The Covid-19 conspiracy cloud

It pains me to lead this newsletter with un-reliable sources, but sometimes it's necessary. Right now is one of those times. There's a direct pipeline between bogus Covid-19 conspiracy theories and President Trump. For example:

"60 Minutes" shows the Fox-Trump feedback loop

Oliver Darcy emails: Scott Pelley's piece on Sunday's "60 Minutes" was a damning, must-watch 14 minutes of journalism. Pelley showed how "dishonest and negligent allegations" from GOP congressman Matt Gaetz on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show jumped to the White House briefing room and to Trump. In the end, the claims resulted in a researcher's NIH grant -- which was supporting research aimed at stopping pandemics -- being terminated in unprecedented fashion.

"This politicization of science is really damaging," researcher Peter Daszak told Pelley. "You know, the conspiracy theories out there have essentially closed down communication between scientists in China and scientists in the US. We need that communication in an outbreak to learn from them how they control it so we can control it better. It's sad to say, but it will probably cost lives. By sort of narrow-mindedly focusing in on ourselves, or on labs, or on certain cultural politics, we miss the real enemy."

>> Triggered: After the piece aired, Trump tweeted an attack on "60 Minutes..."

OAN pushes crazy conspiracy theory

Oliver Darcy emails: A video report from OAN promoting a fringe conspiracy theory was widely criticized and mocked over the weekend. The report from the cable channel falsely asserted that the Clintons, George Soros, Bill Gates, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the Chinese are using coronavirus to “establish sweeping population control." The report, which also attacked authorities for backing remdesivir over hydroxychloroquine, claimed that a "deep-state Democratic cabal" is using the situation to undo the Constitution and "force the American people into total submission."

It was all deranged stuff -- and normally, a tiny media outlet promoting a crazy conspiracy theory like that wouldn't garner much attention. But it matters because this is a channel that Trump has repeatedly promoted. It's a channel Trump has lauded for "brilliant" reporting. It's a channel Trump has said all cable companies should carry. It's a channel that he has given special WH access. And it's the channel he has said he watches "whenever possible."

Resistance inside OAN...

Over the weekend two prominent journalists at OAN told me they were embarrassed by the segment. The journalists, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said there was an internal rebellion of sorts, and the segment was eventually pulled out of the channel's TV rotation. But it still appeared on the OAN website and on YouTube...

Over to you, YouTube...

Oliver Darcy writes: The OAN "report" pushing this dangerous conspiracy theory was posted by the network to YouTube, where it racked up more than 50,000 views by Sunday evening. So I checked in with YouTube on Sunday to see whether the video was in accordance with the company's policies. YouTube reps were unable to say. Minutes before midnight, the company called it "borderline content" and said such content "that does not meet the bar for removal is subjected to limited functionality, such as being removed from recommendations and search features on the platform."

So why are people drawn to Covid-19 conspiracy theories?

That was the big Q on Sunday's "Reliable." Brendan Nyhan answered: "It seems to be appealing to believe someone is pulling the strings. That may be less scary than thinking that there are these unpredictable risks out there that none of us can control. These conspiracy theories provide a simple story."

Renee DiResta also shared her insights. DiResta said conspiracy theories let people "point a finger at a villain" when a situation is out of control. Watch here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Margaret Sullivan's Monday column: "Trump wants America to ‘normalize’ coronavirus deaths. It’s the media’s job not to play along..." (WaPo)

-- My two cents: The American death toll from the pandemic is roughly equal to the death toll from Hurricane Katrina. It's like Biloxi is battered and New Orleans is flooded every single day. To look away or act like this daily death toll is acceptable is a disgrace to the victims... (CNN)

-- "The storm we can't see:" Garrett Graff says "we haven’t even begun to grasp how much damage the pandemic will do..." (WaPo)

-- Donie O'Sullivan writes: The State Department claimed Friday that it had found a network of Chinese Twitter accounts running coronavirus misinformation. But when State shared its findings, Twitter said many of the accounts weren’t Chinese at all – some were even American and Canadian. Here's the full story by Donie, Jennifer Hansler, and Kylie Atwood... (CNN)

Trump shares 100+ tweets on Mother's Day

Oliver Darcy emails: On Sunday, Trump tweeted or retweeted more than 100 times. He promoted conspiracy theories. He posted a mountain of disinformation. And he slung schoolyard-style insults at critics. But you would not know it by checking the homepages of major news organizations.

I understand that the volume of muck pushed by the president is overwhelming. It's almost impossible to keep up with and correct all the bad information he floods the zone with. Of course, that's the point -- and as an astute media observer, POTUS knows exactly what he's doing...

This is what happens when Trump @'s you

I think Oliver is right. I was on the receiving end on Sunday, when Trump or someone with access to his account tweeted, "@brianstelter is just a poor man's lapdog for AT&T!" I thought it was a parody account at first, but it was the real president. I thought to myself, seriously, what is it about the president and dogs? Then I thought, shouldn't he be having a Mother's Day brunch with Melania? But here's the main thing I want to share with you all: Almost no one noticed his attack. I only heard from a few friends and family members. I received more hate mail than usual, but that's just part of the job nowadays. My takeaway: The president's Twitter attacks barely generate any attention anymore. And that's a good thing...

Todd: "What's the plan?"

Oliver Darcy emails: On "Meet the Press" Sunday, Chuck Todd presented a straightforward question for the White House: "What's the plan?" Todd noted that the White House's response to the coronavirus pandemic has been "both confused and confusing" and has raised "troubling questions."

Todd asked, “What’s the plan for testing and contact tracing? ... What’s the plan for maintaining social distancing as states reopen? What’s the plan for making people feel confident about returning to work when even the White House can’t even keep the virus out? And what’s the plan for treating this pandemic as our greatest national crisis since the second World War? In other words, what's the plan?”

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- On Sunday the DOJ accused "Meet the Press" of deceptively editing a clip of Bill Barr. The show responded on Twitter and said "we inadvertently and inaccurately cut short a video clip... We regret the error..." (Daily Caller)

-- "Americans support directing federal money to local news organizations as part of coronavirus relief efforts," according to this survey... (Knight/Gallup)

-- Ben Smith's Monday NYT column is about recent Australian and French decisions: "News organizations have long hoped that tech platforms would pay them for news. Now regulators abroad are moving to make that happen..." (NYT)

Week ahead calendar

Monday: NBC hosts a "One Industry" virtual discussion for advertisers, on the day that it was scheduled to hold an in-person upfront show. Variety's Brian Steinberg has a guide to what is and (mostly) isn't happening this not-upfront week...

Monday: SCOTUS continues to hear oral arguments via teleconference, live on C-SPAN and streaming around the world...

Tuesday: SCOTUS takes up two closely watched cases involving Trump's financial records...

Friday: "Scoob!" follows "Trolls World Tour" directly to premium VOD...

Saturday: "Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020," a prime time special, airs across all the major networks...

Hayes addresses #FireChrisHayes controversy

Oliver Darcy emails: In a Sunday Q&A with Isaac Chotiner, Chris Hayes addressed the enormous amount of backlash he received after covering Tara Reade's allegation of sexual assault against Joe Biden. "I thought the reaction was probably partly representative of a real feeling among a lot of the viewers," Hayes said, "and partly a little bit of a Twitter frenzy that isn’t necessarily representative."

Hayes recalled the coverage of Hillary Clinton's emails back in 2016. "It was perfectly fine to cover that story. It was a story," he said. "But it was covered at orders of magnitude and excess of what it could have been, and people see this replaying itself now, and are terrified about that."

The full Q&A with Hayes is well worth reading...

NYT CEO: Pandemic proves 'value of trustworthy news'

"Moments like this, this extraordinary and terrible experience which this country and the world is going through, is a moment for news organizations and newspapers to find audiences and prove the value of trustworthy news," NYT Co president and CEO Mark Thompson said on Sunday's "Reliable." Read Clare Duffy's recap for CNN Business here...

Reliable notes and quotes

-- Is the White House withholding key Covid-19 data? The WH does not want to "make public the most negative potential data" about the pandemic, Maggie Haberman said...

-- Catherine Rampell: "Telling the actual stories of real people is critical right now" so that "mindbogglingly huge" unemployment #'s don't seem so abstract...

-- Lisa Napoli, author of the new book "Up All Night," talked about the birth of CNN and the creation of "news junkies..."

Catch up on Sunday's show...

Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Catch the entire episode via CNNgo or VOD... Or listen to the podcast edition via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app 😊

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

By Katie Pellico:

-- ProPublica health care reporter Marshall Allen offers a super-smart "checklist" for sizing up potential misinformation, working off of the "Plandemic" video... (ProPublica)

-- "It's time for anyone who has sleepily ignored the news industry's crisis to wake up." Seattle Times exec editor Michele Matassa Flores stresses that “it takes local journalism to uncover national scandals like the Boeing 737 Max disaster...” (LAT)

-- Correction: In Friday's reads, I incorrectly described this moving article by ELLE's Rose Minutaglio. She profiled Navajo Times reporter Krista Allen and showed how Covid-19 is affecting tribal communities... (ELLE)

Shanghai Disneyland is open again

The AP's Monday morning lead: "Visitors wearing face masks streamed into Shanghai Disneyland as China’s most prominent theme park reopened Monday in a new step toward rolling back anti-coronavirus controls that shut down its economy..."

>> Analyst Rich Greenfield tweeted a video from a Chinese state-run media outlet of the socially-distant experience in Shanghai – he said it "does not feel like a vacation" and he "can't see this driving attendance" in the United States...

Scot Van Pelt on a sports-less SportsCenter

Frank Pallotta writes: Scott Van Pelt, the anchor of ESPN's 11pm SportsCenter, has been trying to figure out what his show is without, well, sports. "The analogy that I've landed on is that it's much like being a waiter in a restaurant where there are no chefs and there is no food," Van Pelt said in an interview.

The day-to-day challenge, he said, "is to figure out, is there news that's important? Obviously start there. And in the absence of that, who can we talk to about what's going on?"

"I don't know what normal is going to look like," he told me. "I don't know if normal is gone, but we'll find a new normal and sports will play a huge role in it. It always does."

Lowry recommends "Trial by Media"

Brian Lowry writes: "Trial by Media" is an interesting Netflix documentary anthology about the way media circuses can pervert justice in high-profile cases, with a pedigreed group of exec producers that includes George Clooney, Court TV founder Steven Brill and CNN's Jeffrey Toobin. The six episodes focus on the Jenny Jones murder case (and allegations that the show was complicit); subway vigilante Bernard Goetz; the shooting of Amadou Diallo; Richard Scrushy's religious awakening during his Alabama fraud trial; the barroom rape at Big Dan's in Massachusetts; and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, including the way his wife conspicuously campaigned – via Fox News – to have him pardoned. As another producer, Brian McGinn, put it in the press notes, "It's about how, as the media has entered the courtroom, entertainment prerogatives have become a part of legal strategy." It premieres on Monday...

SNL ends a strange but innovative season

Frank Pallotta writes: SNL wrapped up one of its strangest seasons in its 45-year history last night. (Eddie Murphy hosting in December feels like it was a decade ago!) I have to give a lot of credit to the show for making something out of nothing these last couple of weeks from home.

Saturday's season finale, which opened with Alec Baldwin's Trump congratulating the "class of COVID-19," was weirdly touching. This was especially the case for the episode's final sketch called "Dreams." It was a perfectly bittersweet ending for this strange yet impressive season...

RIP Little Richard

Chloe Melas writes: Hollywood paid tribute to Little Richard over the weekend. Among the powerful and thoughtful messages, Mick Jagger, who toured with Richard, wrote: "He was the biggest inspiration of my early teens and his music still has the same raw electric energy when you play it now as it did when it first shot through the music scene in the mid 50's. When we were on tour with him I would watch his moves every night and learn from him how to entertain and involve the audience and he was always so generous with advice to me."

Paul McCartney, who also toured with him, tweeted: "Little Richard came screaming into my life when I was a teenager. I owe a lot of what I do to Little Richard and his style; and he knew it. He would say, 'I taught Paul everything he knows. I had to admit he was right."

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