Good morning! Here's the latest on President Trump, Patrick Soon-Shiong, David Zaslav, Meghan Markle, the WSJ, "Around the Horn," and much more... |
Farewell to FiveThirtyEight |
FiveThirtyEight changed political coverage for the better. Starting with Nate Silver's very first post in 2008 about Hillary Clinton's "electability in purple states," the site popularized political modeling, election forecasting and data journalism more broadly. "It's time for us to start making the news a little nerdier," Silver once said, and that's what the site did, inspiring a couple generations of journalists and researchers.
That's why it is so disappointing to learn that the site is shutting down.
Two years after laying off most of the staff and rebranding it as 538, Disney's ABC News is "eliminating" the brand altogether, the Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint reported overnight. About 15 employees will be affected.
The apparent closure of 538 is part of a 6% staffing cut across ABC News and Disney Entertainment Networks, Flint wrote. Many units are impacted. But I want to linger on the 538 news for a moment because it's a true end of an era. (Check out the reactions on this Reddit forum devoted to the site.)
As The 19th politics reporter Grace Panetta wrote last night, "this is such a catastrophic loss not only for election journalism but also as an election data resource – [I] can't even count the number of times I've relied on 538's polling averages, redistricting trackers, etc for my reporting."
Silver, who left the site in 2023, wrote on X, "My heart goes out to the people there. They were tremendously hard-working and produced a lot of extremely valuable data and insight for everyone who wants to understand politics better. They deserved much better." Some fans are now urging him to try to buy the site back...
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Where will all the data go? Will the charts and tools stay online somewhere? ABC News reps did not immediately respond to my inquiry. A source confirmed that 538 is "winding down" but said ABC News "will continue to provide best-in-class polling and political data analysis that it has offered for decades."
Meantime, 538's current leader, G. Elliott Morris, was still working overnight; just after midnight, he wrote, "we added some new polls late this evening. Trump's job approval rating average at 538 is now net negative. What timing."
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The Trump 'lightning round' |
"Interviewing Donald Trump over the decades, I would sometimes do a lightning round of questions at the end. It was always his favorite part," Maureen Dowd writes in a new NYT column this morning. "Now he has turned his entire presidency into a lightning round, putting out a breathless stream of executive orders, slapping tariffs around the globe, siccing Elon Musk on the federal government to rip it apart from the inside out, blowing up alliances as he pulls Vladimir Putin close."
His energy is the message. His volume is the message. It was true again last night as he delivered a 99-minute address to Congress. I'm sure you've read the analysis elsewhere, so let me just highlight a few media angles and reactions you probably haven't heard...
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An effective 'variety show' |
From the right: The "Fox & Friends" gang loved every minute of it. Trump's message was "big" while Democrats looked "small," Steve Doocy said. Brian Kilmeade, who was in the chamber, said "the story was really two countries," and called the Democrats "juvenile" for conducting various protests. Doocy also celebrated the "viral" moments, saying Trump "understands the television medium better than anybody held that post before."
From the left: Slate's Jim Newell said "Trump's variety show papered over what he's really done." (Others likened it to a "game show.") NYT editorial board member David Firestone defended the Democrats who spoke up, saying it's "hard to blame those who couldn't stop themselves from shouting at the barrage of misinformation." On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough picked up on Jake Lahut's portrayal of the speech as "a ChatGPT rehash of the inaugural address."
During a live post-address edition of "The Late Show," Stephen Colbert held up this message for Democratic lawmakers:
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Political media notes and quotes |
>> "The Republican-heavy audience that tuned in" for Trump's speech "greeted it with tempered positivity," according to CNN's poll of speech-watchers. (CNN)
>> Trump has been "shattering precedent when it comes to the relationship between the White House and press corps," but he still held a traditional off-the-record lunch with TV anchors before his address to Congress, Natalie Korach reported. (VF)
>> Kari Lake has named Victor Morales the acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. (Axios)
>> Sarah Longwell's latest: "Do MAGA voters love what Trump is doing? Yes. But a lot of Trump voters aren't MAGA. They just wanted their cost of living to go down," and it's not... (The Atlantic)
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👀 on business TV for tariff updates |
This new piece by CNN Business editor David Goldman captures the dizziness that journalists, economists and CEOs are all feeling right now: "If you don't like President Donald Trump's tariff policy, wait a minute."
Trump aides keep giving tariff updates through interviews on business TV channels. Yesterday afternoon on Fox Business Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick teased that Trump is "going to work something out" with Canada and Mexico, maybe as soon as today. Then this morning Lutnick said on Bloomberg that Trump is "thinking about a plan" that he'll announce this afternoon. Read on...
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Right-wing media's latest pardon push |
Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire are pushing for Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin. Shapiro blames "the media" with turning George Floyd's death "into the raison d'être of the entire 2020 election." Elon Musk spotted Shapiro's tweet and said it's "something to think about."
Here's something else to think about: Robert Samuels, who co-authored the definitive book about Floyd, says the arguments to pardon Chauvin "are based on misinformation." Here is Samuels' thread separating facts from fictions...
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Soon-Shiong sings AI's praises |
Liam Reilly writes: The Los Angeles Times faced cringeworthy headlines like this one yesterday: "It only took a day for LA Times' new AI tool to sympathize with the KKK." Several hours after the reports began to surface, owner Patrick Soon-Shiong told me in a phone interview that he hadn't heard about the issue.
It all stemmed from his new generative AI feature called "Insights" that summarizes opinion columns and offers counterpoints. "Insights" was roasted for offering "different views" about Orange County's racist past. When I told Soon-Shiong about the controversy and noted the AI comments had been removed, he portrayed their removal as a win, saying readers "know that AI is not at the level yet, it's going to get better," and noting saying the incident will serve as a "very good lesson" for the tool.
The billionaire Times owner also suggested that the fact that the comments had been removed demonstrated "there's some checks and balances as … we're moving through the system." For more on the "Insights," check out Laura Hazard Owen's piece for NiemanLab here.
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Post vet says Bezos should sell |
Cameron Barr's words carry weight at the Washington Post. Barr joined the paper 20 years ago and worked his way up to senior managing editor, and after he stepped down from that post two years ago, he continued to help Sally Buzbee and her successor Matt Murray as a senior associate editor. So it's a big deal that Barr is now saying "the Post’s credibility is unmistakably weakened" by Jeff Bezos's recent actions. In a column for U.S. News & World Report, Barr says "perhaps the time has come for Bezos to sell The Washington Post to someone who will allow its missionaries to do their jobs."
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>> "Israel still won't say when international journalists will be allowed back into Gaza," Yona TR Golding writes. (CJR)
>> "Failings in the making of a documentary on Gaza are a 'dagger to the heart' of the BBC’s claims of trustworthiness and impartiality," BBC chair Samir Shah said yesterday. (The Guardian)
>> The hyperlocal news platform Patch is using AI to expand to "nearly every town in the U.S." Of course, when you don't have reporters actually living in communities, there's only so much you can aggregate, even with AI help. (Axios)
>> Meanwhile, the Maine Trust for Local News, a nonprofit that operates 22 papers in the state, "is laying off 49 employees and dramatically reducing its print editions in an attempt to cut costs on print production and focus more on digital," Aidan Ryan reports. (Boston Globe)
>> The WSJ is laying off some tech reporters and editors, reconfiguring some beats, and naming Sarah Krouse to be Tech & Media editor. (X)
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Zaslav: 'We've really made the turn' |
"I feel like we've really made the turn as a company," Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said at Morgan Stanley's tech and media conference yesterday.
As TheWrap's Lucas Manfredi reports here, Zaslav said WBD (CNN's parent) is finalizing its restructuring plans; he told investors and analysts that "this will give a chance for you all to see all the characteristics of growth and opportunity and challenge that we see. So that will help us get fair value..."
>> Puck's William D. Cohan wrote a similarly bullish column earlier this week...
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>> As expected: The Commerce Department "is examining changes" that will make Musk's Starlink satellite-internet service "eligible for more rural broadband funding." (WSJ)
>> "Apple is stepping up its fight with the British government over a demand to create a 'back door' in its most secure cloud storage systems, by filing a legal complaint that it hopes will overturn the order." (FT)
>> A new Amazon tool "automates big parts of buying TV ads, vying with Google and The Trade Desk," Lauren Johnson writes. (Adweek)
>> Reddit "is surging at a time when much of the rest of the social web has curdled," Adrienne LaFrance writes, saying the site reminds people "of the promise of a decentralized open web." (The Atlantic)
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A belated Oscars surprise! |
Sunday night's telecast was significantly higher-rated than we thought. The overnight numbers suggested that the total audience had declined versus the year before. But more complete #'s from Nielsen "bring the show's viewership to 19.69 million across ABC and Hulu," which is the best result in five years, TheWrap's Loree Seitz writes.
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No distributor for 'No Other Land' |
The day after the Oscars, documentary winner "No Other Land" "was the top trending 'how to watch' search topic," according to Google Trends. But there is no easy answer to the search inquiry. The film still "lacks a U.S. distributor," the Washington Post's Sonia Rao reports. "As of Tuesday morning, a source close to the film... said there had not been any movement on this front."
The context: The doc's directors "have stated publicly that U.S. distributors fear political backlash for promoting the feature, which documents the Israeli military forcefully displacing Palestinian people in Masafer Yatta, a group of hamlets in the southern West Bank." The doc has been "independently booked in theaters... and will play on around 120 screens this weekend."
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Sports + Hollywood headlines |
>> NFL MVP Josh Allen has inked an overall deal with Skydance Sports. (THR)
>> It's now official: ESPN's "Around the Horn" will end in May after 4,900 episodes. (Front Office Sports)
>> Ezra Edelman has responded to Netflix shelving his Prince documentary, "calling the decision short-sighted, stifling and 'a joke.'" (THR)
>> Insiders say Amazon MGM's "best bet to protect James Bond's legacy" is to "hire Christopher Nolan." (TheWrap)
>> "The new Netflix show from Meghan, Duchess of Sussex marks something of a rebrand for the former 'Suits' star, positioning her as a lifestyle guru and domestic goddess," Issy Ronald writes. (CNN)
>> Yes, but the show "With Love, Meghan" is not getting much love from TV critics. Right now it has a very low 33% score on Rotten Tomatoes. (Rotten)
>> And if any of you finished season one of Hulu's "Paradise" yesterday and want to speculate about Dan Fogelman's plans for season two, email me!
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