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Tuesday, August 1, 2023

The first day of August has come and gone! Vice Media sees some senior leaders leave after the completion of its sale, Ray Epps rips Joe Rogan for 1/6 conspiracy theories, Meta starts pulling the news from its platforms in Canada, and studios might be inching closer to heading back to the bargaining table with the unions. But first, the A1.

THE A1

Trump and the Truth

CNN Photo Illustration/Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

It's come full circle.

Donald Trump's dangerous lies about the 2020 election, which saturated right-wing media after the presidential contest and led to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, have finally put the disgraced former president in serious legal jeopardy.

With the indictment of Trump on Tuesday, the former president's third this year, the Republican frontrunner will start his journey down the same treacherous legal path that his media boosters have found themselves forced onto for having broadcast his election falsehoods.

Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News have already been hurled into legal peril for their roles in disseminating Trump's election lies to the masses. Each of them have faced colossal lawsuits from Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, two voting technology companies at the center of Trump's lies.

Fox News was brutally exposed as a right-wing propaganda outfit and humiliated before ultimately being forced to pay out a historic $787 million settlement to Dominion earlier this year because of lies it aired about the company which were being advanced by the Trump team.

That case was the first in a string of enormous lawsuits filed by Dominion and Smartmatic to reach a conclusion. But several other lawsuits remain pending against some of the most important organs in MAGA Media.

For some time now, these right-wing media companies have been alone in being forced to perform the unenviable and difficult task of defending Trump's deranged election lies in court, where facts matter and hyperbolic rhetoric that might play well to a hungry television audience is shot down by judges who force lawyers to advance honest, fact-drive arguments.

Meanwhile, Trump, who has an impoverished relationship with the truth, has been standing on the sidelines, watching as his mouthpieces have struggled in their legal battles over his lies. While doing so, he has sharply criticized the way in which Rupert Murdoch has approached the legal mess, blasting the right-wing media mogul for not doubling down on his lies while in court.

In the indictment handed down Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith alleged Trump knew the lies that he was pushing about the election were false.

"(F)or more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won," the indictment stated. "These claims were false, and the Defendant knew they were false."

For his part, Murdoch also did not believe Trump's election lies, according to damning private messages revealed in the Dominion case, and even floated the idea of having his influential hosts appear together in prime time to declare Joe Biden as the rightful winner of the election. Such an act, Murdoch said, "Would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen."

And yet the truth was disregarded.

Now, Trump will be forced to step into the same dangerous arena as his media allies. And while the lies that he regularly told went unchecked in right-wing media, proving an effective political message, he's going to see just how effective they are when forced to adhere to the laws of reality.

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

The NYT's banner homepage headline: "JAN. 6 RIOT 'FUELED BY LIES,' INDICTMENT SAYS." (NYT)
CNN's T1 headline: "Trump indicted over efforts to overturn 2020 election." (CNN)
HuffPost: "TRUMP CHARGED FOR COUP ATTEMPT." (HuffPost)
Drudge Report: "MAGA NIGHTMARE"; "JACK SMITH CIRCLES DON."
The New York Post's front page Wednesday: "CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD THE UNITED STATES."
Rachel Maddow: "This is a grave day and a serious one for our country… a black letter, bold faced date – August 1, 2023 is the date on which a former president and the leading presidential candidate of the Republican Party was indicted in federal court accused of leading multiple criminal conspiracies to try to hold power by force after he was voted out of office by the people." (MSNBC)
Anderson Cooper: "If this had occurred in a developing country ... the American government would look at this and say, 'This is the most ridiculous thing.'"
Jake Tapper ripped the Trump legal team for its statement comparing the indictment to Nazi Germany: "Beyond the pale in terms of offensiveness." (Mediaite)
Meanwhile, a taste of Fox News, via its lower-thirds banners: "THE DOJ HAS BECOME BIDEN CAMPAIGN HQ AT THIS POINT"; "THE DOJ HAS CRIMINALIZED POLITICS"; "IS JACK SMITH PRESIDENT BIDEN'S NEW UNOFFICIAL CAMPAIGN MANAGER?"; "SMITH'S INDICTMENT IS A LEGAL EMBARRASSMENT."
The rhetoric on Fox News was equally as dark. On his new prime time show, Jesse Watters previewed the "hell" Trump will "unleash" on his enemies if elected: "This is only the beginning of politicians putting other politicians and their families in prison. Sad we had to go down this road, but this is where we are, and now we have to finish it."
"One day after Hunter Joe Biden implicated": Breitbart's homepage headline attempted to tie the indictment timing to recent Hunter Biden developments, as did much of the MAGA Media.
As the indictment loomed, Trump prepared a litany of surrogates, influencers, and allies capable of immediately responding to any new charges upon filing, Alayna Treene reported. (X)
Journalist George Chidi, who stumbled upon a 2020 meeting of fake GOP electors, has been subpoenaed in the Georgia Trump case. (AJC)

THE INDUSTRY

THE FOURTH ESTATE

Jeffrey Goldberg "is in advanced talks to become host of 'Washington Week,'" Max Tani and J.D. Capelouta report. (Semafor)
A handful of senior Vice Media executives are exiting the company after the completion of its sale, Corbin Bolies reports. The leaders include Katie Drummond, SVP of global news and entertainment; Jason Koebler, editor in chief of Motherboard; and Emanuel Maiberg, Motherboard's executive editor. (Daily Beast)
Paul Farhi wrote about the growing trend of avoiding the news. (WaPo)
John Herrman examines three scenarios about A.I. upending the news business. (NY Mag)
The BBC launched social.bbc, an "experimental" Mastodon server that includes posts from several BBC accounts. (The Verge)
The New Yorker released the names of some speakers and events for its annual New Yorker Festival, slated for October. (New Yorker)
Mika Brzezinski unveiled the list of names comprising the third annual "50 Over 50 list," produced via a partnership between Brzezinski's "Know Your Value" and Forbes. (Forbes)
NPR announced that Nina Totenberg will be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. (NPR)
A Philadelphia traffic anchor said he was punched over the weekend by a man inspired by a supposed TikTok challenge. (Daily Beast)

THE MARKET

Signs of optimism are starting to shine through the bleak ad market, Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
Meanwhile: "The Hollywood labor strikes have proven a boon for YouTube, with Google's video-streaming service luring television ad buyers who are worried about committing to traditional TV ads while actors and writers remain on the picket lines," Sahil Patel reports. (The Info)

MEDIA MOVES

The NYT promoted Blake Wilson to Well's editorial director. (NYT)
Politico tapped Blanca Begert as its inaugural California climate reporter who will author the new California Climate newsletter. (X)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Mark J. Rebilas/USA Today Sports/Reuters

Ray Reprimands Rogan: The attorney representing Ray Epps, a man swept up in January 6 conspiracy theories who is suing Fox News, fired back at Spotify personality Joe Rogan on Tuesday for advancing the "absurdity" that his client may have been working with federal authorities as part of a false flag attack on the U.S. Capitol. "Joe Rogan's recent comments show the staying power and consequences of Fox's and Tucker Carlson's lies about Ray Epps," the attorney, Michael Teter, said in a statement to The Daily Beast's Justin Baragona. "For years, Fox targeted Ray and spread falsehoods about him and Fox's viewers used the lies as a basis to harass and threaten Ray. The absurdity of the conspiracy theory does not stand in the way of it being spread and weaponized to harm Ray. If Mr. Rogan is truly interested in focusing on who instigated the attack on the Capitol, he would find more truth in looking at the mirror than he does in focusing on a wedding venue owner from Arizona." Read Baragona's full story here.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

"Multiple female influencers in right-wing media have expressed their fondness for the 'Barbie' movie, despite moralizing from some of their peers," Madeline Peltz reports. (MMFA)
Media outlets, including People and The Washington Times, published a fake story Tuesday claiming that Mattel will stop using plastic for the production of Barbies. In an editor's note, The Times said the "elaborate media hoax" involved "spoofed email addresses, a faked press release, doctored images, fictitious quotations" and more. (Wash Times)
Charlotte Klein writes that Ron DeSantis' media reset "may be too little too late." (Vanity Fair)
And now for a quick trip to France: Reporters at Le Journal du Dimanche voted to end a 40-day strike that voiced their discontentment with the appointment of a right-wing editor at the head of the French weekly newspaper. (POLITICO)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Canceling the News in Canada: The land of the maple leaf is being sapped of the news. Meta on Tuesday made good on its threat to remove news content from Facebook and Instagram in Canada, ahead of passed legislation that will require major tech companies to pay news organizations for their content. Google has also threatened to take such action if the legislation becomes law, which could happen before the year's end. CNN's Brian Fung has more.

🔎 Zooming in: "The decision comes amid a global debate over the relationship between news organizations and social media companies about the value of news content, and who gets to benefit from it," Fung noted, adding, "Like-minded proposals have been introduced around the world amid allegations that the tech industry has decimated local journalism by sucking away billions in online advertising revenues."

TOO MANY TABS

Elon Musk's X on Tuesday followed through on a threat to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The lawsuit alleges that the nonprofit engaged in a "scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the X platform" after it released research that showed a significant uptick in hate speech on the platform following Musk's purchase of the social media giant. (CNN)
Meta is proposing a new policy whereby Facebook and Instagram users are asked to opt-in to receive personalized ads in Europe. (WSJ)
Meta is looking to launch a suite of A.I.-powered chatbots, all with different personalities, in a bid to retain users. (Reuters)
Alphabet's Google Assistant is also shifting into the realm of generative A.I. (TechCrunch)
YouTube is adding new features to "YouTube Shorts," the platform's direct competitor to TikTok and Instagram Reels. (TechCrunch)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Within Striking Distance: The major Hollywood studios have "redoubled efforts" this week "to come to mutual agreement among themselves" to ultimately negotiate with the striking actors and writers in hopes of putting an end to the historic labor dispute, The Wrap's Sharon Waxman reported. "Talks have intensified," a source told her. "There's more activity. The studios are looking to get back – soon." Another source noted to Waxman that the studios are not a "united group," but a "very fractured group of people" who have different business models and interests. "The union is one," the person said. "The studios are many and they are trying to delicately align agendas. But they have to be very careful with competitive information. What are you saying about coming trends, that you're addressing in front of Max and Disney?" Read Waxman's full report.

HOLLYWOOD HELL

"There's a new sense of guarded optimism that both parties... are on the verge of a making a breakthrough," Peter White and Dominic Patten reported. (Deadline)
Seth MacFarlane donated $1 million to a fund that provides financial assistance to striking WGA and SAG-AFTRA members. (Variety)
Mikey O'Connell goes "inside the strikes' unpredictable Emmy FYC impact." (THR)
Rebecca Rubin details "how major film delays amid the strikes could damage the movie business." (Variety)
Ryan Faughnder reports on "what it's like running a movie theater today." (LAT)

OFF STAGE

Hasan Minhaj is a top candidate to succeed Trevor Noah at Comedy Central's "Daily Show," sources tell Brian Steinberg. (Variety)
The upset of the summer? "Sound of Freedom," the movie embraced by conservatives, has outgrossed "Mission: Impossible." (CNBC)
Warner Bros. has apologized for "Barbenheimer" tweets that sparked criticism in Japan. (CNN)
The release of "Barbie" has been postponed in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain as the film navigates edits requested by censors. (Variety)
Lizzo and her production company "are being accused of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment by a trio of the team's former dancers," Thania Garcia reports. (Variety)
Angus Cloud completed filming two movies prior to his death. (THR)
A judge said she will not throw out the case against Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the weapons supervisor on the "Rust" set who was tasked with ensuring firearms were properly handled. (AP)

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.