Hey, we're midway between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Brian Stelter here at 9:15pm ET on Friday, July 15... The truth is hard |
At the end of a week of local news excellence, Nicole Carroll, president of Gannett's news division, filed a column about the important work performed by the Austin American-Statesman, Columbus Dispatch and Indianapolis Star: "The truth is hard to endure: A gunman slaughters 19 children and two teachers inside an elementary school classroom. Law enforcement officers stand in the hallway, but don't go in to confront him." "The truth is hard to absorb: A 10-year-old girl is pregnant after being raped. Because she lives in Ohio, where abortions are heavily restricted, she travels to an Indiana doctor to have an abortion. "Our job is to report the truth," Carroll wrote. I'd be tempted to add a second line: Our job is to report the truth and help the public recognize the difference between reports and rants, between facts and feelings, between our priors and reality... ––– Weekend reads, part one -- The headline on Greg Sargent's interview with Rachel Kleinfeld is "An expert in political violence urgently warns: The worst is coming..." (WaPo) -- "If there was any doubt about the goal of the hearings," Susan Glasser writes, "it's now become all too clear: to put the blame for January 6th squarely on Trump..." (TNY) -- "Buying into conspiracy theories can be exciting! And that's what makes them dangerous," researcher Donovan Schaefer says... (NiemanLab) -- US journalists are being "targeted by foreign hackers who show sophisticated understanding of American politics," Sean Lyngaas reports... (CNN) -- "How to Report About the Pandemic Now:" Richard Tofel says "we need more journalism about the forest of societal change, perhaps less on the trees of case counts and incremental subvariants..." (Second Rough Draft) -- Ed Yong says "the latest surge is a test of our pandemic priorities..." (The Atlantic) -- Sign of the times: "A small-town library in Iowa is scrambling to reopen after community complaints about its book selection prompted full-time staff members to resign," Andy Rose and Bill Kirkos wrote. The complaints were about "books on display for children with information on the LGBTQ community..." (CNN) -- This preview of next week's book "Bad City" is a doozy: It alleges ethical lapses at USC and the Los Angeles Times... (LAT) ––– Oprah and Clarissa |
"I'll treasure this conversation," Clarissa Ward told Oprah Winfrey at the end of their "O Talks" interview earlier this week. And it was obvious that Winfrey felt the same way. Winfrey was in fan mode, praising Ward for her war zone reporting and asking specific questions that proved Winfrey is a loyal viewer. The video and highlights are online on the Oprah Daily website. "The world has changed in ways that we are only just starting to get our arms around," the CNN chief international correspondent told Winfrey. Her key point: "What I've learned over the years is that it's better to stop trying to predict how the world has changed, and try just to focus on telling the stories of the peoples whose lives are so impacted by those changes as they're playing out." ––– Weekend reads, part two -- "Microsoft Makes a Splash on Madison Avenue:" This week's ad deal with Netflix "reignites its ambitions in online advertising," Suzanne Vranica and Sarah Krouse write... (WSJ) -- Was the ad deal just the foreshock? "The potential synergies between the two companies and the lack of direct competition may pave the way for even larger moves ahead," Brandon Katz wrote... (TheWrap) -- Rachel Metz explains @weirddalle: "This AI image generator lets you type in words and get weird pictures back..." (CNN) -- Futurist Matthew Ball says I "have never experienced a buzzword become as dominant as rapidly as the metaverse did." So what is it? What isn't it? Ahead of his metaverse book launch next week, Ball spoke with Protocol's Janko Roettgers and Puck's Matthew Belloni... (Protocol, Puck) -- I learned a lot here: "The hidden history of screen readers..." (The Verge) -- A new trailer for season five of "The Handmaid's Tale" left Coleman Spilde to argue that "the last thing the world needs is more" of "Handmaid's..." (The Daily Beast) -- There are layers and layers here: "Why the Internet is so obsessed with Lea Michele replacing Beanie Feldstein in Funny Girl..." (Slate) -- "No One Even Comes Close to Bad Bunny's Stardom Right Now:" Lucas Shaw says "Bad Bunny appeared in the Spotify top 100 the last two months more than Harry Styles, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Olivia Rodrigo combined..." (Bloomberg) |
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-- CNN.com's top homepage headline tonight: "House Republicans plot investigative revenge on January 6 panel as Trump itches for payback..." (CNN) -- Fox's Tucker Carlson was the headliner at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa on Friday. He "did not suggest he would seek the White House," but he did sound a lot like a 2024 candidate at times... (HuffPost) -- Friday's installment of the NYT/Siena poll: "Voters See a Bad Economy, Even if They're Doing OK." The story notes that consumer sentiment "can be driven by media narratives..." (NYT) -- Philip Bump unpacks "the weird divergence between views of Biden and support for his party..." (WaPo) |
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The day in Jeddah President Biden came under withering criticism on Friday when he began his visit to Saudi Arabia by fist bumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Later in the day, he said "that he believes the Crown Prince was to blame for the 2018 killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi," CNN's team reports, "even as Biden announced several new areas of cooperation aimed at reshaping US-Saudi relations." The Washington Post, which counted Khashoggi as a contributor, reported that "there were other bumps along the way" on Friday. "Saudi officials initially excluded two Washington Post reporters from a planned media briefing that the government was holding Friday, without providing an explanation." They were later invited after the Post raised the matter with the White House. >> WaPo publisher Fred Ryan condemned Biden's "shameful" fist bump, saying it "projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking..." >> "The Saudi photo-op is obviously unlikely to influence the Post's coverage of the administration — 'we'll be professional as always, personal feelings aren't a factor,' one editor said—but it nevertheless feeds into larger tensions between the White House and the Post's executive leadership that have been brewing for some time," Puck's Dylan Byers wrote... >> The headline on the "Democracy Now!" website: "Biden pledges to 'stand up for media freedom' after snubbing Shireen Abu Akleh's family..." |
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-- One of Friday's other top stories: "Biden vows to use executive action after Manchin torpedoes climate agenda..." (CNN) -- NPR WH correspondent Tamara Keith became president of the White House Correspondents' Association on Friday, taking the baton from Stephen Portnoy... -- Regarding the WHCA, "this is the first time our organization will be led three years in a row by female presidents," since Keith will be followed, after her one-year term, by Kelly O'Donnell and then Kaitlan Collins... (Twitter) |
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This Sunday on "Reliable" The aforementioned Nicole Carroll and Matthew Ball are two of my guests this weekend. Plus: Shimon Prokupecz, Natasha Alford, Bill Carter, and "Hollywood Ending" author Ken Auletta. And maybe a surprise or two? See you Sunday at 11am ET on CNN... |
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Saturday: The 988 suicide prevention hotline number goes live nationwide... Sunday: CNN premieres a new one-hour special, "Steve Bannon: Divided We Fall," Sunday at 8pm ET, one day before Bannon is set to go on trial... Tuesday afternoon: Netflix reports Q2 earnings... Thursday afternoon: Snap reports Q2 earnings... Thursday: The Jan. 6 committee holds its next hearing in prime time... |
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| Disney's ESPN+ price hike Disney's summer Friday news dump: Next month it is raising the price of the ESPN+ sports streaming service to $9.99 per month, up from $6.99 a month. "It's unusual for the price of a streaming service price to rise more than 40% in a single increase," CNBC's Alex Sherman wrote. But "the dramatic rate hike accomplishes several goals," by boosting streaming revenue and highlighting the value of its bundle offer. That's because "Disney isn't changing the price of its bundle, which will remain $13.99 per month" for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. (Reading that made me realize that I need to roll my existing subscriptions into the bundle and save a few bucks a month.) Lowry's take BY BRIAN LOWRY: At first blush, ESPN's decision to raise the price of its streaming service by $3 seems questionable, but it probably reflects a logical strategy for an increasingly competitive streaming landscape -- namely, reach fewer people who are truly committed to your product, and charge them more for the privilege. Sports seems particularly well suited to that approach, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it bleed more into other must-have items among loyal fan bases, realizing that you'll sacrifice tonnage around the fringes... |
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NYT introduces Sunday Opinion The NYT's Sunday Review section is no more. Starting this weekend, the section will be called Sunday Opinion. Katie Kingsbury explained the history and the reasoning in a note to colleagues this week: "It was born in 1935 as The News of the Week in Review, a place where Times reporters could offer their analysis of the week's news. In 2011, as The Times created more separation between news and opinion, the section was given over to the Opinion editors and renamed Sunday Review." "Since then," Kingsbury wrote, "it has been the print home of our finest and most ambitious opinion journalism — work from columnists, the Times editorial board and outside contributors. This redesign completes this most recent transformation. One that started a few years ago and included a digital redesign, the introduction of 'guest essay' and longer bios for outside contributors. By renaming the print section Sunday Opinion, we're making things as clear as we can for our readers." |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE |
-- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has reached a settlement with Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the NYT Magazine, after a dispute over tenure, the school said on Friday..." (NYT) -- Mike DeBonis is leaving WaPo to "become the new editor of Playbook..." (Politico) -- Kyle Smith is bidding farewell to National Review and joining the WSJ as film critic... (NRO) -- "LiveOne, an online music and entertainment company, said it raised $8.1 million for its PodcastOne division as part of a plan to spin off the subsidiary as a separate public company," Ashley Carman reports... (Bloomberg) -- Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios "is officially the successful bidder for Black News Channel, setting it up to be the future home for the network," Sara Winegardner reports... (CableFax) -- Via Brian Fung: "TikTok says its global chief security officer, Roland Cloutier, is stepping away 'into a strategic advisory role focusing on the business impact of security and trust programs,' with Kim Albarella succeeding him as interim head of global security..." (Twitter) | |
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Raising the broadband bar
BY BRIAN FUNG: On Friday the FCC proposed updating the US government's definition of broadband internet service for the first time in nearly a decade. The move could significantly affect which areas of the country receive critical attention and funding for high-speed infrastructure deployment in the coming years. FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel's proposal aims to quadruple the current benchmark for download speeds to 100 megabits per second, up from the current 25 Mbps, and revise minimum upload speeds from 3 Mbps to 20 Mbps. >> Why it matters: The US government definition of broadband is a key metric used in determining whether Americans are served or underserved by high-speed internet access in their area, and goes into decision-making about billions in federal subsidies and infrastructure spending... >> Rosenworcel's forward-looking goal: 1 gigabit per second for download speeds and 500 Mbps for upload speeds...
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"Musk Opposes Twitter's Request for Expedited Trial" ☝️ That's the top story on the WSJ homepage right now. Elon Musk's lawyers are arguing that the court should reject Twitter's "unjustifiable request to rush." Of course, "Twitter has asked the court to expedite the proceedings, citing risks from the recent economic downturn and being held in limbo by a buyer," Sarah E. Needleman and Erin Mulvaney write. "The company requested a trial by mid-September..." Twitter may only have bad options left in its battle with Musk BY CLARE DUFFY: I spoke with some legal experts about what's likely to come next now that Twitter has sued Musk, and how strong the two sides' arguments are. Most agree that Twitter technically has the stronger case, but entering a legal battle that could drag on for months against the richest man in the world is still not a position the company wants to be in right now... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR |
-- "A legal shield for social media is showing cracks," Susannah Luthi reports... (Politico) -- "Google feels the antitrust heat over its online ad business," Mathew Ingram writes... (CJR) -- Netflix faced a "more than hour-and-a-half long disruption across all devices, the company said on Friday..." (Reuters) -- "Palisades Media Group, which serves as Netflix's advertising agency, suddenly informed staff Friday the company would be closed permanently at day's end," Brandon Katz reports... (TheWrap) -- Missed this yesterday: "Nadine Zylstra, most recently YouTube's global head of original programming, is joining Pinterest in the newly created role of global head of programming and originals..." (Variety) |
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Quiet box office weekend "After last week's massive 'Thor: Love and Thunder' opening, this weekend will be quieter at the box office with drama 'Where the Crawdads Sing' and animated film 'Paws of Fury' as the two new nationwide entries with 'Thor' expected to keep the No. 1 spot," THR's Mia Galuppo reports... |
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Lowry's weekend reviews BY BRIAN LOWRY: First: "The Gray Man's" biggest muscle flex doesn't come from Ryan Gosling or Chris Evans (not that they're slackers), but rather the overall casting, throwing in Ana de Armas after her butt-kicking Bond role as well as Regé-Jean Page post-"Bridgerton," Jessica Henwick ("The Matrix") and Indian star Dhanush. The script, alas, is a bit of a 98-pound weakling, but given the escapist demands probably sufficient to get the job done. The movie is in theaters this weekend and on Netflix July 22... Second: "Zombies 3," premiering on Disney+ Friday, is creatively dead on arrival, reviving the concept at least once too often... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE |
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Apple adds Music Sessions: "Apple is introducing a new perk for Apple Music subscribers, Apple Music Sessions, which gives listeners access to exclusive releases in spatial audio," TechCrunch's Lauren Forristal reports. "The performances are also filmed, providing subscribers with companion live music videos." Friday's launch included "a short selection of tracks from country singers Carrie Underwood and Tenille Townes, recorded at Apple's Nashville studio. Forristal notes that "Apple has been steadily adding features and exclusive experiences in order to garner more subscribers for its music service..." |
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LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST... Pet of the day! Kat in Phoenix writes: "If you don't have cats this will seem very odd. Cats are known to sit on warm pizza boxes. Ari, 11 years old, loves sitting on pizza boxes or having pizza in her belly..." |
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Thank you for reading! Feel free to email us anytime. See you Sunday... |
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