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Friday, February 13, 2026 |
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TGIF! Quick programming note: We will be off on Monday for Presidents' Day, barring any huge breaking media news. Now, here's the latest on Don Lemon, CBS News, NBC News, the Baltimore Banner, the "Something Big Is Happening" essay, and more... |
Influencer 'sleuths' swarm Tucson |
As the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie has captivated the country, a flock of "true crime influencers" has landed in Tucson, and they're definitely influencing perceptions of the case — for better or worse.
Podcasters, TikTokers and YouTubers are churning out a parallel universe of content about Guthrie, right alongside more traditional news and talk coverage from the likes of CNN.
The "influencer" content is more raw and personal, and often much more speculative in nature, crossing lines that journalists are taught to avoid for legal and ethical reasons. The content is more participatory than typical news coverage. Viewers can feel involved in solving the crime — and that can be a powerful, if not reality-based, feeling.
I've been hesitant to write about this topic because I don't want to sound like some old-fogey member of the legacy media. And there is a recognition, as one person involved in the Guthrie investigation told me, that "the breakthrough tip could come from anyone, from anywhere."
But there have definitely been occasions in the past twelve days when the aggressive, anything-goes social media coverage has been "unhelpful," as the person involved in the investigation gently put it.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department has repeatedly tried to tamp down rumors about the purported existence of a "prime suspect" and has asked people not to spread unsubstantiated info. "Social media's kind of an ugly world sometimes," Sheriff Chris Nanos said last week.
And when a pizza deliveryman showed up at the crime scene earlier this week? That was an order placed for a controversial YouTuber who's getting tons of traffic from his on-the-scene updates.
Vox's Kyndall Cunningham summed it up really well here: "In a post-true crime world, the combination of celebrity and social media is piling chaos onto tragedy."
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Influencers as 'armchair detectives' |
Ricky Vazquez has noticed this phenomenon, too. Vazquez is a 20-year veteran of local news who previously served as managing editor of KVOA, the NBC affiliate in Tucson. "I've covered some major stories in the past and never seen anything like this," he told me last night.
"It feels like there's more of these influencers than there are legitimate journalists," he said. One of many frustrating examples: Crime influencers sharing baseless speculation about a Guthrie neighbor simply because the person was "moving boxes from their house to their car."
Another example he cited: People posting excitedly on social media "about every helicopter and every aircraft flying over Tucson," thinking they might have caught the abductors, or they might be witnessing a rescue mission in real time. The AP's Hallie Golden called these posters "armchair detectives" in a story last weekend.
"There are plenty of podcasters and independent journalists that do a great job," Vazquez said. "It is the future of news. But it needs to be taken seriously. People hang on every word you say when you have that type of influence and following. It's irresponsible to suggest a false narrative that is amplified at lightning speed."
>> Related: Jesse McKinley captured all the reasons why the Guthrie case "is breaking through the noise" in this new NYT story.
>> Flashback: Amelia Tait described "the rise of 'citizen sleuths'" in a 2021 story for The Guardian about "the true crime buffs trying to solve cases."
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Don Lemon to be arraigned |
"I'm on my way back to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to handle some business," Don Lemon said in an Instagram video last night. Lemon "is set to be arraigned in federal court" today "along with four other defendants," The AP's Steve Karnowski writes. Lemon will plead not guilty, and the judge will likely lay out a timeline for future proceedings.
>> Here's a related and really strong read from CBS News reporter Sarah N. Lynch: The church protest indictment "will likely be dismissed because it hinges on a charge that is viewed as so constitutionally flawed that the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has never attempted to use it to prosecute interference in a house of worship, legal experts say." Read on...
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'This is not the free-speech presidency he promised...' |
In her latest column for The New Yorker, Susan Glasser says Trump's "systematic campaign to stamp out dissent and punish those who disagree with him that will be remembered as among the most singularly un-American aspects of his disruptive tenure."
"This is not the free-speech Presidency he promised," she says, "but a free-speech crackdown without modern precedent..."
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CBS News layoffs coming soon |
CBS News executives "are actively sketching out plans for another deep round of cuts," Oliver Darcy reported for Status last night. "According to people briefed on the situation, the coming layoffs are expected to impact at least 15% of the workforce, making them more severe than the reductions carried out last fall."
>> Notably, unlike the last round, "these cuts are being largely orchestrated" by Bari Weiss herself, "and will put her imprint on the network," Darcy added.
>> Speaking of CBS, the network's next "Things That Matter" town hall event airs this Sunday after "60 Minutes." Norah O'Donnell (not Weiss) taped the event with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore yesterday. This morning CBS said VP JD Vance will tape a town hall next month.
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What does DOJ upheaval mean for Ticketmaster and Netflix? |
Gail Slater was ousted yesterday as the DOJ's antitrust chief, as CNN's Kaitlan Collins reported here. She'd been "at odds with Attorney General Pam Bondi and the West Wing for months," Collins wrote.
Slater's exit comes at an especially delicate moment for two media-related cases of particular interest to Trump and his allies. She'd been steering the anti-monopoly case against Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster — a case the company, advised by MAGA stalwarts Kellyanne Conway and Mike Davis, is eager to settle. With Slater out, all "signs could be pointing toward an out-of-court ending to Live Nation's monopoly suit," THR's Winston Cho and Ethan Millman report.
And then there's the DOJ's antitrust probe of the Netflix deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets, which Paramount, led by the Trump-friendly Ellison family, is looking to stop. Slater was overseeing that review as well.
It's unclear what Slater's ouster will mean for the Netflix case, but prominent Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, are warning of "corruption" inside the merger process. "A small army of MAGA-aligned lawyers and lobbyists have been trying to sell off merger approvals that will increase prices and harm innovation to the highest bidder," she said yesterday, raising the specter that political favoritism will shape these outcomes.
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The Banner steps up to the plate |
Liam Reilly writes: The Baltimore Banner is coming to a DC sports team near you. One week after the startup announced its expansion into Prince George's County, the Banner on Thursday shared plans to expand the remit of its sports unit to include D.C. teams.
>> In a LinkedIn post, Bob Cohn, the Banner's chief executive, acknowledged that, "with The Washington Post eliminating its sports desk, we're stepping in to serve our Maryland readers — many of them in the DC area — with trusted and ambitious sports journalism."
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NBC launching entertainment newsletter |
NBC News is launching On the Lot, a new entertainment newsletter from senior Hollywood reporter Rebecca Keegan, for subscribers to the news outlet's new paid product. NBC says Keegan's weekly Friday email "will feature fresh reporting and analysis from Hollywood on the latest developments from the entertainment industry." The first one ships later today; you can sign up for a preview here.
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>> Lachlan Cartwright's Breaker newsletter is now profitable following a "run of big scoops" in the fall, he says. Congrats, mate! (Press Gazette)
>> Alden Global Capital is laying off 16 of the New York Daily News' 58 unionized staffers – nine members of the national team and all seven members of the print desk. (NewsGuild)
>> New York mag is reviving its classifieds section, "but with a few modern updates," Hanaa’ Tameez reports. (NiemanLab)
>> "The proposed takeover of The Telegraph by Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail owner, will face a four-month initial investigation by regulators over fears it would hand him too much sway over the press." (The Telegraph)
>> PEN America has named Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf co-CEOs. (PEN)
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>> Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers say the Jeffrey Epstein document dump "has fueled a new wave of speculation, A.I.-generated hoaxes and foreign disinformation." (NYT)
>> Anne Applebaum and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez ask, "What is Kari Lake trying to achieve?" (The Atlantic)
>> Seth Abramovitch explores why "MAGA-boosting comedy bros are turning on Trump." (THR)
>> Will Sommer shows how Candace Owens has won over some of TPUSA's own staff with her bonkers conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's death. (The Bulwark)
>> Alex Weprin, Caitlin Huston and Katie Kilkenny dissect "daytime TV's big problem," namely that "talk is cheap" but "talk shows are not." Video podcasts "may be the final blow to the format." (THR)
>> Sophie Culpepper explains why "newspapers aren't reaching subscribers on time" due to USPS changes. (NiemanLab)
>> Alex Weprin says incoming Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro will be placing bets on "gaming, AI and interactivity." (THR)
>> Robert O'Connell says "the real stars of the Milan Cortina Games" are the camera drones. (WSJ)
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Yesterday, we incorrectly said that Mark Zuckerberg would testify today in the landmark social media addiction trial. He will testify next Wednesday.
Also, yesterday, we overstated the impact of a judge's ruling in Trump's suit against the BBC. The judge turned down the BBC's bid to delay the discovery process and set a February 2027 trial date, but our title, "Judge lets Trump's BBC suit go to trial," was off-base. As the BBC's own story later noted, the news outlet is expected to submit a motion to dismiss the case soon, and yesterday's order "does not impact that forthcoming filing."
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'We are living inside the petri dish' |
"The AI industry's foundational story is finally going viral — just for being depressing as hell," Intelligencer's John Herrman writes, assessing the "Something Big Is Happening" essay and recent resignation letters from AI execs. Herrman says "insiders and outsiders are both feeling helpless."
>> For more on this, read M.G. Siegler's reaction, who says this is "not a pandemic-like situation. It's perhaps more like climate change."
>> Om Malik's observation: "We are not observing the future of AI from a distance. We are living inside the petri dish, watching the experiment unfold in real time, without knowing what the results will be."
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Innovation or infringement? A tale of two headlines... |
Same AI news, framed very differently for different audiences:
>> ByteDance's new video-generating AI model, Seedance 2.0, "has already impressed the likes of Elon Musk and gone viral in China, where it has been compared to DeepSeek and won praise for its ability to produce cinematic storylines with just a few prompts," Eduardo Baptista reports for Reuters.
>> Meantime, the Motion Picture Association has "denounced" Seedance 2.0, "saying it had unleashed a flood of copyright infringement in the day since it became available," Gene Maddaus reports for Variety.
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More of today's tech talk |
>> In his final column for WaPo, Geoffrey Fowler teamed up with Kevin Schaul to look into ChatGPT's "hidden biases" about cities and states. (WaPo)
>> "Spotify says its best developers haven’t written a line of code since December, thanks to AI," Sarah Perez writes. (TechCrunch)
>> Roku shares are rallying this morning after the company reported earnings that beat Wall Street expectations. (TheWrap)
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A few Hollywood headlines |
>> "The projections look promising" for "Wuthering Heights" this weekend. (TheWrap)
>> New this morning: "Netflix has bagged the U.S. rights to Jack Thorne's Lord of the Flies TV adaptation." (Deadline)
>> Last year, "the AI-powered version of 'The Wizard of Oz' presented at the Sphere in Las Vegas made $290 million in ticket revenue." (TheWrap)
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