Good morning! I'm back from spring break, and joined by new editor Andrew Kirell. Here's the latest on "60 Minutes," Spotify, "Sinners," The New Yorker, Taylor Sheridan, chatbots, and more... |
News outlets released four major new polls over the weekend, all timed to President Trump's 100th day in office, all with similarly sour findings for the president.
"Approval of Trump's handling of the presidency is down 4 points since March, and 7 points lower than it was in late February," CNN's Jennifer Agiesta reported. "What's more, the vehemence of the opposition outweighs the intensity of support from the president's MAGA base," NBC's story about its poll noted. About twice as many Americans "strongly disapprove" of Trump as "strongly approve."
Liberal media startups see this anti-Trump energy as a business opportunity. Trump sees it as a threat. This morning he attacked the other two outlets with fresh polls — The New York Times and The Washington Post/ABC — and said "these people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you're at it," Trump wrote in a Truth Social screed. "They are Negative Criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I WIN ELECTIONS BIG, much bigger than their polls showed I would win, loose a lot of credibility, and then go on cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse."
Notice how he once again targeted Fox News, which dared to briefly highlight his sagging numbers last week. (When Trump bashes Fox, it's often a sign that things aren't going so well.)
These types of posts also merit attention because so many of Trump's rhetorical targets have wound up on the receiving end of lawsuits, probes and other forms of pressure. He is already suing pollster Ann Selzer, and she is fighting back in court.
Curiously, though, Trump told The Atlantic — in a cover story that came out this morning — that he's not out for revenge. Reporters Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer found this hard to believe. In the administration "there are 'two types of people,' he told us: those who want him to just focus on making the country great and those who want him to make the country great while simultaneously seeking retribution against his supposed persecutors. 'I am in the first group, believe it or not,' he said. (This was indeed difficult to believe, we interjected.) 'But a lot of people that are in the administration aren't. They feel that I was really badly treated.' In our presence, he seemed inclined to outsource his retributive id to others."
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CBS: MAGA voters 'stand apart' |
The new polls also show how Trump devotees are consuming different media sources and perceiving things very differently. CBS says its poll shows that self-described "MAGA Republicans" care more about immigration than economic policy. They also "stand apart" in their outlook for the U.S. economy, CBS says: "While most Americans say it is getting worse, MAGA Republicans say it is getting better. They also rate the current economy much better than others do." They are also "about twice as likely as Americans overall to say legal residents being detained would be acceptable."
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Trump's 100-days media tour |
Trump's sit-down with The Atlantic was last week. Next he is taping with ABC's Terry Moran for a 100th-day interview that will air as a one-hour special report, this Tuesday at 8 pm ET.
Trump is also calling into a NewsNation town hall event moderated by Chris Cuomo on Wednesday night. Bill O'Reilly and Stephen A. Smith are also joining Cuomo for the telecast.
And on the party circuit during White House Correspondents' Dinner weekend, there was chatter that Trump has committed to a "Meet the Press" interview with Kristen Welker. NBC is not confirming. I can't help but notice the White House's emphasis on institutional media outlets...
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Will '60 Minutes' get the last word? |
"We'll be back next week with another edition of '60 Minutes,'" Scott Pelley said last night — a usual line delivered at a highly unusual time. He used the final moments of the broadcast to address the ouster of "60 Minutes" boss Bill Owens, offering a remarkable on-air rebuke of CBS parent Paramount in the process.
With Paramount awaiting merger approval, "Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways," Pelley said. "None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires."
So what of that independence now? The question hung in the air, or airwaves, after Pelley signed off. Tanya Simon "is running the program on an interim basis," the LAT's
Stephen Battaglio noted. Correspondents are working on stories and wondering if the "supervision" is going to get worse. Owens "was under increasing pressure to go puffy on Trump," Lesley Stahl told Marvin Kalb the other day.
But on air, nothing has changed. Last night's broadcast led with another unflinching report about the impact of Trump's actions, this time about cuts to NIH that "could impact health in the US for generations."
>> Big picture: "Trump v 60 Minutes is a stunning battle for the soul of US media."
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That's one of the headlines in this week's edition of The New Yorker, which features an Andrew Marantz dispatch from Hungary. His report describes how the country's media and other institutions were hollowed out by Viktor Orbán's party and asks, "Is the U.S. Becoming an Autocracy?"
These concerns — about Trump's autocratic tendencies, attacks on the press, and democratic backsliding — certainly came up on the sidelines of the correspondents' dinner over the weekend. And Saturday night's dinner speeches contained a few references to the threat environment against the press. (The Associated Press received a standing ovation.)
But overall, during my day in DC, I heard more inward commentary. Partygoers talked about the lamentable state of legacy media, expressed hope and fear in equal measure, and exuded FOMO-style curiosity about the Substack era. (It was hard to miss the billboards in Union Station that declared "Media isn't dead. It's on Substack.") Vanity Fair's Natalie Korach has a recap of the weekend here.
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'Acknowledging errors builds trust' |
The dinner crowd is typically a chatty bunch, but the room fell silent when Axios reporter and CNN contributor Alex Thompson accepted an award on stage and said of Joe Biden's decline while in office, "We, myself included, missed a lot of this story. And some people trust us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media at such lows."
Thompson, who co-authored the forthcoming book "Original Sin" with Jake Tapper, went on to say that "acknowledging errors builds trust and being defensive about them further erodes it," and earned some hear-hear from the crowd.
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As Congress returns from recess, PBS and NPR leaders are waiting to see if today's the day the White House formally sends its defunding proposal to lawmakers. The rescission package will start a 45-day clock, and some public media officials believe the House will move to vote on the matter quickly, so stations stepped up their lobbying efforts last week. The big unknown: Will some Republican senators reject the defunding proposal?
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This week's media calendar |
Monday: The Canadian election.
Tuesday: Spotify reports earnings before the bell; Snap after the close.
Wednesday morning: The Committee to Protect Journalists releases a special report pegged to Trump's first 100 days.
Wednesday afternoon: Meta and Microsoft report earnings.
Thursday: Reuters, Gannett and SiriusXM report earnings before the bell; Amazon, Apple and Reddit after the close.
Saturday: World Press Freedom Day.
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>> The Daily Wire is "opening a DC office led by deputy managing editor Tim Rice and promoting Brent Scher to serve as editor-in-chief," Max Tani reports. (Semafor)
>> Speaking of Semafor... Charlotte Klein sat down with co-founders Justin Smith and Ben Smith to discuss how the media outlet has carved out a space for itself in an overcrowded sector over three years. (NYMag)
>> Also: Don't miss Ben's in-depth new piece about how private group chats are shaping politics and media. (Semafor)
>> "Bill Belichick's girlfriend shuts down a question posed during CBS interview," and Mike Florio has the backstory here. I will admit – the interview and the ensuing social media chatter did cause me to preorder Belichick's book... (Pro Football Talk)
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>> Jeff Horwitz is out with a concerning new story about Meta chatbots engaging in "romantic role-play." The company "made multiple alterations" after he shared his findings. (WSJ)
>> Spotify "has paid more than $100 million to podcast publishers and creators since January," a bid "draw more creators (and their audiences) to Spotify, as the rise of video podcasting has driven many of them to YouTube," Jessica Testa reports. (NYT)
>> 4chan "is back after a nearly two-week shutdown, but it still has some serious problems." (Engadget)
>> Private equity firms are investing in ad agencies, "altering the topography of the advertising industry," Katie Deighton and Rod James write. The investors see "an opportunity to capitalize on the sector's accelerating shift toward automation." (WSJ)
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Huge second weekend for 'Sinners' |
Warner Bros.' "Sinners," directed by Ryan Coogler, "continues to defy all the odds," THR's Pamela McClintock writes. In its second weekend in theaters, the film "easily stayed No. 1 domestically with a phenomenal $45 million," just 6 percent lower than its opening weekend performance, a phenomenal result. McClintock calls it a "runaway water-cooler sensation" and a "major victory for Warners' movie chiefs Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca."
"The Accountant 2," "A Minecraft Movie" and a rerelease of "Revenge of the Sith" also performed well over the weekend, leaving Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro to say "there's a sense out there that the box office is finally on a roll..."
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Rare interview with Taylor Sheridan |
Superstar producer Taylor Sheridan has come out in support of Chris McCarthy, one of the Paramount co-CEOs whose job is thought to be in jeopardy once David Ellison gains control. In this profile of McCarthy, Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw quotes Sheridan as saying, "I sure hope that if this merger takes place, they have the foresight to keep him. I don't know of another executive that I could do this with." Shaw is also out with a new piece about Sheridan...
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What I learned at Disneyland |
Get on the ride! When in doubt, get on the ride. Last week I took my wife and kids to four theme parks in four days — Universal Studios Hollywood, Knott's Berry Farm, Disneyland, and California Adventure. I wouldn't call it a "vacation," but it was one heck of a trip. Email me if you want any trip-planning advice 😉
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