Oliver Darcy here. Scroll down below for Wednesday's historic WaPo and NYT A1s, criticism of a VOA report on Mike Pence, WSJ's exclusive on TikTok, the fate of college football, and more. But first...
Fox's Harris bash-fest
Fox News was in full attack mode Tuesday night, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Kamala Harris. From depicting her as a "radical running mate" to mocking the pronunciation of her name to suggesting Joe Biden didn't actually select her himself, the conservative network's prime time lineup was in overdrive.
Frankly, if you stripped the network's programming of any identifying labels or names, and just looked at a transcript of the 8pm to 11pm hours, you'd be forgiven if you mistook the channel for a Trump 2020 campaign livestream.
Of course, that isn't terribly surprising. The alliance between Fox News and President Trump has been well documented. But the attacks serve as a guide for what the Trump campaign and right-wing media at large are going to throw at Harris. So I thought it would be useful to provide a tick-tock of the network's coverage here...
"Takes away from some of the selection”
While her show isn't technically in a prime time slot, I thought it was noteworthy how Martha MacCallum — who Fox News markets as a "straight news" journalist — covered the selection of Harris. In the opening of her show, MacCallum noted that black leaders had urged Biden to select a woman of color as his running mate. MacCallum commented, "I think, in a way, as a woman, it takes away from some of the selection in some ways."
Carlson mocks name
Tucker Carlson started his show attacking Harris as a "one-dimensional" candidate who he described as perhaps the "single most transactional human being in America." Carlson said that "there are time-share salesman you could trust more" than Harris and "payday lenders who are more sincere."
But it was Carlson's mockery of Harris' name that drew the most attention. Carlson repeatedly mispronounced the senator's name, even getting called out by a guest for doing so. Carlson claimed his mispronunciation was unintentional. But it should be noted that Carlson often mispronounces the names of people he doesn't like. It's sort of a feature on his show and it seems pretty intentional. And, as Mediaite pointed out, he kept doing so after his guest corrected him.
Hannity and Trump team up to bash
Sean Hannity's opening monologue was fairly predictable — and it's not hard to envision Hannity reciting the same monologue for any of the other candidates who were under consideration. Hannity framed Harris as a supporter of socialism with a "radical extremist record" that is "atrocious." In Hannity's words: "This pick solidifies what's the most extreme radical far-left out of the mainstream ticket of any major political party in American history." And on and on it went, with Jeanine Pirro openly saying that she was "not sure" Biden himself actually picked Harris and wondering, "Who really picked this woman to be the vice presidential candidate?"
Trump eventually phoned into the show and the two continued beating up on Harris. Trump didn't quite say anything new or notable. He suggested Biden didn't have control over the Democratic Party — even though it will formally nominate him for president next week — and railed against the news media for some time. What was noticeably absent from Hannity's conversation: the coronavirus. Hannity only lobbed a softball to Trump on the topic at the very end of his 30+ minute chat...
Meanwhile, Ingraham scrapes bottom of barrel
Laura Ingraham opened her show by perpetuating the theme from right-wing media that Biden won't actually be in control of his White House. Ingraham read what she characterized as a "telling tidbit" from Biden's email to supporters in which he said, "I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021."
Ingraham then commented, "Wait, wait, to lead this nation? Wasn't that you supposed to be on the top of the ticket doing all that leading for us, Joe? You know, that whole presidency then? Come on, man. Even Joe is witted enough to understand that he's not really going to be running the show if he wins in November." I guess credit to Ingraham for extrapolating all of that from an innocuous line in the Biden campaign email?
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- "The very first words of the very first statement President Trump's reelection campaign offered in response" to the Harris news "were false," Philip Bump notes... (WaPo)
-- The progressive media watchdog Media Matters notes that right-leaning Facebook pages "have been laying the groundwork to attack Kamala Harris online..." (Media Matters)
-- The Obamas and the Bidens will be the keynote speakers at next week's DNC convention. Sarah Mucha and Dan Merica have all the schedule details... (CNN)
-- Several TV networks have announced their DNC and GOP convention coverage plans... Ted Johnson has the details... (Deadline)
Wednesday's historic A1s
WEDNESDAY PLANNER
Mark Warner will host a meeting on protecting the country from interference ahead of the 2020 elections...
The first Biden-Harris event will take place. The two are scheduled to deliver remarks in Wilmington at 2pm...
VOA slammed for glowing Pence report
The Voice of America, which is now headed by the controversial Trump-appointed Michael Pack, was strongly criticized Tuesday for a glowing report on Mike Pence. The video report detailed how Pence has "weathered storms that have shaken the Trump White House." CJR's Mathew Ingram asked, "What the hell is this? State propaganda?" Ben Collins remarked, "This is some true weirdness, paid for by our tax money." And others were just as critical...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- "In a pair of interviews on Tuesday, President Donald Trump railed against his competitor for being weak on China -- but stopped short himself of condemning China's repression of its Uyghur ethnic minority or its crackdown on political freedoms in Hong Kong," Kevin Liptak writes... (CNN)
-- One of the interviews was with Clay Travis, a highly controversial sports and culture war radio host. Tim Miller recapped the chat here... (The Bulwark)
-- Great lead by Jonathan Lemire: "President Donald Trump has a ready solution for almost any crisis: more Donald Trump..." (AP)
Monetizing American anger
WaPo's Isaac Stanley-Becker has an eye-opening story about a Florida man who turns "conservative outrage into cash." He runs a network of websites with hyper-partisan material that's "tailor-made to inflame right-wing passions." But "its underlying purpose is to collect email addresses and other personal info from impassioned readers, whose inboxes then fill up with narrowly targeted ads." Details here...
Fueling American anger
Was this the first viral disinfo attack from Russia of the 2020 campaign season. NYT's Matthew Rosenberg and Julian Barnes reported Tuesday that it appeared to be. The disinfo campaign centered on a recent story about Black Lives Matters protesters burning Bibles and American flags in Portland. But, as Rosenberg and Barnes, reported, "the truth was far more mundane" than the version that went viral in right-wing media...
>> The story contains a great explainer on how Russian disinfo often works: "The Russian technique is a kind of information laundering, akin to money laundering. Stories originate with Russian-backed news sites, some of them directly connected to Moscow’s spy agencies, officials and experts said. They are then picked up by Americans on social media or in domestic news outlets, and their origins quickly become obscured..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Georgia GOP congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has embraced the QAnon conspiracy, has won her primary runoff, CNN projected Tuesday night... (CNN)
-- "Pro-democracy media baron Jimmy Lai was released on bail after his Monday arrest led to a public show of support for the outspoken critic of Beijing..." (WSJ)
-- Lai's newspaper Apple Daily was targeted this week, and "many journalists who spoke to CPJ predicted that Hong Kong’s press freedom would be further infringed," per the Committee to Protect Journalists... (CPJ)
-- Wondering where Michael Schmidt has been? Working on a book. Schmidt announced Tuesday that the book, "Donald Trump v. The United States," will be published on September 1st... (Twitter)
-- Ross Douthat reviewed Stuart Stevens' book and was not too impressed: "The book I want to read from figures like Stuart Stevens isn’t about how Republican voters failed them, but how their own strategic choices failed their voters — and pushed them, in the process, toward the temptation that was Trump..." (NYT)
WSJ: TikTok broke Google rules to harvest data
A WSJ analysis of TikTok found that the app "skirted a privacy safeguard in Google’s Android operating system to collect unique identifiers from millions of mobile devices, data that allows the app to track users online without allowing them to opt out," Kevin Poulsen and Robert McMillan reported Tuesday. Poulsen and McMillan reported that the practice, which ended in November, "was concealed through an unusual added layer of encryption" and "appears to have violated Google policies limiting how apps track people and wasn’t disclosed to TikTok users."
>> Josh Hawley cited the report to call on Google to ban TikTok from its platform...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Facebook has informed its fact-checking partners that opinion pieces are not exempt from fact-checking... (Poynter)
-- Microsoft's "list of officially recognized competitors is growing, with the addition of Netflix, Hulu and Tencent for the first time..." (GeekWire)
-- Twitter rolled out to everyone a feature that allows users to limit replies to their tweets... (The Verge)
-- "CuriosityStream, a streaming platform for documentaries on science, history and other topics, has agreed to go public" via a merger with Software Acquisition Group. The deal values CuriosityStream at about $330 million including debt... (Bloomberg)
-- Fox News will launch a "Fox News International" streaming service... (Variety)
The Big Ten and Pac-12 won't play this fall
Don't expect to see much college football on TV this year. The Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences both postponed football and other fall sports on Tuesday. That leaves three other leagues' plans up in the air: The ACC, SEC, and Big 12.
>> Brian Lowry emails: "The relationship between sports and politics is often overstated, but there’s no avoiding the implications of college football being postponed in battleground states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio with the Ben Ten’s announcement. And it’s going to invite a lot of questionable takes from the world of sports punditry, like Lou Holtz going on Fox News to compare playing football to storming the beaches at Normandy..."
"A tragic mistake"
Lowry is correct to make the connection between sports and politics. In fact, Trump said Tuesday that schools would be "making a tragic mistake" to cancel their seasons.
>> WaPo's David Nakamura summed up Trump's calculations this way: "Trump wants to restart college football, but not NFL if players kneel. The NBA bubble is 'not working' because players are 'very nasty.' NHL restart going 'very well'...in Canada. Trump's call to sports show reveals his motives aren't science-based..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Kerry Flynn:
-- Sara Fischer scoops that the NYT is exploring a subscription offering for Wirecutter, per a LinkedIn job description for a director of marketing… (Axios)
-- Speaking of subscriptions, Max Willens reports that publishers' interest in subscription bundling has “simmered…” (Digiday)
-- Anne Steele profiled Spotify’s Dawn Ostroff as the exec continues to sign exclusive podcast deals for the platform… (WSJ)
-- Kathy Lee is joining The Zoe Report as editorial director. She comes from Hearst, like several other recent Bustle Digital Group hires… (WWD)
Teen Vogue’s latest cover
Kerry Flynn emails: Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, Teen Vogue wants its readers to think of the people who are still disenfranchised. Its new series, “The Uncounted,” includes first-person accounts from 10 voting rights activists. I spoke with exec editor Samhita Mukhopadhyay about the series and the outlet’s investment in political coverage. She told me, “We know that most of our readers are both interested in fashion and culture as much as they are interested in advocating for themselves and their participation as full citizens in our society…”
>> Speaking of new covers: Hunter Schafer is on Allure’s Future of Beauty issue. Allure EIC Michelle Lee tweeted, “I hesitated to mention this (since Hunter has talked about not wanting to be defined solely by her transness) but I also think it’s important: Hunter is Allure’s first trans cover star in its nearly-30-year history, but I promise she won’t be the last…”
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Brian Stelter:
-- I missed this yesterday: "KQED announced Monday it is laying off 20 staff members, representing 5.5% of its workforce, while a handful of other employees had their hours reduced. KQED's senior leadership blamed a sharp decline in corporate sponsorship due to the coronavirus pandemic..." (KQED)
-- The Guardian and Kaiser Health News are undertaking a project called "Lost on the frontline," documenting each US healthcare worker who has died due to Covid-19... (Guardian)
-- After five months at home, Stephen Colbert has returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater, sort of... (Vulture)
Bill O'Reilly and a "professional graveyard of women"
In her Tuesday column, S.E. Cupp wrote about how Bill O'Reilly is in the final stages of negotiating a contract to host a radio show on WABC. Cupp noted that many of the women who accused O'Reilly of sexual misconduct never found a way back into the news media profession. Cupp questioned, "Is this really what justice looks like? A professional graveyard of women who put their careers and lives on the line to expose the powerful men who hurt them, and those same men carrying on with their freedom, livelihood and career opportunities like nothing ever happened?"
>> Juliet Huddy, who was one of the woman to have sued O'Reilly and who currently works at WABC, tweeted Tuesday: “Yes, I’m aware. No, I have no comment except to say I’ll continue to focus on the job I was hired to do, and speak honestly and authentically about my beliefs.” Huddy also quipped, “Company Christmas party should be a real zinger this year.”
A "Black-ish" episode premiering on Hulu says more about ABC than the show
Brian Lowry emails: After two years on the shelf, an episode of ABC’s “Black-ish” has finally hit Hulu. While the half-hour likely would have generated some response from bad-faith actors had it aired, the network’s timidity and decision to balk at airing it says more about its management at the time than the actual show...
Maya Rudolph on Kamala: 'Oh s---'
Frank Pallotta emails: Tuesday was a big day for Kamala Harris, but it was also a big day for Maya Rudolph, who has played the VP candidate on "SNL." According to EW, Rudolph found out about the news during a panel discussion with the outlet and other Emmy nominees. (Rudolph is actually nominated for her portrayal of Harris.)
"Oh s---," Rudolph told EW upon hearing the news. As for coming back to play the character, Rudolph said she loves going to the show "any excuse I can get," but never anticipated traveling during the pandemic. "If there's anyone who can work it out I'm sure Lorne [Michaels] has some kind of invisible helicopter that can get me there," she said...
FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN
By Chloe Melas:
-- Selena Gomez announces virtual movie premiere for "This Is the Year..."
-- Noah Centineo is bulking up to play He-Man...
TODAY'S PET OF THE DAY IS...
Welcome Albert to the "Reliable" family
Some personal news! Over the weekend, my fiancé Elise and I acquired this (hairless) little guy. We named him Albert. He is 12 weeks old, weighing in at 3lbs.
Technically he is a feline, but I think he more closely resembles a little goblin. He's adjusting very well to his new home and, unlike a goblin, is actually quite friendly. Albert is only confused as to why his owners are always on Twitter!
If you desire more pics, we'll be posting them on his Instagram: @Mister__Albert.
Thank you for reading! Send me (or Albert) an email. Brian will be back tomorrow...
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