The weekend has arrived! Oliver Darcy here at 8:22pm on Friday, July 22. We have the latest on Vince McMahon, TikTok, Steve Bannon, Jay Carney, Steven Spielberg, Meta, and more. Plus, details on Twitter's Q2 miss and RT's next move. But first... Oliver's weekend reads |
>> Don't miss Charles Homans' deep-dive that examines "how 'Stop the Steal' captured the American Right." In the NYT Mag piece, Homans notes the role "a cohort of national right-wing media figures" have played in influencing the GOP base... >> On a related note, NYMag's Jonathan Chait argues that Trump's "fixation on 2020 is his best strategy to win," in part because "conservative media spent years convincing its audience that the Republican Party was led by weaklings..." >> Derek Robertson writes for Politico Mag about Dave Portnoy's opposition to the Supreme Court's decision on Roe v. Wade, arguing that it will "force the 'Barstool conservatives' to choose..." >> WaPo's Margaret Sullivan writes about the Redding Sentinel, a local paper in Connecticut launched by digital media vet Susan Clark: "I wanted to see if the town would rally round a newspaper..." >> WIRED's Matt Burgess examines the "unsolved mystery attack on internet cables in Paris," explaining that as "new details about the scope of the sabotage emerge, the perpetrators—and the reason for their vandalism—remain unknown..." >> CJR's Jon Allsop offers a bleak assessment of the situation in Sri Lanka, writing that "the future for the press looks uncertain..."
>> Deadline's Dominic Patten and Natalie Sitek have a fun story about the "marketing war" taking place at Comic-Con... >> The Atlantic's Shirley Li explains why she believes that "the most moving film of the year" is "Fire of Love," a documentary about volcanoes...
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Brian's weekend reads
BY BRIAN STELTER:
>> "I was wrong:" Eight NYT Opinion columnists, from Michelle Goldberg to Bret Stephens, revisited "incorrect predictions and bad advice..." >> VF's Charlotte Klein spoke with lawyers and editors about the media coalition that is fighting for the full record of the Uvalde massacre... >> "Does poetry have any place in a war zone?" For NYT vet Alissa J. Rubin, "it is indispensable..." >> In his first year leading Amazon, Andy Jassy "has made more changes than many expected," the NYT's David McCabe and Karen Weise write... >> "The Great Fiction of AI:" The Verge's Josh Dzieza explores "the strange world of high-speed semi-automated genre fiction..." >> The Atlantic's Marina Koren says "the Webb Space Telescope Is a Time Machine..." >> "Why does Home Alone look better than the latest Marvel fare" on the most advanced TV sets? Lane Brown's answer for Vulture is that "TVs are too good now..." >> Why is it so hard to adapt Jane Austen? Sarah Lyall says "backlash to the Netflix version of 'Persuasion' has as much to do with who's watching as who's scripting..." Perspective from the open road BRIAN STELTER ADDS: Ross Douthat has been writing columns from a great cross-country drive with his family, and his observation about "the intense difference between America experienced as a geographic entity" and America experienced through screens and apps stuck with me all week long. "The comparison does not reflect well on the virtual America," he wrote, "which feels crowded and exhausting, a thousand-odd people screaming at one another in a medium-size hotel ballroom." His point: America's state-to-state spaciousness, "its complexity and diversity and simple wildness," is "a potential asset to be set against the claustrophobia of small-screen politics and culture wars..." |
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This Sunday on "Reliable Sources"
BY BRIAN STELTER:
Jennifer Dresden, the primary author of a recent report titled "The Authoritarian Playbook: a media guide," will join me on Sunday's "Reliable." Plus: David Frum, Sarah Longwell, David Zurawik, Bill Weir, Ken Auletta, as well as Lynne O'Donnell, the Foreign Policy columnist who was detained by the Taliban and forced to retract some of her articles before leaving Afghanistan. See you Sunday at 11am ET... |
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Comic-Con continues in San Diego with panels from Marvel and Warner Bros., as well as HBO's "House of the Dragon" and Netflix's "The Sandman..." Shark Week kicks off on Discovery Sunday at 8pm ET... CNN premieres a new special report, "Deep in the Pockets of Texas," at 8pm... The 2022 World Track & Field Championships airs on NBC at 9pm... |
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Bannon found guilty "BANNON FOUND GUILTY ON BOTH COUNTS OF CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS; APPEAL LIKELY." That was the banner headline Friday afternoon atop Breitbart, the right-wing site that Steve Bannon once led. The guilty verdict was returned by a federal jury in a case over Bannon's failure to comply with a 1/6 subpoena. Bannon is scheduled to be sentenced October 31 and faces a minimum of 30 days behind bars. "We may have lost a battle here today, but we are not going to lose this war," Bannon declared outside the courthouse. Bannon returned to his "War Room" podcast and streaming show on Friday afternoon... |
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Ratings takeaways from Thursday's 1/6 hearing BY BRIAN STELTER: More than 17 million people watched Thursday night's hearing by the House's 1/6 committee on TV, according to Nielsen, and an unknowable number tuned in through streaming and other avenues. MSNBC was #1 across TV among total viewers while CNN was #1 in the 25-54 demographic. >> Fox News, which pointedly ignored the hearing, averaged 2.66 million viewers, down a bit from the prior day's 2.88 million... >> Fox Business, which carried the hearing since the flagship channel didn't, averaged fewer than 100,000 viewers... |
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-- The hearings "succeeded not just through good intentions but also by being well-made, well-promoted TV," James Poniewozik writes. "They may have been a most unusual eight-episode summer series (with more promised in September). But they had elements in common with any good drama..." (NYT)
-- "This ninth edition of the weeks-long series and final primetime hearing of the summer needed to deliver the goods, and it did so in spades," Frank Scheck writes. "Like its predecessors, it didn't just offer new information to devastating effect; it also made us reassess what we already knew..." (THR)
-- The aforementioned Margaret Sullivan offers four reasons the hearings "have conquered the news cycle..." (WaPo) -- Rep. Liz Cheney will be interviewed on CNN's "SOTU" and "Fox News Sunday..." |
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DEVELOPING:
McMahon retires amid misconduct probe Vince McMahon announced Friday that he will retire as chairman and CEO of WWE, amid an ongoing probe into misconduct allegations, which were brought to light last month by investigative reporting from the WSJ. "Throughout the years, it's been a privilege to help WWE bring you joy, inspire you, thrill you, surprise you, and always entertain you," McMahon said in a statement. McMahon added that WWE president Nick Khan and chief brand officer Stephanie McMahon (his daughter) will serve as co-CEOs. "Our global audience can take comfort in knowing WWE will continue to entertain you with the same fervor, dedication, and passion as always," McMahon said. "I am extremely confident in the continued success of WWE, and I leave our company in the capable hands of an extraordinary group of Superstars, employees, and executives." Frank Pallotta has the story here... |
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White House says it has been transparent on Biden health The White House on Friday said that it had been very transparent about Biden's Covid diagnosis, even though the President's doctor, Kevin O'Connor, hasn't been made available to take Q's from reporters. When press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was pressed on the matter, she said that the press has heard from O'Connor -- in the form of daily letters that he has written, which indicated on Friday that Biden's symptoms have slightly improved. "You've heard from the letter that is hearing directly from him. We're not playing telephone here. You're hearing directly from the physician," Jean-Pierre said. She also noted that Dr. Ashish Jha has taken questions from reporters, though she declined to say whether O'Connor ever will. >> The AP's story describes a "diligently choreographed effort by the administration to depict a commander-in-chief who had not relinquished his day job..." >> Biden appeared on camera Friday afternoon for a virtual meeting with his economic team. "I'm feeling much better than I sound," Biden said... |
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Twitter cites Musk "uncertainty" as it misses in Q2
BY CLARE DUFFY:
Twitter's second quarter earnings report, released Friday, revealed that its dispute with Elon Musk is taking a toll on its business. The company's revenue declined 1% year-over-year and it posted a net loss of $270 million, which it attributed in part to "uncertainty" surrounding the Musk deal (as well as challenges in the online ad market). It was Twitter's biggest revenue miss ever, and it's a significant change from where the company was this time last year. Last July, Twitter posted a 74% year-over-year revenue increase for Q2, and the company's shares were trading 43% higher... Musk's team works on responding to Twitter's suit CLARE DUFFY ADDS: The decision to expedite the case between Musk and Twitter was a win for the social media company not only because it will limit the time the company is in limbo, but because it gives Musk's team less time to conduct a fishing expedition into his claims about bots, legal experts told me this week. Still, while Musk's team has not yet filed an answer to Twitter's complaint, it has already started the process of requesting documents from the company, according to court docs filed this week... |
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-- Per CNN's Nicole Goodkind, "US stocks fell on Friday as disappointing earnings results from Snapchat led to a selloff in social media and tech stocks." Snap closed down 39%. It is now down 79% year to date... -- Suzanne Vranica's latest: "Snap, Twitter spark new fears of broader advertising-market decline..." (WSJ) -- Coming up: "Meta may report its first ever revenue decline when it releases its second-quarter earnings next week, a potentially stunning slowdown for a business that once seemed to have no ceiling," Alex Kantrowitz writes... (Slate) -- The Oversight Board announced Friday that Meta had pledged an additional $150 million to funding it... (Engadget)
-- Google Meet is now offering users the ability to livestream meetings on YouTube... (The Verge)
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RT's next move Not welcome in most of the West, RT is targeting a new part of the world: Africa. Bloomberg's Antony Sguazzin reported Friday that the Kremlin propaganda operation "is setting up its first Africa bureau as President Vladimir Putin seeks to entrench support in a continent that's largely refrained from criticizing his invasion of Ukraine." RT told Bloomberg that it is working to launch a bureau in South Africa headed by its former Jerusalem bureau chief, Paula Slier. Here's the full story... |
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NewsGuard downgrades MSNBC It's not just Fox News that saw its site downgraded by NewsGuard to a failing grade this week. NewsGuard, the web browser plug in that notifies users when they are browsing on what it considers an untrustworthy news site, also updated its rating of MSNBC's website and it too received a failing grade. According to NewsGuard's nutrition label, MSNBC's site "often publishes false and misleading claims in videos and transcripts and does not disclose its liberal perspective." NewsGuard said that it updated its nutrition label on Thursday "to reflect that MSNBC.com now fails the standard for gathering and presenting information responsibly." A spokesperson for MSNBC did not respond to a request for comment on Friday... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE |
-- Jackson Richman dings MSNBC for barely covering the attack against Lee Zeldin: He says the only mention on Friday came at 5:24am. "If a Democrat were attacked, MSNBC would undoubtedly air wall-to-wall coverage of the incident..." (Mediaite) -- Erik Wemple's latest: "Lis Smith's self-serving story about Andrew Cuomo..." (WaPo) -- A U.S. appeals court has "refused to revive Michael Avenatti's $250 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News..." (Reuters) -- MEL Magazine laid off its entire staff on Friday, "bringing into question the future of the publication yet again..." (Observer)
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Carney exits Amazon for Airbnb Jay Carney is leaving Amazon, Axios' Mike Allen scooped Friday. After seven years at the retail giant, Carney will depart for Airbnb's top policy and comms position. As NYT's Karen Weise and David McCabe noted in their story, "Carney's departure is one of several changes atop Amazon a year into the tenure of Andy Jassy..." |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR |
-- NYT has selected Andrew Kramer as its first Ukraine bureau chief... (NYT) -- Clyde McGrady and Amy Qin are joining NYT's national team... (NYT) -- And NYT Cooking has named CC Allen and Vaughn Vreeland as supervising producers... (NYT) -- Phillip Tracy is leaving Gizmodo for Dell Gaming / Alienware where he'll be a senior advisor for product reviews... (Twitter) -- Katherine Terrell is leaving The Athletic... (Twitter) -- USA Today has hired Douglas Soule as Florida government accountability reporter... (Talking Biz News) |
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ICYMI: Charles Homans on the Reliable podcast "How 'Stop the Steal' Captured the American Right," this week's New York Times Magazine cover story, was authored by Charles Homans, the guest on this new episode of the "Reliable Sources" podcast. "There's a great dividing line," Homans said: "Either you believe the election was stolen or you don't believe it. There are some conversations that can happen across that line and some that can't." He told Brian Stelter that he encountered lots of true believers during his reporting: "A lot of people assume this is known to be a lie by the people saying it, and I don't think that's true. I think there are a lot of people who believe strongly in this and do want to convey that belief to you as a reporter." Tune in... |
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Weekend movie roundup BY BRIAN LOWRY: >> "The Gray Man" figures to garner most of the attention in the streaming-movie wars, hitting Netflix after a theatrical pitstop with a big-name cast – Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas – seemingly assembled for maximum social-media impact... >> On a much smaller level, Amazon counters with "Anything's Possible," a trans teen love story that marks the film directing debut of Billy Porter, with a movie that's sensitively told but so thin on drama that it once would have likely gone the after-school-special route. Here's my full review... >> Disney+, meanwhile, will receive an R-rated infusion from "Deadpool" and "Logan," representatives of the Marvel universe that the studio picked up when it merged with Fox, which premiere on the service this weekend and can be found splashed across its home page... >> As for theaters, "Nope" marks the highest-profile arrival, with the Jordan Peele-directed alien-invasion movie shooting to top $50 million for its opening, taking the crown from "Thor: Love and Thunder..." |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE |
-- "Nope" netted $6.4 million in Thursday previews... (THR) -- Speaking of Peele, he's a "nope" on the notion he's the best horror director, Lisa Respers France writes... (CNN) -- Another from Lisa: Ticket prices for Bruce Springsteen's shows are angering some fans... (CNN)
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Renewals and other news from Comic-Con -- AMC "announced a new spin-off for 'The Walking Dead' in 2023 that will star Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira's Michonne. Furthermore, it was revealed this series will replace the planned Rick Grimes movie..." (IGN) -- "Lord of the Rings" debuted a new trailer at Comic-Con on Friday... (THR) -- Amazon has renewed "Wheel of Time" for a third season... (Variety) -- Apple has renewed one of my favorite shows, "For All Mankind," for a fourth season... (TheWrap)
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-- Marcus Mumford is going on a solo tour this fall... (Rolling Stone) -- Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans" will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September... (Deadline) -- Midori Francis is joining the cast of "Grey's Anatomy..." (TV Line)
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LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST... Pet of the day! Boston University professor Jean Berko Gleason emails: "This is Foster, a big fan of Reliable Sources, and of spending time in the garden. He is a rescue from Maine, and named for Foster Pond in Bridgton. Foster is making his acting debut in September, when he will be joining me online in the welcome speech to viewers of the annual Ig Nobel Awards show..." | |
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Thank you for reading! Email us your feedback. We'll be back in your inbox Sunday! |
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