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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Are you following us on LinkedIn? Steve Mnuchin wants to buy TikTok, the number of journalists killed while covering the Israel-Hamas war swells to 95, Elon Musk smears Haitian migrants by hyping claims of cannibalism, Meta announces the end of CrowdTangle, Gina Carano talks about her Disney lawsuit, and more. But first, the A1.

THE A1

Fox Under Fire

CNN Photo Illustration/Kuvshynova family

Fox News is the subject of yet another explosive lawsuit.

On the two-year anniversary of the attack in Ukraine that claimed the lives of Fox News photojournalist Pierre Zakrzewski and contractor Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova, the network was accused Thursday of being culpable for the fatal incident by engaging in "reckless and negligent conduct" that put the crew in harm's way.

In the wake of the tragedy, the network was also accused of launching "a campaign of material misrepresentations and omissions to hide its own accountability for the disaster and shift blame" to then-security contractor Shane Thomson, who allegedly warned against the crew entering the dangerous zone near Kyiv where they were killed.

The lawsuit, filed by Kuvshynova's parents and Thomson in New York State court, named Fox News as a defendant, as well as Fox Corporation Chairman Emeritus Rupert Murdoch, Fox News Chief Executive Suzanne Scott, and correspondent Benjamin Hall, who was severely injured in the attack, but survived.

In a statement, Fox News said, "While we understand the grief and continue to mourn the loss of both Pierre Zakrzewski and Sasha Kuvshynova, we will respectfully defend against the inaccurate claims within this lawsuit. The safety of our journalists has always been our number one priority and we are immensely grateful to the Fox News reporters who have covered the war in Ukraine and we remain committed to reporting from the region."

The deaths of Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova were announced at the time by Scott, who said the team's vehicle came under fire as they were reporting. Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian interior minister, blamed artillery shelling by Russian forces.

But a fuller extent of the circumstances that led to the 2022 tragedy, the lawsuit stated, was uncovered as part of a sweeping investigation conducted by lawyers for Thomson and Kuvshynova's parents, who wanted to get to the bottom of what happened on March 14, 2022.

Their probe found that the circumstances that led to the attack were set into motion when the Fox News team disregarded warnings to avoid the Irpin-Hostomel area near Kyiv. The mayor of Irpin had barred journalists from the city and Thomson, the security contractor, had vetoed the idea of reporting from the area, according to the lawsuit. Heading to the area was considered so dangerous, the lawsuit said, that the Ukrainian driver who had been working with the Fox News team "refused" to take them there, forcing the crew to "find a different driver."

Eventually, when the crew arrived in the region, they rendezvoused with a few Ukrainian soldiers, who had previously escorted The New York Times reporters into the area. That's when they realized the vehicle the soldiers were driving was "not large enough to carry all" of them, the lawsuit said. The team decided to leave their security consultant behind, the lawsuit explained.

"The absence of the security contractor was vital, as the crew made fatal mistakes," the lawsuit said.

The Fox News crew ultimately stopped at an abandoned checkpoint where they were attacked. According to the lawsuit, the "car caught fire and Sasha was burned to ashes inside it, causing her death." Zakrzewski, the lawsuit said, "managed to escape the car but bled to death at the side of the road from a small puncture wound in his leg." The lawsuit alleged that "the bleeding could easily have been stemmed to save his life if the security contractor trained in battlefield first aid had been present." Hall survived the attack and was "later found grievously injured" before being taken for emergency medical care.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the lawsuit alleged that Fox News has tried to cover up its failures and hide them from the public.

Fox News took "all electronic gear ... that survived the attack" and "withheld any record of any evaluation or re-evaluation of the crew's assignment," the lawsuit said. The account of the attack that Hall later recounted in his book, the lawsuit added, was "misleading." And, the lawsuit said, Fox News "has attempted to impose non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements on all the surviving family members."

The lawsuit also alleged that after the fatal incident, Fox News tasked Thomson with transporting Zakrzewski's body across the Polish border to his widow. The lawsuit said that Thomson objected to the assignment, but was told he had to complete it, and was later "let go from his employment without explanation."

"He was severely traumatized by the combined experience of his colleagues being killed, transporting the dead body of his friend, and then being dismissed," the lawsuit said. "Shane reached out to Fox repeatedly for assistance with the trauma. Fox never responded, even after Shane attempted suicide by hanging."

The lawsuit alleged that Thomson has had trouble finding work because he is "frequently associated with the Fox News disaster of being security advisor for the crew that was killed in Irpin the day after journalists were banned from the area." The lawsuit also alleged that Fox News employees spread a bogus story that he had a "drinking problem in Kyiv at the time of the fatal incident, insinuating that this was the cause of the disastrous assignment in which Pierre and Sasha were killed."

Kuvshynova's parents and Thomson are seeking unspecified punitive damages.

"Sasha Kuvshynova's final text message — responding to her parents, who were highly alarmed by the dangerousness of the situation unfolding on March 14, with Russian forces closing in on Kyiv — was not to worry," the lawsuit said, "because Fox was a professional news organization that knew what it was doing and would not expose her to unnecessary danger."

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Marco Bello/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Mnuchin's Move: Could Steven Mnuchin be the next TikTok boss? The former Trump Treasury secretary said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that he is interested in acquiring the platform, should U.S. lawmakers compel ByteDance to spin off the company. "It's a great business and I'm going to put together a group to buy TikTok," Mnuchin revealed, adding that the app is "worth a lot of money." Mnuchin added that he supported the controversial bipartisan bill passed by the House on Wednesday, arguing, "There's no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China." CNN's Elisabeth Buchwald and Matt Egan have more here.

THE INDUSTRY

THE FOURTH ESTATE

At least 95 journalists have now been killed since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. (CPJ)
A United Nations report found that Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was part of a group of "clearly identifiable journalists" when an Israeli tank fired the two 120-millimeter rounds that took his life. (Reuters)
Sports Illustrated employees have been informed that the iconic magazine will "cease publishing its print edition after its May issue," Benjamin Mullin reported. (NYT)
Medhi Hasan spoke to Aidan McLaughlin about his new media company Zeteo: "We want to speak about the world in a truthful, honest, direct, blunt way." (Mediaite)
Unionized editorial staffers at Law360 sued the publisher over planned layoffs. (TBN)
Kara Swisher's "Burn Book" enjoyed its second week on The NYT Best Seller list. Meanwhile, Walter Isaacson's "Elon Musk" has remained on the list now for 26 weeks. (NYT)
Another big exit at The LAT: Nancy Rivera Brooks, the deputy business editor, retired from the paper after 42 years. (TBN)

IN THE MARKET

In a Q&A, CBS boss George Cheeks spoke to Josef Adalian for a wide-ranging interview covering the streaming wars, how the network relaunched after the Hollywood strikes, talk of a Paramount Global acquisition, securing the rights to the Golden Globes, and more. (Vulture)
The FCC declared war on so-called "junk fees" that cable television companies like to sneak in, requiring them to list "all-in" prices. (CNN)
Allen Media Group reached a deal with Charter Communications that will allow the latter to continue to carry The Weather Channel, TheGrio, and other channels. (The Wrap)
Missed this yesterday: Disney's board "is focusing on four divisional heads as part of a formal search for an eventual successor to Bob Iger," Thomas Buckley and Lucas Shaw report. (Bloomberg)
RIP: Gerald M. Levin, the Time Warner chief executive who brokered AOL's messy merger, has died at 84. (NYT)

MEDIA MOVES

Artforum named Tina Rivers Ryan its new top editor. (NYT)
The WSJ named Elena Cherney senior editor in charge of the standards and ethics team. (TBN)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Musk's Migrant Madness: Elon Musk continues to spiral further and further out of control. The billionaire conspiracy theory promoter, who has adopted extremist positions on migrants as he continues to listen to radical media figures, smeared Haitian migrants this week by hyping fears of cannibalism. Yes, you read that right: cannibalism. As NBC's David Ingram reported Thursday, "Musk and right-wing pundits online are weaponizing unverified claims of cannibalism coming out of the [Haitian] conflict to advance a political agenda on immigration." Musk, in fact, is not hiding his worries about this, responding to Ingram's story by writing on X, "If wanting to screen immigrants for potential homicidal tendencies and cannibalism makes me 'right wing,' then I would gladly accept such a label! Failure to do so would put innocent Americans in mortal risk." In another post, Musk responded to NBC with a video, asking, "What do you call this?" Ironically, X later took down the video for violating its rules, Bloomberg's Craig Trudell reported. 😬

🔎 Zooming in: It cannot be overstated how unhinged Musk's behavior is. Much of it goes unreported because, like Donald Trump, he floods the zone with so much nonsense it is difficult to keep up. But it is worth examining what one of the world's most powerful people spends his time doing on X. As recently as this month, Musk has promoted the racist Great Replacement theory, attacked journalists as "liars," agreed with Trump that Facebook is the "enemy of the people," called New York Magazine's Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Andrea Long Chu a "psychopath," said in an interview that Jacob Chansley, known as the QAnon Shaman, "doesn't seem dangerously crazy" and pushed deranged deep state conspiracies about the January 6 insurrection, accused the FBI of operating with a "double standard" against Republicans, babbled about the "woke mind virus" and "woke mob," and mocked Don Lemon after abruptly canceling a partnership with him following an interview in which he did not like.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

The Donald Trump campaign's ad spend is monetizing pro-Nazi content across Rumble, Tim Dickinson reported. (Rolling Stone)
Trump turned to friendly Breitbart writer Matt Boyle to try and clean up his comments about cutting Social Security and Medicare. (MMFA)
Jake Tapper spoke about Aaron Rodgers having spread Sandy Hook conspiracies in the past: "This is where we are as a nation where we have, actually, as a subject for debate whether or not a vice presidential prospect thinks a massive shooting actually happened." (Mediaite)
AFP's global news director, Phil Chetwynd, said Kensington Palace can no longer be considered a trusted source after the Kate Middleton photo fiasco: "No, absolutely not." (NY Post)
John Avlon, in an interview with Lachlan Cartwright, explained why he exited CNN to run for Congress and called out newsrooms for "still debating whether you cover Trump like every other candidate shows zero percent learning curve." (THR)
Brian Stelter looked at Trump's behavior at the start of the pandemic: "Campaign coverage should grapple with how an aspiring president would handle a global crisis. For that reason, it's worth revisiting how the Republican contender mishandled one while president." (Vanity Fair)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/CrowdTangle

CrowdTangle Gets Canned: It's the end of an era: Meta announced on Thursday that it will shutter CrowdTangle, the popular tool used over the years by researchers and journalists to track how conspiracy theories and misinformation spreads on the company's platforms. You might have come to know the tool from The NYT's Kevin Roose, who used CrowdTangle to create the popular "Facebook's Top 10" list showing the top performing links on the social platform. The WSJ's Jeff Horwitz reported that Meta will "decommission" the tool in five months. It will be replaced with Meta Content Library, but that new tool will not be widely available to journalists. Read Horwitz's story here.

TOO MANY TABS

Canada ordered a review of TikTok's expansion plan, citing national security risks. (Reuters)
Google's A.I.-powered search may cost publishers $2 billion in annual ad revenue loss, Trishla Ostwal reports, citing SEO experts and media executives. (Adweek)
Microsoft is arguing to E.U. regulators that it is in fact Google which has an A.I. competitive edge. (Reuters)
OpenAI signed licensing deals with France's Le Monde and Spain's Promotora de Informaciones SA that will allow ChatGPT to train using French and Spanish language news. (Bloomberg)
Reddit added a new ad format that resembles user posts. (TechCrunch)
"Can Reddit survive its own IPO?" asks Anna Merlan. (WIRED)
Katie McQue reports how Facebook Messenger and Meta Pay are being leveraged to purchase child sexual abuse material. (The Guardian)
Melissa Rohman notes that Gen Z is largely still on Facebook because of Marketplace. (NYT)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Disney+

Gina's Grievances: Gina Carano is speaking out. The one-time "Mandalorian" star — whose career crumbled as a result of her incendiary social media commentary during the pandemic and promotion of conspiracy theories — spoke to THR's Seth Abramovitch about her Elon Musk-bankrolled lawsuit against Disney and what it was like to be exiled from the Magic Kingdom. Carano said she found out she had been axed from the "Mandalorian" like everyone else, via a statement from Lucasfilm. "I just laid down and cried and cried," Carano said, recalling the moment she heard the news. Carano told Abramovitch that Musk, who is likely funding her lawsuit because of his own personal animus toward Disney chief Bob Iger, is her hero. "I think it's pretty incredible what he is doing," she said, adding that she became "unhirable" after being canned by Disney. Read the full story here.

OFF STAGE

The 2024 Oscars may have just taken place, but that hasn't stopped some from eyeing the '24-25 slate to anticipate which films will go big, which will go home, and which will take home the industry's top honors. (Variety)
Personally, I believe "Dune: Part Two" will take home quite a few honors, including Best Picture. Yes, I'm calling it now.
Speaking of "Dune," the second film is already "on the verge of passing the final $434.8 million box office total" of the first film. (Forbes)
Tribeca is partnering with HBO to hold an invite-only evening with Larry David, ahead of the finale of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." (Deadline)
From PBS to CNN to Netflix. The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor once again has a new broadcast partner. (Variety)
In celebration of TCM's 30th anniversary, the network will hold a 24-hour film marathon on April 14 that will feature historical introductions from the channel's iconic longtime host, the late Robert Osborne. (THR)
Noah Baumbach added Greta Gerwig to an already all-star ensemble for his next film at Netflix. (Deadline)
"The Bear" has been quality renewed for a fourth season! (Deadline)
"Snowpiercer" season four has been picked up by AMC after being scrapped by TNT. (Variety)
Netflix greenlighted "Black Rabbit," a new limited series starring Jason Bateman and Jude Law. (Variety)
Season seven of "Black Mirror" will hit Netflix in 2025. (THR)

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. You can follow us on Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn. We will see you back in your inbox next week.

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