Good morning! Can you believe it's already the last day of April? |
'Big tech's moment of truth' |
The advertising market is slowing down due to the uncertainty caused by President Trump's economic policies. And we're going to hear a lot about it in the next few days as giants like Meta deliver quarterly earnings reports.
"Big Tech's moment of truth is here," Quartz's Catherine Baab writes, as "AI and tariffs are putting their trillion-dollar market caps to the test."
Meta and Microsoft both release results after the closing bell today. Wall Street analysts are generally bullish about Meta's ad sales resiliency; Wells Fargo calls the company the "steadiest ship in a brewing macro storm."
But that storm is referenced on every investor call. Shares of Snap fell more than 14% last night, despite better than expected Q1 revenue, because the company opted not to offer any guidance for Q2. "Snap cited potential constraints on advertising demand as the reason for holding off," CNBC reports.
Already there has been a measurable pullback in ad spending by Chinese e-commerce players like Temu due to Trump's tariffs. "After all, the advertising value of emphasizing low prices doesn't work quite so well when prices have nearly doubled," The Information's Martin Peers points out. Amazon and Apple report earnings tomorrow afternoon...
|
The month of May will be key |
Ad industry veteran Laura Desmond, the CEO of Smartly, is more optimistic in this new interview on Peter Kafka's podcast. For her clients it is "business as usual so far." But "I think the next month to six weeks will be key to watch," she says, citing the plunge in shipping traffic from China: "If there's no product on the shelves, then that's gonna change anybody's advertising campaign. And it should."
>> This just in: "US economy goes into reverse from Trump's abrupt policy shifts." CNN's Bryan Mena has the Commerce Department data here...
|
|
|
New podcast plug! 🔌 CNN's Donie O'Sullivan is exploring why and how some individuals are susceptible to conspiracy theories in a three-parter called "Persuadable." It's the first season of a new narrative podcast series called "The Account from CNN." O'Sullivan's first episode is online now. It's a deeply personal project for him, as you will hear when you listen.
"We often focus too much on the things people believe rather than why they believe them," O'Sullivan says. "In Persuadable, we wanted to show how anyone is capable of holding irrational beliefs so that when our loved ones find themselves deep in conspiracy theory rabbit holes, we have the tools to help. That started with an open conversation about my own mental health struggles." Check out the episode here...
|
|
|
Public broadcasting standoff |
Trump's firing spree has hit the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that disperses federal funds to public TV and radio stations across the country. On Monday the White House emailed three CPB board members and said they were "terminated." But under the 1967 law that created the corporation, Trump does not have the authority to fire them. So the CPB filed a lawsuit yesterday to seek help from a federal judge.
You can read the 1967 law for yourself here. It's pretty clear. It specifies that CPB is a private entity, not a federal agency, to afford it "maximum protection from extraneous interference and control" — in other words, to avoid a situation like this.
But what if Trump tries to appoint replacements for the board members he says are fired? This could get weird, fast. U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss said he will hear arguments in the case on May 14. Here's my report from "CNN News Central" this morning.
>> "A lot" of this behavior by the Trump admin "is patently unlawful. And a lot of its behavior will not survive litigation," law professor Steve Vladeck told NPR's David Folkenflik. "But it's nevertheless designed to intimidate, to chill, to shift the conversation, to consume the oxygen."
>> Meanwhile, PBS and NPR leaders are still bracing for the White House to ask Congress to claw back its funding. That "rescission" memo could come any day.
|
Judge tells Trump to pay RFE |
In yet another ruling against Trump's attempt to take down U.S.-funded international broadcasting, District Judge Royce Lamberth has ordered the admin "to restore $12 million that Congress appropriated for Radio Free Europe," The AP reports. Lamberth "also tucked a lesson on the three branches of government inside Tuesday's ruling, cautioning that the system of checks and balances established by the US Constitution must remain intact if the nation is going to continue to thrive."
>> Read his 22-page order here. Pages 18 to 21 are a civics lesson. (Imagine if the major TV networks carved out some time to read these types of things on air!)
|
|
|
'Terry, you're not being very nice' |
A lot has been written about Trump attempting to bend reality to his will during his second term in office. In this ABC clip, you can see him almost physically trying to do that with Terry Moran during a borderline uncomfortable exchange over Kilmar Abrego Garcia. When Trump claimed the deported man "had MS-13 on his knuckles," Moran instantly reality-checked that, replying that the knuckles photo Trump posted on Truth Social "was photoshopped."
Trump couldn't abide that. "Terry, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime," he said, "You're doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I'd never heard of you, but that's OK" – Moran smiled – "but Terry, you're not being very nice."
This went on for a while, and Trump looked taken aback by Moran's refusal to accept his un-reality. "Why don't you just say 'yes, he does,' and go onto something else?" Because "it's contested," Moran said, desperate to move on to other matters. Check out the interview transcript here...
>> Tonight, Trump will phone into Chris Cuomo's town hall on NewsNation...
|
Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller bashed Fox's (high quality!) polls to Fox anchor John Roberts' face yesterday. "It is our opinion that Fox News needs to fire its pollster," Miller said live on the air while attempting to dismiss Trump's weak standing on issues like the economy.
"Roberts stood there silent, offering no immediate defense of his colleague," Oliver Darcy noted in Status. "Later, after the segment aired, Roberts said Fox News stands by the polling. Weak!"
>> Speaking of weak, Fox News Digital ran an opinion column imploring readers to "ignore" the "biased polls" that reflected poorly on Trump's first 100 days, omitting any mention of Fox's own poll.
|
Inside the Trump WH 'influencer briefing' |
Karoline Leavitt has been holding special briefings for "new media," a/k/a pro-Trump social media stars, and in the words of The Independent, "it's going just how you'd expect." Leavitt calls the two-way flattery sessions "influencer briefings." It's hard to measure how influential these actually are, but it feels like "a test run for something bigger," as The Bulwark's Will Sommer wrote yesterday.
>> Sommer noted Monday's session included a right-wing comedian, a MAGA meme maker, a proudly mean-spirited Instagram personality, and an influencer who has questions about the moon, along with former press secretary Sean Spicer and former Mumford & Sons banjoist Winston Marshall...
|
Trumpworld notes and quotes |
>> NYT: "Lawyers for President Trump and Paramount, the parent of CBS News, are set to begin mediation on Wednesday."
>> The Washington Post's latest headline about its owner: "Trump praises Bezos after Amazon denies plan to show tariffs' costs."
>> Here's a different way to frame yesterday's back and forth, from 404 Media: "Trump demands Amazon deny the reality of what his tariffs are doing to prices."
>> A so-called "reporter" from the far-right Gateway Pundit website stood with the White House press corps yesterday, bashed the press, and asked Trump, "Aren't they proving to be the enemy of the people?" Trump said, "I guess they are."
|
|
|
>> The Los Angeles Times lost around $50 million in 2024, having hemorrhaged its most valuable subscribers, Mark Stenberg reports. (Adweek)
>> "After a brutal year of headlines about The Washington Post," exec editor Matt Murray is trying to highlight the Post's journalism, especially its stories about "the federal workforce and spending cuts," David Bauder writes. (AP)
>> The European Broadcasting Union "has updated its flag policy for the Eurovision Song Contest, overturning a ban on banners such as the Palestinian flag in the audience, but introducing tougher restrictions on artists," Olivia Kemp reports. (CNN)
|
|
|
Five revealing GenAI stories |
>> Researchers secretly deployed AI-powered bots "into a popular debate subreddit called R/ChangeMyView in an attempt to research whether AI could be used to change people's minds about contentious topics," Jason Koebler reports. They claim it worked really well! (404 Media)
>> Is that source or segment guest who you think they are? Joseph Cox writes that improvements to deepfake tech now enable fraudsters to "hold entire realtime video calls for extended periods of time while maintaining their deepfaked persona." (404 Media)
>> "Meta is rolling out a stand-alone AI app" as the company looks to compete with OpenAI, Amanda Silberling reports. (TechCrunch)
>> "Americans are far more negative than positive about AI's long-term impact on the news people get." (Pew)
>> Once an "art form," parody movie trailers have been eclipsed by "AI slop," Herb Scribner writes. (WaPo)
|
|
|
'Thunderbolts' gets crackling reviews |
As the review embargo lifts on the latest Marvel movie, "Thunderbolts," the superhero flick has been lavished with praise, with one critic hailing it as "the greatest Marvel offering in years."
"Thunderbolts," which opens wide on Friday, has also nabbed an impressive 88% Tomatometer score so far, a welcome sight after Marvel's last release, "Captain America: Brave New World," only nabbed a 48% on the meter.
|
>> "Fueled by its popularity on TikTok," Jack Black's 34-second song from "A Minecraft Movie" has entered the Billboard Hot 100 at #78. (NYT)
>> Hulu has nabbed the rights to a forthcoming Alex Cooper documentary. (THR)
>> "Good Night, And Good Luck" remains high atop Broadway's box office. (Deadline)
|
|
|
|
® © 2025 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
