Oliver Darcy here at 11:07pm ET on Tuesday, February 8. Here is the latest on Axel Springer, Vanity Fair, CNN, Spotify, Fox, WSJ, Daily Wire, TikTok, AMC, and more...
Where are the embeds?
Reporters who cover the US military are alarmed by a lack of access right now.
For decades, American journalists have been granted embed opportunities when American military forces deploy abroad. It has been a long and proud tradition, one that has showcased not only transparency from the US government, but the country's commitment to a free and open press.
But, with this latest deployment of troops to Eastern Europe, something has gone awry. Reporters have been given no such opportunity to embed with the troops aimed at bolstering NATO as Russia amasses troops along the Ukrainian border. In fact, their many requests have been blocked.
Now, news organizations are increasing the pressure. In a letter we obtained, Military.com, the Military Times, and Task & Purpose write that they "strongly believe" the public has a "right to know how and what their troops are doing and how their tax dollars are spent." The three outlets, which are circulating their letter among journalists with the hope of getting other news outlets to sign on, said that "despite numerous requests from media organizations, no journalist has yet been allowed to accompany these troops and bring their stories home."
"As a result," the outlets wrote, "we call on the Pentagon to immediately begin the process of allowing journalists to embed with troops headed to Europe in response to Russian troop movements near Ukraine."
This new letter follows the Military Reporters and Editors Association over the weekend asking for the Defense Department to "allow journalists to embed with the US troops that have been selected to deploy to NATO’s eastern flank..."
"Who or what is holding that decision?"
These requests from news orgs to embed aren't going nowhere. They are landing on someone's desk. So who is blocking them?
The Military Times' Howard Altman pressed Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on the matter Tuesday. "The American public has an absolute right to know how and what its troops are doing and how taxpayer dollars are being spent. Can you tell me when journalists will be allowed to embed with troops going over to Europe? And if not soon, who or what is holding that decision?"
Kirby said that he is "responsible for decisions that are made about media access to our operations and to our people." He said that "the buck stops with" him and that the Pentagon is "working our way through what would be the appropriate level of media access here."
But not all reporters are buying Kirby's line. Some reporters suspect that the White House's National Security Council is resisting embedding...
A horrible precedent
The fact that reporters are being barred from embedding with forces as they simply deploy to Europe to bolster NATO countries does not bode well for the future. What if the US were to engage in a more dangerous military campaign in the future? If journalists can't watch troops station in Europe, what happens when they go on more threatening or sensitive missions?
Handout photos and video and updates from government spokespeople cannot replace reporters on the ground, collecting information for themselves and observing the state of affairs with their own eyes and ears. And the Biden administration, which promised high levels of transparency, should be pressed on this until they grant access to news orgs...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
Four standout stories and columns:
-- German publisher Axel Springer, now the owner of Politico, continues to come under scrutiny. This FT story is the culmination of a three-month investigation by four reporters. It's titled "inside Axel Springer's #MeToo moment..." (FT)
-- "Why didn't Vanity Fair break the Jeffrey Epstein story?" Isaac Chotiner's story includes Vicky Ward and Graydon Carter's "conflicting accounts..." (New Yorker)
-- During Super Bowl week, a bruising look at the NFL's culture: Katie Rosman and Ken Belson spoke with 30+ former staff members who "say the league's culture remains demoralizing..." (NYT)
-- "Digital Advertising in 2022" is the title of Ben Thompson's latest, but it's really about so much more, including Meta's future... (Stratechery)
Covid coverage trickles off
Covid coverage is falling in tandem with Covid cases. Back in December, when the Omicron variant surged across the country, stories about the coronavirus saturated coverage. But, in recent days, it has started to trickle off. Closed-captioning data from the Internet Archive, which was analyzed by the GDELT Project, makes this quite clear. Mentions of "Covid" and the "coronavirus" are on a downward trend. And when the virus is being mentioned lately, much of it is in regard to debates over when to lift restrictions -- as was the case on the big three evening newscasts Tuesday...
WEDNESDAY PLANNER
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to lift the state's mask mandate, per NYT...
President Biden will discuss Build Back Better with CEOs at 2:30pm ET...
Disney reports earnings after the close...
"The Book of Boba Fett" finale drops on Disney+...
The latest on CNN
>> Variety's Brian Steinberg reports that CNN "could face a reset once under Discovery control..."
>> Dylan Byers scoops: "Following his abrupt ouster from CNN, Jeff Zucker has been taking meetings at the Core Club, the members-only club in NYC. Source spotted him having coffee this week with Ben Smith, the former NYT media columnist who is launching a new venture with Justin Smith...."
>> S. Mitra Kalita, a former CNN exec, writes about how "the best show" Zucker "ever produced was one almost no one saw: his morning meeting, which took place every weekday at 9 am EST..."
>> The big picture from Poynter's Tom Jones: "A lot of questions remain unanswered and that has CNN on edge..."
"The Oliver Darcy moment"
My ears were ringing on Tuesday afternoon. Former NYT editorial page editor James Bennet took the witness stand in the trial for Sarah Palin's defamation lawsuit. And Bennet told the court that he thought he had apologized to Palin when he responded to my request for comment on the error-ridden editorial back in 2017.
Bennet previously testified, as Erik Wemple explained in this informative thread, that he had received questions from me about the editorial, which was ultimately corrected. In his deposition, he said had sent a response to the paper's PR operation that included an apology to Palin. But that part of his response, the apology to Palin, never made it to me, seemingly because NYT has a policy forbidding apologies when doing corrections. "Somewhere along the line, the apology appears to have been swallowed by the New York Times’s standards-and-practices bureaucracy," Wemple wrote Tuesday.
This played out in court on Tuesday when Bennet was asked whether he had ever apologized to Palin, a moment that Wemple dubbed "the Oliver Darcy moment." As Bennet once again explained, "I tried that day, I thought I had apologized to her. I went home that night thinking I did a pretty (good) apology to her." Bennet is expected to finish his testimony Wednesday. CNN's Sonia Moghe has details here...
Biden Bowl
Brian Stelter writes: "NBC announced on Tuesday that 'President Biden's first sit-down interview of 2022 and his first since marking one year in office' will be with Lester Holt. It will be taped in Virginia and pegged to the Super Bowl. Clips will come out on Thursday, with the rest airing on Sunday's pre-game show on NBC..."
>> What will this year's game rate? Variety estimates "between 97 million and 100 million..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- 🔌 Brian Stelter will be on "New Day" in the 7am hour, reacting to Gov. Ron DeSantis... (Mediaite)
-- Paul Waldman writes about Fox's "embrace of the anti-vaccine Canadian truckers." As he points out, Fox "finds heroes to praise, the righteous and the brave who will defend the principles they espouse..." (WaPo)
-- Meanwhile: Greg Gutfeld's live tapings in Texas will require attendees show proof of vaccination... (Dallas News)
-- Alex Kaplan writes about how "an increasingly fractured QAnon community started focusing on local politics..." (MMFA)
-- Linda Qiu presents a through and definitive fact-check of Joe Rogan's interview with Robert Malone... (NYT)
FIRST IN RELIABLE
Traffic to Spotify's cancelation page spikes
As Spotify remains mired in controversy, some users are looking to cancel their paid subscriptions. In fact, according to data provided to me by web analytics firm Similar Web, traffic to the cancelation page has jumped a whopping 196% in the last two weeks. Similar Web said that the bulk of traffic (29%) was from the US and that much of it came from users who had searched terms such as "delete Spotify account."
While traffic to the Spotify cancellation page does rise and fall, like all websites, the most recent data shows it rocketing upward in dramatic fashion. Seema Shah, who leads Similar Web's research team, told me that she hasn't seen something like this in Spotify's history. "This is a huge spike," she said. "It implies people were passionate about the issue and took immediate action." We'll see if it keeps rising. A Spotify spox didn't return requests for comment...
>> Meanwhile: Joe Rogan said on an episode posted Tuesday that it was a "relief" to address his prior use of racial slurs: "That video had always been out there. This is a political hit job..."
The Fox / WSJ divide?
Brian Lowry writes: "In a column about the GOP, Thom Hartmann cited an editorial in WSJ chiding the party as a sign of a divide between two major News Corp. assets: "While Murdoch's Fox ‘News’ will continue to play the grievance game and hang onto Trump and his rube followers as long as they can to maintain audience share, the Journal’s management knows that their more educated and higher-income readers have already seen through Trump’s grifts..."
Daily Wire's $100M business
Ben Shapiro's right-wing media organization is prospering. The Daily Wire, which is home to popular personalities such as Shapiro and Candace Owens, hit a 12-month revenue total of $100 million for the first time in January, CEO and co-founder Jeremy Boreing told Axios' Sara Fischer. Boreing said that a "huge area of growth" for the company is e-commerce. More from Fischer here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- "Pro-China accounts have been flooding Twitter with messages that include the hashtag #GenocideGames, in what researchers say is an effort to dilute the hashtag’s power to galvanize criticism of the Winter Olympics host nation," Georgia Wells and Liza Lin report... (WSJ)
-- "Spanish-language misinformation on social media platforms is flourishing, even as tech companies add more moderators, adopt stricter content rules, add context labels and block offending accounts," Ashley Gold and Russell Conteras report... (Axios)
-- "Hundreds of millions of users. No algorithm. No ads. Courage in the face of autocracy. Sound like a dream? Careful what you wish for." Darren Loucaides chronicles "how Telegram became the anti-Facebook..." (Wired)
-- "TikTok announced Tuesday that it will strengthen efforts to regulate dangerous content, including harmful hoaxes and content that promotes eating disorders and hateful ideologies," Jennifer Korn reports... (CNN)
-- "A handful of news media companies now have more than 1 million followers on TikTok," Sarah Fisher reports... (Axios)
-- Facebook is warning Europe that it will be forced to pull some of its service. Aaron Mak wonders: "Is it bluffing?" (Slate)
-- "Instagram is making it a whole lot easier to remove posts, comments and other activity from the platform," Karissa Bell reports... (Engadget)
"Doomsday Machine" lands on HBO
"Doomsday Machine," the Facebook drama series based on the bestselling book "An Ugly Truth" by NYT's Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, in addition to reporting from The New Yorker's Andrew Marantz, has landed with HBO. The streamer closed the deal for the limited series, which will be co-produced with Anonymous Content and wiip. More details here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Ben Sherwood's MOJO coaching app is partnering with MLB. "The deal will add a technology partner to MLB's Play Ball initiative, which is designed to increase participation in baseball and softball..." (ESPN)
-- Jake Tapper excoriates Hollywood for complying with Chinese censors: "Profits above all else..." (Mediaite)
-- Disney is "shaking up its traditional 'upfront' process, planning to host multiple showcases for advertisers that highlight sports, technology and creativity, while moving its annual sales event to a new venue," Brian Steinberg reports... (Variety)
-- AMC Entertainment has "reached lease deals for two major-market, former ArcLight locations," Jill Goldsmith reports... (Deadline)
-- ViacomCBS has "promoted veteran dealmaker Alex Berkett to the role of chief corporate development and strategy officer," Georg Szalai reports... (THR)
-- Adele made "a return to live performance and won three prizes at the Brit Awards in London on Tuesday, weeks after she canceled a much-anticipated string of shows in Las Vegas," Jill Lawless reports... (AP)
Can streaming save the Oscars?
Brian Lowry writes: "When the Academy expanded to 10 best-picture nominees, the clear goal was to recognize some more broadly popular movies that might not otherwise make the cut. But since that’s failed to materialize – with 'Spider-Man' and 'James Bond' left out of the running – the telecast’s best hope in terms of viewers possessing a rooting interest might be streaming, with titles like 'The Power of the Dog' and 'Don’t Look Up' that have reached vast audiences via Netflix. Of course, that’s small comfort to movie theaters, who have long seen the Oscars – as Hollywood once did – as a means of promoting going to the movies, not just watching them..."
>> Full list: See all the Oscar nominations here...
>> Related: Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz join history with their Oscar nominations, Lisa Respers France writes...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- "Jeopardy!" ratings slightly slipped in the week Amy Schneider lost... (The Wrap)
-- "South Side" has been renewed for a fourth season by HBO Max... (Variety)
-- "How To With John Wilson" has also been renewed... (The Wrap)
-- "The Tinder Swindler" has landed atop Netflix's weekly viewing chart... (Deadline)
-- Fox Entertainment has acquired the Gumby franchise... (THR)
-- CBS is considering a reboot of "Early Edition," ordering a pilot... (Deadline)
-- Pete Davidson (sort of) makes it official with Kim Kardashian... (CNN)
Lowry reviews "Death on the Nile"
Brian Lowry writes: "Fresh off his Oscar haul for 'Belfast,' Kenneth Branagh sets sail with 'Death on the Nile,' a polished follow-up to 'Murder on the Orient Express' that fleshes out Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot. The downside is that the movie comes with some baggage, involving the sexual-assault allegations against one of its co-stars, Armie Hammer..."
SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...
Pet of the day!
Reader Teresa emails: "Here is my best buddy… she (Sandals) is the softest and sweetest beagle girl. Just don’t touch her Teddy..."
Thank you for reading! Email your feedback anytime. I'll be back in your inbox tomorrow...
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