Another former Fox honcho blasts Rupert Murdoch, The Weather Channel gets sold, Threads launches on desktop, Lachlan Murdoch pays Crikey, Elon Musk confirms he'll remove headlines from news links on X, TikTok adds advertisements to search results, and the mystery around Scooter Braun grows as he loses another client. But first, the A1. |
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CNN Photo Illustration/Jonathan Ernst/Reuters |
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It is the year 2023. And news organizations are still failing in their coverage of Fox News. The right-wing channel, which is in the spotlight as it prepares to host the first GOP primary debate of the 2024 election on Wednesday, was exposed in grand fashion as a dishonest propaganda organ of the Republican Party just months ago when it paid a historic $787 million defamation settlement to Dominion Voting Systems over the lies it spread during the last presidential election. If newsrooms somehow didn't comprehend what Fox News really was before that explosive lawsuit, there isn't an excuse now. The lawsuit humiliated the channel and shredded what was left of its credibility, putting on display in thousands of pages of court documents the unethical behavior of its top executives and hosts behind the scenes. The dishonorable conduct spelled out in black and white in the cache of legal filings would get most journalists fired at actual news organizations and constitute scandals that would permanently run them out of the news business — maybe even other industries as well. And yet, just months later, Fox News is trying to move on, as if the shameful behavior brought to light by the Dominion case simply evaporated from history the moment it opened up its checkbook. In fact, while Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch did pay a record sum of money to make the Dominion case vanish, they kept in place the channel's top executives, Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace. And, perhaps more importantly, they have expressed zero regrets for the dishonest Fox News programming that threw them in legal hot water. But Fox News attempting to move past the embarrassing saga is not surprising. It is to be expected. What is striking, however, is how many credible news organizations are failing to describe in clear-eyed terms to their audiences — who count on them, and often pay them to deliver the unvarnished truth — what the network actually is. In stories about the looming GOP debate published over the last several days, it is evident that the majority of newsrooms are dropping the ball, willfully taking part in a Fox News rehabilitation tour led by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. (In one interview last week, MacCallum actually referred to the Dominion settlement as "ancient history." The network settled only 126 days ago and is still facing an even larger lawsuit over its election lies.) Most outlets still haven't worked up the courage to describe Fox News as a "right-wing channel." The WaPo on Tuesday didn't even refer to the outlet's prime time bloc of Donald Trump propagandists in such terms. It merely described the channel's evening programming as "conservative leaning." Calling that language weak would be generous. It should not be difficult or controversial to describe Fox News as right-wing. It is not opinion to call Sean Hannity a MAGA propagandist. These are facts. Perhaps uncomfortable facts. But they are facts. Facts that major news organizations such as The WaPo have the responsibility to grapple with. Instead, they inexplicably punt the football. Either most of the country's leading outlets lack the understanding of Fox News to spell out the ugly truth to their audiences — or they lack the spine. Neither possibility is particularly comforting given how corrosive the poison the channel has endlessly pumped into the public discourse has been for the country, destroying our sense of a shared reality and allowing anti-democratic forces to gain power. The reality is that news organizations are misleading their audiences by omission when they mince words and avoid the elephant in the room. Doing so offers audience a warped and incomplete view of the information environment. In the context of the first GOP debate, it is important to point out that the Republican Party ran to the friendliest media outlet to host the first two debates. It is part of the story that the first GOP debates are taking place in the GOP's safe space. It seems that a number of influential news professionals prefer to be stuck in a time vortex from a decade ago, in which it was easy to go along with the narrative that Fox News had a respected news division that was fire-walled off from a merely "conservative leaning" prime time lineup. But we live in very different times now. The channel has evolved in disturbing ways, having morphed from a traditionally conservative news network into a MAGA propaganda monster. And if years of watching the network shamelessly serve as the Trump White House's mouthpiece wasn't enough, the Dominion revelations surely should have nailed the coffin shut tight. At this point, failing to point out this unsightly reality might just say more about those media outlets than Fox News itself. |
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- The cable news networks will be live after the GOP debate with analysis.
- On CNN, Anderson Cooper will co-anchor with Dana Bash, who will be on the ground in Milwaukee. They'll be joined by John King, Abby Phillip, David Chalian, and Jeff Zeleny.
- Over on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow will lead a special, joined by Nicolle Wallace, Ari Melber, Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, and Alex Wagner. Jen Psaki will then host special coverage starting at midnight.
- Surprise! Michael Wolff is releasing a new book about Rupert Murdoch next month, titled "The Fall." Wolff explained, "I have been telling the story of the great power of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News for many years. This power is now reaching a natural end and 'The Fall' brings the story to its closing act." (AP)
- What will it rate? Fox News' first GOP primary debate in 2015 averaged 24 million viewers. But as David Bauder points out, it "would be next to impossible to reach those numbers again, given [Trump's] novelty has worn off and cord-cutting has diminished cable news audiences." (AP)
- Sarah Ellison and Josh Dawsey report on Tucker Carlson's attempt to upstage Fox News with a X/Twitter interview of Trump. It goes without saying that Carlson's online counter-programming effort is likely not going to meaningfully eat into his former employer's ratings. (WaPo)
- Trump not appearing at the GOP debate, however, will hurt Fox News' ratings. Philip Bump reports that the former disgraced president is mentioned 109x more a day on the channel than his competitors — combined! (WaPo)
- There were a flurry of stories Tuesday about Fox News shunning Trump's allies from the spin room. But given, as Bret Baier explained, that Trump allies just need an invite from a media outlet, it seems likely they'll be present. That said, it's a little strange to insist that Trump's allies should be invited to a part of an event he has refused to participate in and is actively trying to upstage. (Mediaite)
- "Maybe they should have been loyal": Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley report on how Trump has told allies that one reason he is skipping the debate is to punish the Murdochs. (Rolling Stone)
- On that note, it is worth again underscoring how unhinged Trump is behaving. Despite Fox News producing untold amounts of propaganda for him during his 2016 run, throughout his four years in the White House, and in recent months as he has faced four indictments, Trump still does not believe the network is sufficiently supportive of him. It's wild.
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CNN Photo Illustration/Roy Rochlin/Getty Images |
Fox and Ex-Friends: Another old school Fox executive is coming out swinging against Rupert Murdoch. Fox Broadcasting Company founding president Jamie Kellner on Tuesday joined a coalition of ex-Fox'ers challenging Fox's television station license in Philadelphia. "While I was President of FBC we started a news division that provided daily feeds of national and international news stories for the Fox-owned and affiliated television stations for inclusion in their locally produced newscasts," Kellner said. "Unlike the news feeds provided today by Fox News Channel, our news feeds did not prominently feature advocates like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell spouting nonsensical lies about a presidential election." Ouch. NextTV's John Eggerton has more here. š Zooming in: It seems unlikely the FCC will ever hold a hearing in this dispute over the local station's license. But it is notable how Murdoch's former allies are publicly turning on the right-wing mogul, calling out his media machine for the disinformation that has polluted the public's collective consciousness. |
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- The Weather Channel has been sold by IBM, which has owned the famed network since 2016, to a private equity firm. (THR)
- "The sudden arrival of ... generative A.I. tools has forced a new set of ethical choices on media companies struggling to protect public trust while still experimenting with the technology and preserving their legal rights," Ryan Heath and Sara Fischer report. (Axios)
- Another from Fischer: "Local broadcast company Cox Media Group is launching a hyper-local streaming network called Neighborhood TV, in partnership with McClatchy." (Axios)
- Katie Robertson reports on how a group of former top Vice journalists — Joseph Cox, Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, and Samantha Cole — have launched their own tech publication, 404 Media. (NYT)
- Axel Springer has settled with former Bild Editor-In-Chief Julian Reichelt. (Reuters)
- Wolf Blitzer and Barbara Kopple will receive the Lifetime Achievement Honors at the 2023 News and Documentary Emmy Awards. (TheWrap)
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- The WaPo hired Shadi Hamid and Alexi McCammond as a columnist and an editor, respectively, for its opinion section. It also hired Tara McCarty as visual enterprise editor for the Metro desk. (WaPo/WaPo)
- The NYT hired Matthew Futterman and Tyler Kepner as sports writers for The Athletic. (NYT)
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CNN Photo Illustration/Brendan McDermid/Reuters |
Cash for Crikey: Lachlan Murdoch has paid up. The Fox Corporation chief executive paid roughly $839K dollars to the scrappy Australia-based news outlet Crikey on Tuesday after abandoning his defamation lawsuit against the outlet earlier this year. The payout covers the outlet's legal costs, which had been crowdfunded. Will Hayward, chief executive of Crikey's parent company, said that as a result the money from Murdoch will be donated to the non-profit Alliance for Journalists' Freedom. "This money was raised from the goodwill of people across Australia who believe in the importance of free speech," Hayward said. "These funds will now go to support the alliance and its team as they champion that cause across the world." CNN's Liam Reilly has details here. |
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- š„ Jessica Tarlov zinged Jesse Watters for advancing what she described as "craven lies" about President Joe Biden's response to the Maui fires. (Mediaite)
- More shooting inside the Fox tent: Mark Levin ripped Andy McCarthy for his supposedly "unserious" criticism of Trump. (Mediaite)
- Rumble "is profiting from videos featuring white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes," Justin Horowitz reports. (MMFA)
- Four Technocrats — Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreessen — are reshaping reality into something frightening and autocratic, writes Jonathan Taplin. (Vanity Fair)
- People who rely on Newsmax, OAN, Fox News or social media for their health information were more likely to have heard Covid-19 misinformation, a new KFF poll found. (CNN)
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CNN Photo Illustration/Meta |
Threads Spreads to the Web: It has finally arrived. Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday morning that his X/Twitter rival Threads had started to roll out a desktop interface, giving users a feature they have longed for since the app first launched in July. Meta must hope that the launch of the desktop website will help inject some new energy into the platform. Threads rocketed off to an unprecedented start when it was first made available for download, but it has seen a dramatic drop in user engagement since — even as X has remained engulfed in turmoil. CNN's Clare Duffy has more here. |
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- Meanwhile, on X/Twitter, Elon Musk plans to kill headlines and description text on news article links. The plan seems to be aimed at trying to persuade journalists to write news on his platform. (Gizmodo)
- Bluesky is implementing rate limits as it sees record traffic (TechCrunch)
- Microsoft amended its $69-billion Activision bid in an attempt to try to win over British regulators. (CNN)
- Ads are headed for TikTok's search results. (TechCrunch)
- Meta said end-to-end encryption will be a Messenger feature by end of the year. (The Verge)
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CNN Photo Illustration/Marcus Brandt/picture-alliance/dpa/AP | Jumping Off the Scooter: "What the hell is going on in Scooter Braun's empire?" That's the headline atop Jim Aswad's insightful story in Variety — and it is precisely the question that remains unanswered as A-list pop stars reportedly — and inexplicably — drop the mega music executive. After various news outlets reported that Justin Bieber, Demi Lovato, and Ariana Grande were seeking new management, THR's Mesfin Fekadu reported that Idina Menzel had severed ties with Braun. So what's going on? As Aswad underscored, "There is little solid information to be found." In fact, as Aswad continued to write, "The situation has reached a strange netherworld of off-the-record confirmations and denials where one set of sources says one thing and another says the opposite, and most likely no one is telling the whole truth. Reps are stonewalling and insiders are clamming up fast; it's like trying to get an accurate status update on Fight Club or Voldemort." |
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- The dual Hollywood strikes may be the best thing for the ailing superhero industry that increasingly seems to be putting out stale flicks, writes Scott Mendelson and Umberto Gonzalez. (TheWrap)
- "It's not just famous actors and big-name writers the Hollywood strikes are hurting," Emily Stewart notes. (Vox)
- Jeremy Kay reports on how the strikes have created a "bumpy start for awards season." (Screen Daily)
- Mike Fleming Jr.'s take: "It is time for these negotiators to lock themselves in a room and pick up the pace. There are no heroes here, at this point. Everyone recognizes the complexity of issues as Hollywood feels the tectonic shifts in the ground caused by technology and streaming. But we also know two deals will eventually be made. Sitting across the table seems the plausible path toward resolution. Enough with waiting each other out in a battle of attrition that is hurting too many people." (Deadline)
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- Alec Baldwin and El Dorado Pictures are looking to dismiss a lawsuit brought by crew members of the film "Rust" that allege both Baldwin and producers engaged in "negligent and reckless conduct." (Deadline)
- More than 100 actors have signed a pledge for a "green rider" to reduce the environmental impact of producing films and TV shows. (BBC)
- Drew Barrymore was escorted offstage by ReneƩ Rapp after a stalker made for the front stage of a New York auditorium. (CNN)
- Max renewed "And Just Like That" for a third season. (TheWrap)
- The fifth season of the Netflix hit "Love Is Blind" will premiere on September 22. (TheWrap)
- Kelsey Grammer will return as the titular character of the beloved sitcom "Frasier" 19 years after the show initially wrapped, with the new season set to premiere on Oct. 12. (THR)
- "Frozen" is getting a podcast that will be set between the franchise's second installment and its upcoming "Frozen 3." (Deadline)
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Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino and produced with the assistance of Liam Reilly. Have feedback? Send us an email here. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow. |
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