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Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Elon Musk put on notice over X misinfo, Laura Ingraham fear-mongers, The WaPo announces a major workforce reduction, Dow Jones expresses outrage after a Russian court upheld Evan Gershkovich, John Stankey reflects on AT&T's foray into media, X loses another advertiser, Utah files a lawsuit against TikTok, SAG-AFTRA prepares to head back to the negotiating table with the studios, and so much more. But first, the A1.

THE A1

The Pain of the Press

CNN Photo Illustration/Fatima Shbair/AP

Some journalists are making the ultimate sacrifice while covering the war between Israel and Hamas.

At least seven journalists have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Hamas launched its brazen assault on Saturday, according to press freedom groups and media reports. That number could rise even further in the coming days as Israel carries out retaliatory strikes against Hamas, while the terror group continues waging its offensive against the Jewish state.

The bloodshed underscores the very real risk that journalists take on as they report from conflict zones, gathering information in extraordinarily fraught circumstances to keep the world informed and hold authorities accountable for what is transpiring on the ground.

"In many ways, the most vulnerable journalists are the ones needed most," Sherif Mansour, a Committee to Protect Journalists coordinator who oversees the Middle East, noted to me Tuesday.

The vast majority of journalists covering the raging war are based inside Israel, which has come under heavy assault from Hamas and remains far from a safe haven amid fierce battles. Harrowing video captured along the border in recent days has shown television correspondents running for cover as missiles are fired toward their locations and gunfire erupts in the nearby distance.

Meanwhile, journalists based in Gaza, which has been battered with airstrikes from Israel, are at an even greater risk. These journalists are particularly vulnerable to airstrikes and gunfire — all while having to operate in a territory controlled by Hamas, which is notorious for its anti-press measures.

For those reasons, and other logistical difficulties, there are very few Western journalists in Gaza. Some outlets — such as CNN, the BBC, the Associated Press, and Reuters — do have personnel on the ground in Gaza, but they are in far fewer numbers than their counterparts based in Israel. That leaves the important task of showing the world what is happening on the other side of the border up to local Palestinian journalists.

"Absent the presence of some international journalists and media outlets, the local journalists ... are almost the only source where we can find out what is happening in Gaza after Israeli strikes," Mansour told me.

"They have made those sacrifices to show what is happening on the ground," Mansour added, speaking about the at least seven journalists killed this week while reporting from the Gaza Strip.

Last year, a staggering 67 journalists and others in the media profession were killed worldwide, CPJ found, marking the highest number of journalist killings since 2018 as reporters braved war in Ukraine and were targeted for their work in Latin America.

Outside the very real physical dangers journalists face while reporting from active war zones, Mansour stressed that reporters covering violent conflicts often grapple with "mental and psychological affects that goes beyond the assignment itself." He noted the immense human suffering and "aftermath of these horrible events" that journalists witness cannot be easily shaken and are forever seared into their memories.

"They go back to their normal lives, they go back to a different country, and the trauma still follows them from those events," Mansour told me.

Unfortunately, the death toll and volume of human suffering in the region is only bound to rise, with the already dangerous state of affairs for residents and journalists alike slated to get more perilous in the days and weeks ahead. Israel's military has been amassing along the border, signaling a possible ground invasion of the Palestinian territory. And there is no sign that the rocket fire is likely to end anytime soon.

"I don't think," Mansour said, "we have reached the worst chapter of it yet."

ISRAEL AT WAR

CNN Photo Illustration/HuffPost

Broadcast TV networks joined the cable newsers and broke into regular programming with special reports Tuesday as President Joe Biden addressed the war and revealed that at least 14 Americans have been killed.
More U.S. television news anchors are arriving in Israel to cover the war. Erin Burnett arrived for CNN and Chris Cuomo for NewsNation.
CNN's Nic Robertson, speaking on the network's air, said that Israel's military officials invited reporters to Kfar Aza to witness the aftermath of the horrific killings committed by Hamas. The general's decision to invite the media, Robertson explained, was inspired by President Dwight Eisenhower's move to bring journalists to witness atrocities committed by the Nazis in death camps during World War II. (Mediaite)
Another distressing live-TV moment: ABC News correspondent Matt Gutman was delivering a live report on the air for "The View" when he was told by officials he needed to immediately vacate the area due to a security incident. (ABC News)
More footage aired live on Tuesday of the Iron Dome intercepting missiles fired by Hamas into Israel. "If you [look] up into the sky, you can see still see a lot of the smoke trails," Richard Engel said live on-air as cameras captured the defense system at work. (NBC News)
Jake Tapper offered to help a Palestinian-American trapped in Gaza: "We have your number. I know that the White House watches this show. The White House can call me and we'll put them in touch with you." (Mediaite)
"The Gaza Strip is one of the most hopeless places I have ever been in my life," Sharon Waxman writes, recalling the time she spent there "as a young reporter in the late 1980s and again in the 1990s as violence flared anew." (TheWrap)
Late-night hosts Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel all broached the subject of the war. Colbert noted that his team "didn't even attempt to write jokes" about it. (NYT)
CNN Audio launched "Tug of War: Attack on Israel," a daily, 10-minute podcast hosted by David Rind. (Apple)

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Musk Warned on Misinfo: Elon Musk is officially on notice. The X owner was warned Tuesday by a top European commissioner that his social media company "appears to have been hosting misinformation and illegal content about the war between Hamas and Israel, in potential violation of the European Union's signature content moderation law," CNN's Brian Fung and Donie O'Sullivan reported. The duo noted that the warning "highlights X's potentially vast legal exposure as it battles a wave of bogus claims linked to the war that have been attributed to everything from fake White House press releases to false news reports and out-of-context videos from unrelated conflicts or even video games." If X is found to have committed violations, it could face steep fines, potentially in the billions of dollars. Read Fung and O'Sullivan's report here.

THE ONLINE WAR ZONE

"Misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war is flooding social media," an Associated Press headline blares, fact-checking some of the viral false claims. (AP)
Violent posts "have been seeded by Hamas to terrorize civilians and take advantage of the lack of content moderation on some social media sites," Sheera Frenkel and Steven Lee Myers report. (NYT)
Sarah Frier argues that "the war in Israel shows how social media's idealistic era has ended." (Bloomberg)
"Jewish organizations including schools in New York and New Jersey advised parents to monitor and limit their children's use of social media—and perhaps even discontinue using some platforms—to mitigate potential exposure to violent and disturbing posts about the Hamas attack on Israel," Erin Ailworth reports. (WSJ)
That's because, as Margi Murphy pointes out, platforms like TikTok have become the "world's window into" the war, with footage circulating widely online. (Bloomberg)
Yonatan Englender reports on how Telegram and X "beat TV to cover the Hamas-Israel war as it happened." Englender explains, "An hour after Israelis understood they were under attack, it was clear the news knew nothing. On TV, they reported sirens in central Israel and reports of Hamas militants crossing from Gaza. Reports? On social media I already saw them riding around in Jeeps." (Haaretz)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration / Fox News

Fearmongering on Fox: That didn't take long. Right-wing talk host Laura Ingraham opened up her Fox News program on Tuesday using the Hamas assault on Israel to whip up fear about a potential attack on U.S. soil. "AMERICA NEXT?" questioned an on-air graphic while Ingraham spouted off about border crossings. "What better way for a terror network to disperse and disappear into the general population than amidst hoards of Venezuelans and Hondurans and others, some of them criminals, were set looking for a better life, we don't really know? It's a perfect cover," Ingraham told her audience, using the tragic loss of life in Israel to advance an anti-immigrant narrative. Of course, the humanitarian crisis at the border is serious and deserves attention. But demonizing migrants as possible terrorists looking to infiltrate the country is irresponsible, though par for the course from Fox.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

Matt Gertz notes that the next possible House Speaker, Jim Jordan, has "spent the last decade functioning as Fox News' man in Congress, a role that has helped him rise through the party ranks." Gertz adds that if he were to become Speaker, the post "would give the right-wing propaganda network unprecedented influence over congressional affairs." (MMFA)
The press has learned a lot when it comes to covering Donald Trump, argues Alex Shephard, save showing him as "a singular threat to American democracy." (TNR)
ESPN is fielding some criticism after host Pat McAfee endorsed a vaccine debate between New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce. (Mediaite)

THE INDUSTRY

CNN Photo Illustration/Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA/AP

Paper Cuts at WaPo: The financial health of The Washington Post is in worse condition than previously thought. Interim chief executive Patty Stonesifer informed staffers in an astonishing Tuesday memo that a business review found the company's "prior projections for traffic, subscriptions, and advertising growth" had been "overly optimistic" and that it needed to "adjust our cost structure now." That adjustment, her memo said, translated to voluntary buyouts designed to cut 240 jobs — or nearly 10% of employees. (Suffice to say, those prior projections must have been way off.) Stonesifer said the buyouts are being offered "in the hopes of averting more difficult actions such as layoffs," a situation she described as leadership being "united in trying to avoid." NPR's David Folkenflik has more here.

► The WaPo Guild: "We cannot comprehend how The Post, owned by one of the richest people in the world, has decided to foist the consequences of its incoherent business plan and irresponsibly rapid expansion onto the hardworking people who make this company run."

► What's next: Stonesifer said that an all-hands meeting will be held Wednesday morning. After the meeting, employees eligible for a voluntary buyout will be notified via email and that senior leaders will share more department-specific information with staffers.

THE FOURTH ESTATE

A Russian court on Tuesday upheld the detention of The WSJ's Evan Gershkovich, prompting a condemnation from the newspaper's parent company, Dow Jones: "We are outraged that he continues to be wrongfully detained." (WSJ)
Jellysmack acquired Dan Abrams' Law&Crime network in a nine-figure deal, Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
Condé Nast Entertainment will restructure its video and editorial teams, Alex Weprin reports. The shakeup means that the division's head, Agnes Chu, will exit the company. (THR)
Over 40 staffers at Reviewed, Gannett's product review website, are staging a one-day protest during Amazon's Prime Days. (Poynter)
Holly Willoughby, the 14-year host of ITV's "This Morning," is leaving the show just days after a man was charged with murder in an alleged plot to kidnap her. (BBC)
The Mail on Sunday has cut four senior sports journalists, Dominic Ponsford reports. (Press Gazette)

IN THE MARKET

AT&T boss John Stankey reflected on the WarnerMedia deal in a conversation with Semafor's Gina Chon. "I stepped away and said look, I understand what is needed in media to be really good but with the fundamental changes that are going on in the industry and the amount of investment needed to be a capable distributor of content... I understand what's necessary to build world-class communication networks, I know the investments required to do two of those. I can't do both." (Semafor)
Yikes! "As of about June, Netflix's ad sales and ad-supported subscriber numbers were roughly half what staffers had initially projected internally for 2023," Sahil Patel reports, citing a source. (The Info)
Lucas Manfredi reports on how skeptics believe the new streamer lobby is "preparing for a fight against future government regulation." (The Wrap)

MEDIA MOVES

First in Reliable | Vanity Fair hired Meena Ganesan as senior editor.
The NYT hired Sara Ziegler as a sports content editor. (NYT)
Warner Music Group named Carletta Higginson its chief digital officer. (THR)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Carlos Barria/Reuters

First in Reliable | X'ing Out the Ads: The Michael J. Fox Foundation has stopped all advertising on X after the Elon Musk-owned platform repeatedly placed its ads on the page of a notorious white supremacist publication, as uncovered by a Reliable Sources review. "Upon hearing of a violation of the brand safety standards on X, MJFF immediately paused all X activity and has suspended all advertising on X for the foreseeable future," a spokesperson for the foundation told me. I'm told that the foundation's ad buying media partner, Blue State, additionally reached out to X to emphasize its disappointment in the company for showing no regard for even basic brand safety standards. Meanwhile, X executive Linda Yaccarino, who dropped out of The WSJ's Tech Live conference on Monday, has publicly maintained that X has leading brand safety measures in place — a claim that looks more ridiculous by the day.

TOO MANY TABS

X has changed which posts qualify as newsworthy and can remain on the platform despite breaking platform rules. (TechCrunch)
Amid all of the chaos on what I like to refer to as Zombie Twitter, Threads has come into its own, writes Casey Newton, stepping up to fill the information vacuum. (The Verge)
One of the many good points from Newton: "For all the risks of making real-time news a pillar of Threads, it does have this singular benefit: giving the app an enduring, defensible, existential purpose." (The Verge)
"Journalists are setting up shop on new networks," Sarah Perez also notes. (TechCrunch)
Switching gears: Utah filed a lawsuit against TikTok, becoming the latest state to do so. (AP)
The Meta Oversight Board said it will examine a case about a manipulated video of President Joe Biden. (The Hill)
"The case is poised to explore a controversial gap in Meta's policies," Cristiano Lima points out. "While the platform bans videos that have been altered by artificial intelligence to show someone saying 'words that they did not say,' these rules do not apply to simpler fakes made with basic tech." (WaPo)
Google is still working toward making passkeys king, ushering in a world devoid of passwords, Jake Piazza writes. (CNBC)
Sopan Deb has some questions about how companies market themselves on social media platforms: "If every brand is funny online, is anything funny?" (NYT)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

Tinseltown Keeps Trying: How many more negotiating sessions will it take for striking actors and major studios to cut a deal? That's one of the questions heading into Wednesday, when the two parties are slated to meet again in Sherman Oaks for continued talks about a deal. The actors and studios met earlier this week, on Monday, and both agreed to use Tuesday to discuss the state of play among their respective sides. Now, they'll head back to the negotiating table. But how long the talks between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP ultimately continue before a deal is reached is anyone's guess.

HOLLYWOOD HELL

Susan Sarandon on the SAG-AFTRA strike: "We hope to agree to a fairer and more equitable contract that reflects the way the industry operates now and not as it did 30 years ago. Especially with regard to the smaller players and the threat of artificial intelligence. That's why this is a now or never situation." (THR)
The morale is still high on the picket lines, with one strike captain telling Dessi Gomez, "Actors are used to being broke." (TheWrap)

OFF STAGE

Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" concert movie has the capacity to shake up the entire film industry, writes Jake Coyle. (AP)
Pamela McClintock reports the Swift film is heading for a record opening for a concert film. The only question is, by how much? (THR)
"Seinfeld" may be getting a new ending, per Jerry himself. (TheWrap)
The latest trailer for "Pain Hustlers," David Yates' Netflix crime thriller which stars Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, and Emily Blunt, has dropped. (YouTube)
Netflix acquired the rights to "Black Barbie: A Documentary." (TheWrap)
Roku Channel acquired "The Spiderwick Chronicles" after the series was canceled by Disney+. (THR)
The same day the trailer for "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" was released, documents from Amber Heard's suit against Johnny Depp dropped, exposing the alleged toxic nature of the film's set. (Variety)

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. You can follow us on Instagram and Threads. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow.