Brian Stelter here at 10:37pm ET on Sunday, August 7th, fresh off my son Story's three-year-old birthday party. He told me there's "some bad news and some good news" about being three. There's some of both in this newsletter, too! Here's the latest on President Biden, The New Yorker, Disney, Beyoncé, the Rolling Stones, and more... "It's an all-hands-on-deck moment" |
What should news be? Should it be about the day's biggest emergencies, biggest political debates, biggest problems – or should it be about potential solutions and improvements? Viewers and readers certainly want solutions. And there's a nonprofit organization that is trying to steer the journalism industry in this direction: The Solutions Journalism Network. The group says "we train and connect journalists to cover what's missing in today's news: how people are responding to problems." The network has notched some big wins recently, including pacts with four of America's top journalism schools to set up "solutions journalism hubs." So I asked the group's co-founder David Bornstein to come on "Reliable Sources" and explain what it's all about. The network, he said, is "really refashioning the idea of, 'What should news be?' Is it information that tells you what's broken all the time, or is it information that helps you understand how to build a better community?" Bornstein described "solutions journalism" as "rigorous reporting on solutions to social problems." He said it "sharpens accountability, it takes away excuses, and it increases trust and engagement." At a time when many news consumers feel powerlessness, and some are tuning out altogether, this approach makes a whole lot of sense. "We need people to engage with the news at a time when we have a climate crisis and a democracy crisis," he said. "We can't have people tuning out now. It's an all-hands-on-deck moment." >> The group's Solutions Story Tracker counts 13,000+ "solutions stories" from 1,700+ news outlets all around the world... >> Here's a great concrete example: "How the Arizona Daily Star created a solutions beat to build reader engagement and better serve its community..." |
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-- VF's Joe Pompeo lands the first interview with Rachel Maddow about her huge new NBC deal and her upcoming projects. I don't want to give away the kicker quote, so read it for yourself... (VF) -- NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben describes life on the campaign trail in 2022: More and more Republicans are shutting reporters out... (NPR) -- Get to know the judge "who will decide whether Elon Musk should have to buy Twitter:" Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick "has a record of quickly deciding urgent cases over imperiled corporate deals and has ordered buyers to close deals they wanted to ditch," Dave Michaels reports... (WSJ) |
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SNEAK PEEK Authors obtain Milley's draft resignation letter Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker are about to come out with one of the biggest scoops from their forthcoming book "The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021." The New Yorker (Glasser's writing home) is publishing an excerpt, "Trump's Last General," Monday at 6am ET. Glasser and Baker confirm that "in the days after the Lafayette Square incident," Gen. Mark Milley, Donald Trump's handpicked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "sat in his office at the Pentagon, writing and rewriting drafts of a letter of resignation" – and they publish the letter for the first time. While keeping in mind that Milley didn't actually resign, because he felt compelled to stay, it is remarkable to read what he drafted to Trump. "The Divider" comes out on Sept. 20... And the excerpt will be live at 6am ET at this link... |
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Media week ahead calendar Monday: News Corp releases Q2 earnings after the close... Tuesday: Primaries in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Vermont... Tuesday: New nonfiction releases include Elliot Ackerman's "The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan;" Dana Milbank's "The Destructionists," and Jennette McCurdy's memoir "I'm Glad My Mom Died..." Tuesday: Warner Music releases earnings before the bell; IAC reports after the close... Wednesday: Fox Corp reports earnings in the AM; Disney reports in the PM... Thursday: A busy weekend of NFL preseason games begins with the Giants at the Patriots... Friday: "A League of Their Own" series launches on Amazon... |
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-- Richard Prince reports from the NABJ-NAHJ joint convention... (Journal-isms) -- Justin Baragona makes the case that Sean Hannity "went from king of Fox News to has-been." Fox disagrees... (Beast) -- Polling guru Neil Newhouse: "The conversation in Washington doesn't match the conversation that's happening around the country..." (WaPo) |
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Monday's WaPo front page 👇 The "sweeping package" passed by the Senate on Sunday "would authorize the biggest burst of spending in U.S. history to tackle global warming" and "would make good on Democrats' years-old pledge to reduce prescription drug costs for the elderly," WaPo's Tony Romm wrote. Now it's on the House... |
>> Re-live the Senate "vote-a-rama" via Alex Rogers, Clare Foran, Ali Zaslav and Manu Raju's CNN.com story here... >> Seconding what Sam Stein said: "Sincere appreciation to all the Senate reporters who are bringing us very important, sometimes riveting, often arcane coverage of this legislative process. More so that they're doing it on little rest..." >> "To anyone about to write this up primarily as a horserace story — some already have — stop," Paul Krugman opined. "Yes, the midterms matter, hugely; but first and foremost this was a victory for urgently needed policy..." | |
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Biden basks in victories... The Sunday shows were full of talk about one of the most eventful weeks of the Biden presidency. It was a sudden shift in the narrative winds, that's for sure. "Even some White House staffers said they felt a certain degree of whiplash, and Biden himself has mused to confidants at the sudden turn of events," CNN's Kevin Liptak wrote. Plus, he's finally out of Covid isolation... Still, this question looms large...
Should he run for re-election? "Hey, Joe, Don't Give It a Go" was the title of Maureen Dowd's NYT column over the weekend. "This entire discussion drives the White House crazy," ABC's George Stephanopoulos said on "This Week." Absolutely, Jon Karl said, and the WH says he does plan to run – "but you talk to Democrats privately, key Democrats on Capitol Hill, leaders in the party, and there is just trepidation about this. There is a sense that – among many of them, that – he shouldn't run. And also a sense that if he doesn't run, that the primary is wide open." I asked Michael LaRosa about this on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." In his first interview since stepping down as First Lady Jill Biden's press secretary, LaRosa said "I hope he runs" and expects that to happen, but asserted that this news cycle "is arriving right on time" – meaning that the press and political types are predictably raising re-election Q's. The difference this time, I said, is Biden's age, but LaRosa countered with the stack of recent wins. That's when I brought up Hunter Biden, and you can watch the rest here... |
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-- The AP's story about Biden's legislative approach: "Biden steps out of the room and finds legacy-defining wins," Seung Min Kim and Zeke Miller write... (AP) -- On Sunday Biden condemned the killing of four Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico. "These hateful attacks have no place in America," he wrote... (Twitter) -- On Monday POTUS and FLOTUS will travel to eastern Kentucky to survey flood damage and recovery... |
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How newsworthy is this? On stage at CPAC Texas on Saturday night, Trump said things like this: "Despite great outside dangers, our biggest threat remains the sick, sinister, evil people from within our own country." And: "We are a nation that no longer has a free press, no longer has a fair press. Fake news is all we get." And: "We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed." He went on and on, painting a picture of America that most of its citizens don't recognize. The speech elicited several types of reactions: Huge cheers from his fans; shrugs from some critics who said it was a pretty standard-issue Trump speech; and warnings from other critics who said that nonchalance about Trump's radical rhetoric is part of the problem. >> On Sunday's "Reliable," we discussed a related question: How should the media cover election deniers? "I think it is really important for journalists to be very, very clear about what's going on here," The Atlantic's Elaine Godfrey said... |
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"An American Catastrophe" Caitlin Dickerson spent 18 months investigating the Trump-era family-separation policy. The resulting report, "An American Catastrophe," came out Sunday and will be on the cover of The Atlantic's September issue. "It's the longest piece I've edited in several decades at The Atlantic," national editor Scott Stossel said, calling it "important and riveting and maddening." Ideas editor Juliet Lapidos said it's "the definitive account of America's cruelest 21st century policy." And executive editor Adrienne LaFrance called it "by far one of the most disturbing and enraging things I have ever read." Here it is... |
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Alex Jones lost, but conspiracy culture is winning Dan Friesen and Jordan Holmes, the co-hosts of the "Knowledge Fight" podcast, which skewers Infowars host Alex Jones, were in the courtroom for Jones' recent trial. They joined me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" to talk about what they observed, and whether legal action against Jones will curtail conspiracy culture. Conspiracy thinking forms "through the cracks of our regular society," Holmes observed. There are lots of cracks now, thus, lots of Jones-type content all across the internet. Friesen predicted that the next generation of conspiracy-mongers will become "a little bit savvier and end up learning where the lines are better of what they can do and what they can get away with." CNN's Ramishah Maruf has more from the segment here... |
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FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE |
-- Don't miss Kevin Roose's column, which argues that the decision against Jones "is unlikely to put much of a dent in the phenomenon he represents: belligerent fabulists building profitable media empires with easily disprovable lies..." (NYT) -- And UCLA First Amendment prof Eugene Volokh comments on whether this will chill free speech: "These kinds of damages and verdicts do have a chilling effect. They're intended to have a chilling effect on lies that damage people's reputations..." (AP) |
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End-of-the-weekend reads -- Jane Mayer, not mincing words: Republican-controlled state legislatures "are torching democracy..." (New Yorker) -- Through a series called Portraits of American Gun Violence, "CNN is working to tell the stories of the victims of gun violence, names you may have never heard of but lives that have been forever changed." Here is Alisha Ebrahimji's profile of a 15-year-old who was shot while playing soccer in Ohio... (CNN) -- Ezra Klein's newest column is a must-read. It's about how internet platforms are changing the way we think. "I didn't want it to be true," he says, "but the medium really is the message..." (NYT) -- This Joel Achenbach piece is mind-bending: "The Webb telescope is astonishing. But the universe is even more so..." (WaPo) -- Max Norman asks: "Is the nonprofit model the future for good bookstores in America?" He writes about what "we gain from a good bookstore..." (New Yorker) |
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WBD in the spotlight; Disney next? "If there was one thing that the turbulent week at Warner Bros. Discovery displayed, it's just how quickly conventional wisdom can change from one regime to the next, when each is trying to gin up the stock price for Wall Street," Deadline's team wrote over the weekend. WBD's "honeymoon period is over, and the cost-cutting has begun," Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw added in his latest newsletter. >> Coming up next: "The health of the subscription streaming market will get an important temperature check" when "Disney reports its fiscal Q3 earnings" on Wednesday, Variety's Cynthia Littleton wrote... |
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| FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR |
-- Frank Pallotta's newest story about the streaming king, with insights from Julia Alexander: "Netflix is not in deep trouble. It's becoming a media company..." (CNN) -- Sarah Whitten's latest: "Why creating a horror movie haven on Netflix may be a smart move..." (CNBC) -- "Streaming wars' latest chapter plays out on out-of-home ads," Toni Fitzgerald writes, with insights from OUTFRONT... (Forbes) -- Suzanne Vranica and Alexandra Bruell summing up the ad slowdown: "US TV networks and news publishers are feeling the effects..." (WSJ) |
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Tearful tribute to Nick Faldo It was "a weekend of lasts on the PGA Tour," Golf's James Colgan wrote, including for the people broadcasting the tour. Nick Faldo, "one of golf's preeminent voices," marked his retirement after 16 years with CBS. On Sunday "the CBS Golf team serenaded Sir Nick with a going-away celebration, sharing stories, laughs and more than a few tears." Read/watch here... |
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Latest on Anne Heche BY CHLOE MELAS: Anne Heche remains hospitalized and in stable condition after a car she was driving crashed into a residence in L.A. on Friday and became engulfed in flames, a rep for the actress tells CNN. "She's lucky to be alive. She has severe burns and has a long recovery ahead," a source close to Heche said earlier. "Her team and her family are still trying to process what led up to the crash." >> Variety's William Earl reported that Heche "was expected to take part in Lifetime network's Television Critics Association press tour presentation next week, participating in a session on the opioid crime drama 'Girl in Room 13...'" |
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"Bullet Train" box office report BY FRANK PALLOTTA:
Sony's "Bullet Train" made $30.1 million in its opening weekend, which hits projections right on the nose. It's a nice start for a film that should have box office legs with a pretty empty August slate of movies at the cineplex...
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FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE |
-- "Top Gun: Maverick" toppled "Titanic" "as the seventh-biggest film ever at the domestic box office, earning $662 million in ticket sales..." (Variety) -- Vincent Boucher's latest for The Ankler: "Is Marvel and the entire superhero genre suffering from severe muscle fatigue?" (The Ankler) -- Barack and Michelle Obama made a surprise appearance at the Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival "for the opening night screening of Netflix documentary 'Descendant...'" (Variety) -- "Abbott Elementary" led the TCA Awards "with four wins, including program of the year..." (Deadline) |
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Beyoncé "blasts in at No. 1" Billboard's Keith Caulfield reports: "Beyoncé's Renaissance blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 2022's biggest week by a woman – and the second-largest week of the year overall – as the set launches atop the chart with 332,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 4..." |
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Lowry reviews "My Life As a Rolling Stone" BY BRIAN LOWRY: "The Beatles: Get Back" set a very high bar for musical nostalgia, but "My Life As a Rolling Stone" is no slouch, breaking the four band members into their own dedicated hours, with extensive access to the three surviving members and a who's who of rock voices serving as the chorus. Yes, you can't always get what you want, but for Rolling Stones fans, this should come close. Narrated by Sienna Miller, the docuseries is playing on the BBC in the UK and on Epix in the US... Details here... |
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-- Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson have welcomed their second child via surrogate... (CNN) -- "Mike Tyson claims Hulu stole his life story for upcoming series: 'Heads will roll for this...'" (THR) -- "Fidel Castro's daughter expresses support for James Franco as Cuban leader in 'Alina of Cuba'..." (Deadline) |
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| Pet of the Day! Reader P.B. Korch emails a photo of Maximus: "Sorry, it's too hot to read today, so just read to me," said Maximus. And I did. |
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Thank you for reading! Email us your feedback. We'll be back tomorrow... |
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