleas to call off the mob during the riot and refused to say the election was over the next day." After Rep. Liz Cheney closed the hearing with a reminder that "we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation," CNN's Jake Tapper began his recap by calling it "an evening of testimony that was, frankly, infuriating." Trump lied about the election for months, then sent a mob to the Capitol with the "clear purpose of stopping the election, stopping democracy," and then "refused to act to stop the violence." "There is no job of responsibility," John Dickerson said on CBS, "where a failure this grave of your central task wouldn't bounce you from the job immediately." It is extraordinary that "you cannot say that out loud as a Republican right now without getting in trouble," he added, acknowledging that GOP officials fear they'll "end up like Liz Cheney, who is facing possibly losing her seat." "This isn't a prosecution of the past," his colleague Margaret Brennan said, "it's a warning of the future." "See you all in September" BRIAN LOWRY WRITES: Perhaps I've been covering Hollywood too long, but like a lot of people out here ("The Big Bang Theory" co-creator Bill Prady among them), when Cheney announced additional hearings for September, my immediate thought was, "Successful show gets second-season pickup." >> Rep. Bennie Thompson, joining remotely due to Covid-19, said "we are pursuing many additional witnesses for testimony" and "we will reconvene in September, to continue laying out our findings to the American people." Cheney said "we have much work yet to do, and we will see you all in September..." Zurawik's observation CNN media analyst David Zurawik writes: "Another media takeaway from the hearings on the insurrection involves the role of TV in American life. While television was widely accepted as the principal storyteller of our national life during the last half of the 20th Century, many analysts have downplayed its importance with the rise of the Internet and social media during the last two decades. But these hearings have shown the enduring political and cultural power of the medium. This summer, at least, TV has been the principal storyteller of what happened on January 6, 2021. The dinosaur can still roar..." About the outtakes BRIAN LOWRY WRITES: One more thought: Those Trump outtakes really do give you a sense of his TV experience, where you can screw up a line, snap your fingers and do a retake. Seeing the clips, it's hard not to think how much the producers shaping "The Apprentice" under Mark Burnett contributed to the image that helped sweep him into office... |
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-- "Of course he was watching the show," professor Jennifer Mercieca commented, "he was the executive producer!" (Twitter) -- Arizona Republic media critic Bill Goodykoontz predicts that "187 Minutes" is "going to be the title of the movie they make about the Jan. 6 attack..." (Twitter) -- All of this testimony "keeps pressure on the Justice Department," Jamie Gangel noted on CNN before the hearing began. Evan Perez reported that the DOJ's probe "is a lot more advanced than some of the critics realize..." (CNN) -- Cheney to Peter Baker: "I believe this is the most important thing I've ever done professionally, and maybe the most important thing I ever do..." (NYT) -- In a new interview with Fox, Melania Trump "claimed she was in the dark about what was happening that day, although it was broadcast worldwide on television and all over social media..." (CNN) -- "Most American pundits and journalists used an 'outsider comes to Washington' framework to process Trump's campaign and his presidency, when they should have been fitting every fresh fact into an 'authoritarian populist' framework or a 'democratic death spiral' framework," Brian Klaas argues... (Atlantic) -- Breaking: "Rep. Lee Zeldin, GOP nominee for N.Y. governor, attacked at campaign event near Rochester." This violent episode is being widely condemned by Republicans and Democrats alike... (NY Daily News) |
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| Biden's bout with Covid After the 1/6 hearing concluded, WaPo's Philip Bump quipped on Twitter, "Hard to believe it's only been a week since we learned Biden had covid." It's been that sort of day. President Biden's positive Covid result was a genuine bulletin on Thursday morning, resulting in special reports and push alerts and hours of live coverage. The WH press office set expectations for daily updates about his condition: "Out of an abundance of transparency, the White House will provide a daily update on the President's status as he continues to carry out the full duties of the office while in isolation." Biden's Covid case is the off-lead on Friday's Washington Post front page: |
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Closing arguments in Steve Bannon's trial... Twitter and Verizon report earnings before the bell... "Nope" opens in theaters... Scroll down for Brian Lowry's review... After a theatrical pit-stop, "The Gray Man" takes aim at Netflix viewers... |
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| Thursday's three big stories about social media
BY CLARE DUFFY:
>> Facebook's redesign: Facebook launched a significant platform redesign as part of its push to show users more recommended content on the Home feed, a move intended to help it keep pace with TikTok. For users who want something more akin to the original Facebook experience, the company introduced a new "Feeds" tab that won't contain any suggested content, but rather will let users see the most recent posts from friends, as well as groups and pages they follow. Details... >> YouTube's new misinfo policy: YouTube now says it is removing misinformation related to abortion from its platform, including false claims about the safety of the procedure and potentially unsafe instructions about how to self-induce an abortion. The update builds on YouTube's existing medical misinfo policies, which also prohibit false claims about Covid-19 and vaccines. More here... >> Snap's major miss: Shares of Snapchat's parent company tanked more than 25% in after-hours trading after it missed its own expectations for quarterly revenue growth. Snap's stock was already down 65% year to date. The company shared a number of plans for reaccelerating growth; said it is "substantially" slowing hiring; and talked about seeking new sources of revenue. Read on... |
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-- Snap's ugly report dragged down other online ad sector stocks on Thursday, incinerating "$80 billion in ad industry market cap..." (Reuters) -- "Seventeen Republican attorneys general have urged Google not to limit the appearance of anti-abortion centers in search results," Kris Holt reports... (Yahoo! Finance) -- Another move from Facebook to compete with TikTok? "Instagram is making almost all videos Reels and will show them to way more people," Richard Lawler writes... (The Verge)
-- "TikTok is rising as a news platform," Meera Navlakha writes, noting Ofcom data that shows its the "fastest growing source of news for adults in the UK..." (Mashable)
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| NewsGuard downgrades Fox BY OLIVER DARCY: NewsGuard has downgraded FoxNews.com to a score (57/100) that puts it in the red for the first time. In its newest report card for Fox, the news source evaluator says Fox's site "fails to adhere to basic journalistic standards" and has "published numerous false and misleading claims, including about politics and Covid-19." This isn't surprising, given that the site took a sharp right turn quite a while ago and now operates more like a conservative blog. Nevertheless, Fox hit back, calling NewsGuard a "for-profit organization operating under the guise of an objective public service." Fox went on: "Their management and editorial teams rely heavily on left-leaning sourcing to attempt to silence diversity of thought in the media. Fox News is proud of the coverage we provide our dedicated viewers, which is why we attract the most politically diverse audience in cable news." NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill pushed back against the attack, sarcastically asking me, "Is Cassidy Hutchinson a 'left wing' source?" |
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Fios says it will drop OAN
BY OLIVER DARCY:
"One America News has been on life support since satellite provider DirecTV dropped the far-right conspiratorial network from its lineup this spring," the Beast's Justin Baragona wrote Thursday. "It now looks like it may be DOA." That's because Verizon Fios is set to drop the network from its lineup at the end of the month after failing to reach a new carriage agreement. OAN's distribution model will now be largely reliant on streaming. The outlet has been attempting to sell streaming subscriptions to its audience for a while, though it's unclear how many people have forked over money... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE |
-- The royal nanny accused of having an affair with Prince Charles in the '90s has been paid a "substantial, if undisclosed, amount in damages" by the BBC... (NYT) -- There is a billionaire media baron in France who is giving Rupert Murdoch a run for his money. Meet Vincent Bollore... (Bloomberg) -- Michelle Obama's next book now has a name and release date: "The Light We Carry" will come out November 15... (AP) -- "Tanqueray" debuted at #1 on the NYT's nonfiction best seller list this week. Mark Leibovich's "Thank You For Your Servitude" opened at #2, and Malcolm Nance's "They Want to Kill Americans" debuted at #9... (NYT) |
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| FIRST IN RELIABLE VF's new Hollywood correspondent Vanity Fair editor Radhika Jones told staffers Thursday that Natalie Jarvey is joining the publication as Hollywood correspondent. "Natalie was previously a correspondent and editor at Insider, where she covered the digital transformation of Hollywood," Jones wrote. "Prior to joining Insider, she was senior digital media editor at The Hollywood Reporter..." |
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Hartung officially joins Amazon
BY OLIVER DARCY: It's finally official: Amazon Prime Video announced on Thursday that Kaylee Hartung will join the streamer as its "Thursday Night Football" sideline reporter, a move that we reported was due to happen earlier this month. I'm told Hartung's last day at ABC News, where she was a correspondent, was on July 15th. Amazon also announced Thursday that Andrew Whitworth and Agib Talib have joined as contributors for pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage. Details here... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR |
-- With Pete Williams retiring at the end of the month, NBC News has outlined its plans for court and DOJ coverage... (Variety) -- WaPo has announced its full roster for its Democracy team, led by editor Griff Witte. The team is made up of Matt Brown, Amy Gardner, Tom Hamburger, Rosalind S. Helderman, Patrick Marley, Isaac Stanley-Becker, and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez... (WaPo) -- NYT has expanded its live team, with Enjoli Liston joining in London... (NYT) -- Elsa Keslassy has been promoted to senior int'l film editor at Variety... (Variety) -- Warner Bros. Discovery has announced its comms staff, which includes Fox Corp. alum Megan Klein and Disney alum Laura Watson... (Deadline) -- Chris Cuomo debuted a podcast Thursday and addressed his CNN exit, saying, "As for CNN, I will never be a hater. CNN has great people, CNN has a great purpose, and I wish them all the best..." (THR) |
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Netflix VP of product departs "Netflix veteran Todd Yellin, who has led the streamer's product teams spanning functions from user interface to pricing, is leaving the company," Variety's Todd Spangler reported Thursday. "Yellin, who has worked at the company for almost 17 years, will stay on at Netflix through September to help recruit his successor." Per Spangler, Yellin will pursue potential TV/film projects. Here's Spangler's full story... |
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Comic-Con masks up for its return
BY BRIAN LOWRY:
Just being back up and running is the big news about Comic-Con this year, but the impact of the pandemic can also be seen in the enhanced influence of streaming at the convention, with big-ticket items like Amazon's "The Lord of the Rings" prequel, HBO/HBO Max's "House of the Dragon" and Netflix's "The Sandman" holding their own with the major movie releases getting pushed at the four-day convention, which officially kicked off today.
>> Read Lowry's full preview here... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE |
-- Netflix shares gained another 3.4% on Thursday. Frank Pallotta says the company's vision "for the future of streaming" is "more expensive or less convenient..." (CNN) -- "Streaming made up more than one-third of total TV viewing in June, according to Nielsen's latest monthly snapshot," Dade Hayes reports... (Deadline) -- Hopes for an in-person Television Critics Association press tour have been dashed. This summer's event "is going all virtual," the way it has been since 2020, Lynette Rice reports... (Deadline) |
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A qualified 'Yep' on 'Nope" BY BRIAN LOWRY: Jordan Peele set the bar awfully high with his directing debut "Get Out," and "Nope" -- a big summer movie with an alien-invader theme -- doesn't reach it. The director's mix of horror and comedy makes this family-centric mashup -- closer to "Signs" than "Close Encounters" in that respect -- well worth seeing, but its odd detours and somewhat ill-defined rules prevent it from receiving a wholly enthusiastic endorsement. Read on... |
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-- "Top Gun: Maverick" has passed the original "Avengers" to become the ninth highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office... (Variety) -- The first trailer for Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" is making its debut exclusively in movie theaters... (Variety) -- But you can see the film's first poster here... (THR) -- R-rated "Deadpool" and "Logan" are heading to Disney+... (The Verge) -- The official trailer for HBO's "Industry" season two is here... (YouTube) -- "Grey's Anatomy" has added Niko Terho as a regular for season 19... (TV Line)
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Heard files notice of appeal in Depp case
BY LAUREN DEL VALLE AND SONIA MOGHE:
Amber Heard took a first step toward appealing the verdict in the defamation case with her ex-husband Johnny Depp. Attorneys for Heard filed a notice of appeal Thursday in Virginia, telling the court they intend to appeal the jury trial verdict and all the post-trial motions that did not go in favor of their client. The court document, however, didn't elaborate on Heard's appellate argument. Read our full story here... |
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Ricky Martin's nephew withdraws his harassment claim
BY CHLOE MELAS:
A nephew of singer Ricky Martin who claims he and Martin shared a romantic relationship has dropped allegations of harassment against the pop star. A judge lifted a temporary restraining order against Martin on Thursday at a hearing in San Juan, Puerto Rico. According to police spox Axel Valencia, the order will be "archived" since there "is nothing criminal" pending against Martin. Here's my full story...
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FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN |
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LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST... Pet of the day! Reader Joanna Massey emails: "A photo of Pugsley the pug asking when it will be time for his nightly fix of the Reliable Sources newsletter… or maybe he's asking where his dinner is. It is difficult to tell the difference between the two." |
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Thank you for reading! Email us your feedback, tips and pet photos anytime. We'll be back tomorrow... |
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