Oliver Darcy here at 11:30pm Thursday with the latest on the Capitol Hill insurrection, riot denialism in right-wing media, staffers demanding the VOA director resign, backlash at Politico, Parler vs Amazon, Medium's big buy, Seth Rich conspiracy theorists retracting their claims, and more. But first...
Spotlighting the suffering
In his address to the nation Thursday evening, President-elect Biden said about the coronavirus pandemic, "The crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight." But here's a question worth asking: Is it, truly, in plain sight?
The political and national security crisis triggered by domestic terrorism at the US Capitol, and the ensuing impeachment of President Trump, has unquestionably overshadowed the public health crisis. And yet the suffering is still very real and the situation has never been more dire. Earlier this week, the US set another single-day death record when 4,462 people died in one day, according to Johns Hopkins data. Each day brings north of 200,000 new cases. And the total US death toll is approaching 400,000 — a number the country will likely surpass before Inauguration Day.
But you wouldn't necessarily know that by scanning the front pages of newspapers or the homepages of major news websites this week. I noticed, for instance, that The New York Times and The Washington Post only had one reference each to the virus on their Thursday front pages. When scanning CNN.com earlier this afternoon, there were no coronavirus stories in the top half of the website. And even when outlets are making time or room for the coronavirus, most stories center around the vaccines, not the deaths and economic crisis.
No doubt, journalists are doing their very best to juggle all of these stories. But as we cover DC politics and the fallout from last week's attack, we should not forget that thousands of Americans continue to lose their lives each day to this ruthless virus. And while the vaccine rollout is gradually improving, the situation right now is, frankly, very alarming and urgent...
East coast bias
Much of the suffering happening right now is coming from the West Coast. In Los Angeles County, one person is dying of Covid-19 every six minutes, according to Hopkins data. Hospitals are struggling. As someone who hails from the Pacific-facing side of our country, but now lives in NY, I can attest to the fact that the East Coast gets special treatment from national news outlets. If it storms in New York or one of our neighboring cities, the whole world knows about it. But the West Coast, far from the biggest newsrooms, doesn't get that special treatment.
And I'd argue that bias is having a noticeable effect on how the crisis unfolding in L.A. is being covered. When was the last time you saw a national news outlet carry a press conference from a California official on the virus, for example? Compare that to how often Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo were on TV when NY experienced its surge.
Don't take my word for it – take Sara Sidner's. The L.A.-based CNN correspondent, who was overcome with emotion during a live shot on "New Day" Tuesday morning, joined Brian Stelter on this week's "Reliable Sources" podcast. She matter-of-factly said that "there is a bias" and it's readily apparent now that she lives on the West Coast...
"It looked like a war zone inside"
Sidner told Stelter about recent visits to hospitals that look like war zones. "There are people everywhere," she said – "people with real emergencies that need an ICU bed are in the emergency room hallways. That's how little room there is."
"And to see the doctors and nurses running from person to person," she said, "it was terrifying, because when you live and work in a community, you are a part of the community. And I was thinking to myself, if I got into an accident right now, or if a friend of mine got into an accident, or a complete stranger, just a fellow American got into an accident — right now, this is where they're going to be treated: in the hallways, because the Covid patients need to be separated out. That's insane in the most wealthy nation on Earth. What are we doing?"
Sidner also said that she felt "exposed and embarrassed" when her rage turned into tears on live TV. It is what "we're taught not to do," she said. But her human reaction helped draw newfound attention to the Covid-19 crisis, Stelter pointed out. "If it did something to help," she said, "then I'll embarrass myself every single day, all day long." Listen to the full conversation via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app...
Headlines from around the country
>> LA Times: "Hospitals teeter on edge of ‘last-resort’ guidelines for care..."
>> SF Chronicle: "California braces for highly contagious new virus variants as vaccinations lag..."
>> Arizona Republic: "Arizona hospital leaders warn care may be rationed..."
>> Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Georgia reports 100-plus new COVID-19 deaths for third straight day..."
>> Miami Herald: "We asked how hard it is to get a vaccine in South Florida. You answered. And answered..."
>> Chicago Tribune: "Chicago health commissioner: City will keep using COVID-19 tests that FDA says can give false negatives..."
>> Detroit Free Press: "Parents support summer school for students to make up lost ground..."
>> Seattle Times: "Washington state will move to the next phase of coronavirus vaccination in the ‘coming days...'"
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Matt Lewis: "The radical right has declared war on liberal democracy, and conservatives are generally underwhelmed. Where's the outrage? Where’s the urgency? There is no realization that the revolution will eventually devour them. Appeasement is feeding a crocodile and hoping he eats you last..." (Twitter)
-- Susan Glasser: "By this time next week, Trump won't be president. It's just everything in between that still seems uncertain and potentially worrisome..." (Twitter)
-- Wolf Blitzer said "to a certain degree" he is "happy" that his parents are "not seeing what's going on here," referencing the rioter who wore a "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt. "It was so painful for me to see," he said. The suspect is now in custody... (CNN)
The Capitol Hill story keeps getting bigger
Brian Stelter writes: "Law enforcement agencies are rounding up suspected rioters, combing through social media evidence, and uncovering the true depth of the plot to overtake the Capitol and stop the certification of Biden's election. CNN has counted at least 44 criminal defendants. FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday more than 200 potential suspects have been identified. The story is getting bigger every day. And we keep learning even more disturbing details. In an interview with CNN, police described facing the rioters. One officer recalled, 'Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, 'Kill him with his own gun...''
Riot deniers
Brian Stelter writes: "Inspired by the last two editions of this newsletter, I decided to write more about riot deniers, a truly heinous response to the news coverage of 1/6 and the aftermath. This denialism is easy to find online and on TV: Far-right personalities are trying to minimize the Capitol attack and divert blame away from Trump. Some folks have gone full 'truther.' You can hear it in CNN correspondent Ed Lavandera's interviews with pro-Trump protesters in Texas earlier this week. 'The conspiracy theories are running rampant,' he reported. One man, Ryan Wolfe, said 'I believe that either foreign intelligence officers or local militant groups incited the conflict.' Another Trump fan, Darrell Fliflet, said 'I feel it was people like Antifa, Black Lives Matter, who infilitrated the crowd, that caused the problems.' Read my full story..."
>> Professor Brendan Nyhan says these are instances of "motivated interpretations" by Republicans: "Antifa blaming is relatively rare outside the extreme fringe," he said. "What I've seen much more of is an effort to minimize the severity of what happened and/or the role of Trump and other elite conservatives..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Jeremy Barr points out that Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell "have disappeared from Fox airwaves..." (WaPo)
-- Lou Dobbs slammed Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, saying they were acting with "utter disregard of the president's right to loyalty..." (Mediaite)
-- Philip Bump writes about how Tucker Carlson is "making his play to be the post-Trump MAGA champion." Note his final point about the 2024 race... (WaPo)
-- Good point from Matt Gertz: "Fox has breached its tacit agreement to protect its blue-chip advertisers from its right-wing ideologues. Companies moved their advertising to the network’s 'news' hours to avoid tainting their brands with the network’s prime-time demagogues, and now the network is airing clips from those same hosts during those news hours..." (Media Matters)
-- Nicholas Kristof: "Cable providers should be asked why they distribute channels that peddle lies..." (NYT)
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST
The end of "Trump, Inc."
Brian Stelter writes: "The end of the Trump presidency is bringing an end to some Trump podcasts. On Thursday WNYC Studios Chief Content Officer Andrew Golis informed staffers that 'Trump, Inc.' is coming to an end next week. However, Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz will continue reporting on Trump for WNYC, he wrote: 'We're excited for Andrea and Ilya's next projects, including tracking the legal reckonings for Trump, his business, and his government.' Reporter Meg Cramer and reporter-producer Katherine Sullivan are leaving along with the podcast, he said..."
Brave staffers are calling for the VOA director to resign
More than two-dozen staffers at the Voice of America have signed a letter demanding the resignation of the organization's director, Robert Reilly. The letter, WaPo's Paul Farhi explains in his story, said Reilly and his deputy "had abdicated their responsibility to remain independent of government influence by ordering the global broadcaster to air a speech that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered at its Washington headquarters Monday."
The letter also went after Reilly for having reassigning correspondent Patsy Widakuswara for attempting to question Pompeo after the event. One VOA journalist underscored to Farhi, "Everyone who signed the letter, as a federal government employee, is taking a risk. Most, if not all, see themselves as putting their reputations as journalists above their jobs..."
>> Of note: Kudos to VOA for publishing a lengthy story reporting on the drama inside its own organization...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Stuart Thompson and Charlie Warzel are out with a big new feature about how Facebook "incubated the insurrection" through its algorithms that "coaxed many Americans into sharing more extreme views on the platform..." (NYT)
-- Davey Alba writes about how "prominent purveyors of coronavirus falsehoods" join in on the Capitol Hill insurrection, "showing overlap of disinformation networks..." (NYT)
-- Alex Kantrowitz: "The moderation war is coming to Spotify, Substack, and Clubhouse..." (OneZero)
-- Ben Collins' warning about the "double-edged sword" in banning extremists from social media platforms: They're "completely in an echo chamber, driving each other further and further into that radicalization cycle ... But it kind of limits their ability to recruit..." (Twitter)
-- To that point: Millions are flocking to Telegram and Signal... (NYT)
Parler goes to court against Amazon
In a Thursday court hearing before a federal judge, Parler argued that Amazon booted it from its hosting services because the Jeff Bezos-owned company was afraid Trump would join the platform and it wanted to prevent that. The company also insisted there is "no evidence" Parler played a role inciting the domestic terrorism that played out last week. But Amazon pushed back on the claims, showing the court violent content that appeared on the platform and noting it was only the "tip of the iceberg." Amazon's lawyer told the court, "The events of January 6 changed the way we think about the world. It took what was merely hypothetical and made it chillingly real..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- ABC's Michael Strahan landed the first TV interview with Jacob Blake, who was partially paralyzed after being shot by police in Kenosha last summer... (GMA)
-- The Associated Press announced its 2021 Biden White House team. It's made up of Josh Boak, Alexandra Jaffe, Jonathan Lemire, Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller, and Darlene Superville... (Twitter)
-- Matthew Dowd says he is leaving ABC News at the end of the month... (Twitter)
Politico faces heat over Ben Shapiro guest writing Playbook
Politico on Thursday allowed conservative media personality Ben Shapiro to guest write its Playbook newsletter — and it paid a big price for doing so, facing significant backlash from journalists both inside and outside of the organization. A series of guest writers have authored Playbook since its previous authors, Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer, departed earlier this year. But putting Shapiro at the helm sparked massive controversy inside the news outlet, given some of his previous incendiary comments, his outlet's role publishing hyper-partisan stories, and the fact that he used the newsletter to run cover for Republican lawmakers a day after Trump's impeachment.
"We’re not going to back away"
In a meeting and a separate Zoom call with more than 200 staffers, Politico EIC Matt Kaminski defended allowing Shapiro to guest-author Playbook. "We published a piece by a very prominent writer, provocateur, and podcaster. We stand by every word in there, it was very closely edited," he told staffers, according to a report from The Daily Beast's Maxwell Tani. On the Zoom call, he added, "We're not going to back away from having published something because some people think it was a mistake to do so."
>> No surprise: Shapiro and others at his outlet, The Daily Wire, reveled in the controversy. Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing tweeted that they would send 225 of their "liberal tears" tumblers to Politico...
>> Numerous staffers described serious concerns about Shapiro's role and management's reaction to the complaints. Sources said the objections were "impassioned" and Kaminski's responses were "clinical..."
>> Worth noting: There were a wide range of opinions inside Politico. Erik Wemple said that he spoke to staffers who dissented with their upset colleagues, but "didn't speak up on the call because the sentiment is so heated and one-sided..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Kerry Flynn:
-- Ben Mullin has new info about AxiosHQ, its communications platform that could cost at least $10K per year. CNN's parent company AT&T is a client... (WSJ)
-- "Wikipedia is twenty. It’s time to start covering it better," Stephen Harrison and Omer Benjakob argue... (CJR)
-- Gerry Smith looks at Judd Legum's Popular Information, a Substack newsletter that has contributed to "corporations' political reckoning." It has 138,000 subscribers... (Bloomberg)
Seth Rich conspiracy theorists finally retract
Two prominent Seth Rich conspiracy theorists retracted on Thursday for false statements as part of a lawsuit settlement. Businessman Ed Butowsky and fringe internet activist Matt Couch said in separate statements that they wanted to apologize for their actions. The retractions came as part of a settlement Aaron Rich, Seth Rich's brother, reached with Butowsky and Couch over a lawsuit he filed against them in March 2018. In a statement, Aaron Rich said he was 'gratified' at the fact the two have "taken responsibility for the statements they have made." More in my story here...
>> Two observations: These retractions, which occurred many years after the conspiracy theory took off and largely faded from the public conversation demonstrate two things: 1.) The legal system can compel people to eventually tell the truth, but 2.) It can also be a slow process and one wonders how much more powerful these retractions would have been if they had been issued years ago...
Medium's big buy
Kerry Flynn emails: "Ev Williams is expanding Medium into, well, other mediums. Medium is acquiring Glose, a digital platform for buying, reading and discussing books. Glose's 20 employees will join Medium, and Glose CEO Nicolas Princen will become Medium's VP of books. I spoke with Williams and Princen about the deal as well as their competition, Substack..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
-- The newest episode of NBC Sports' "Sports Uncovered" podcast is a sports TV time capsule: "How did Gayle Sierens become the first woman to call play-by-play of an NFL game, and why did it take 30 years for another woman to do the same?" (NBC)
-- "Apple TV+ has ordered a two-part docuseries about Oprah Winfrey from director Kevin MacDonald and executive producer Lisa Erspamer, the team behind 'Whitney,' the streaming service said Thursday..." (TheWrap)
-- Brian Lowry emails: "Vice will air a three-part investigation, 'QAnon: The Search for Q,' over consecutive nights beginning Jan. 26, promising to "follow the breadcrumbs" to identify the origins of the conspiracy movement..." (Vice)
RIP Mrs. Rogers
"Joanne Rogers, the widow of Fred Rogers, star of 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,' has died. She was 92," CNN's Gisela Crespo wrote. "The news was confirmed Thursday by Fred Rogers Productions in a statement posted in the company's official Instagram account. No cause of death was given in the statement..."
The box office has a terrible year. 2021 may be worse
Frank Pallotta emails: "The domestic box office ended 2020 with $2.2 billion in revenue. That's a massive 80% drop from 2019's nearly $11.4 billion North America box office. Now, with vaccines being implemented, there is hope that marquees could be lit up and theaters might open once again. However, 2021 remains a big question mark in Hollywood. Things could still get a lot worse before they get better..."
"WandaVision" flexes some different muscles for Marvel
Brian Lowry emails: "Marvel flexes some different creative muscles with 'WandaVision,' its first live-action series for Disney+. Featuring the Avengers characters played by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, the show gets off to a slow but enticing start, while rather shrewdly serving notice that the studio’s approach for the streaming service is going to be different than both the movies and previous Marvel TV series – leveraging recognizable stars from the movies, but featuring them in more character-driven settings..."
"American Skin" explores race, policing and loss
Brian Lowry emails: "Writer-director-star Nate Parker’s 'American Skin' actually made its debut on the festival circuit in 2019, but finally becomes available on demand now. A provocative story about policing and racial injustice, the film actively seeks to promote a conversation about those issues, but strains against some of its on-the-nose writing and faux documentary approach. The timing nevertheless feels urgent, and he has put distance between Parker and the controversy he faced when his first feature, 'The Birth of a Nation,' premiered in 2016..."
Will critics wield less Oscars clout this year?
Brian Lowry emails: "The influence of critics groups over awards voters has always been suspect, but as THR's Gregg Kilday points out, they might even wield less clout this year. That’s because most of the critics organizations opted to follow the conventional calendar, whereas the Oscars – with their delayed date – has expanded the eligibility window to include movies released in 2021, including a number of prominent contenders..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN
By Lisa Respers France:
-- With all the divisiveness in the country right now, this week’s Pop Life Chronicles highlights how politics in pop culture needs a time-out...
-- Post Malone is donating 10,000 of his sold out Crocs to frontline workers...
-- Siegfried Fischbacher, illusionist of Siegfried & Roy, has died at the age of 81 from cancer...
SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...
Pet of the day!
Reader David Walker emails: "My Irish Setter Flynn and my golden retriever Kim relaxing in the Italian winter sunshine..."
Thank you for reading. Connect with me in the Twitterverse here, email me your feedback over here, and get in touch with Brian at your own peril here. Until next time...
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