Brian Stelter here at 11:41pm ET on Monday, February 21 with the latest on Neil Cavuto, "Off the Edge," NBC, Jane Brody, "Uncharted," Britney Spears, and more. But first...
"These are not peacekeepers"
Russian President Vladimir Putin put on a show on Monday -- first with a Security Council meeting that was likened to a Netflix drama, then a long speech that was intended as a history lesson and justification for Russian aggression. CNN cut away from the speech to provide viewers with context about how, in Jim Sciutto's words, Putin was evincing "clear nostalgia for the Soviet Union" and a desire to put those pieces back together.
As Monday turned to Tuesday, many news headlines were about Putin ordering so-called "peacekeeping" troops to two pro-Moscow regions of Eastern Ukraine. I was surprised some sites used the "peace" term without any quote marks at all. As Jane Lytvynenko, a veteran of the disinformation beat, tweeted, "Don't even get me started on the schmucks printing headlines on Russian 'peacekeepers' going into Donetsk. Was Putin's speech the speech on a peacekeeper? Use words wisely."
CNN's homepage said it more clearly: "Putin orders troops into eastern Ukraine." The Washington Post went with a similar headline, with an off-lead story titled "White House wrestles with whether Russia has 'invaded' Ukraine." On American cable news, the word invasion was used over and over again. Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said on MSNBC that Putin "sounds like a guy that's ready for a big war." Don Lemon said on CNN just now that "these are not peacekeepers..."
>> This quote stood out during the UN Security Council's emergency meeting on Monday night: Ukraine's Ambassador to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya said Russia is spreading a "virus that has so far as no vaccine..."
Putin's playbook
I highly recommend this analysis piece by CNN's Nathan Hodge. "Putin's passion for history is no secret," he wrote Monday: "Last summer, the Kremlin lit a slow-burning fuse under Ukraine when he published a more than 5,000-word essay that, in essence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of Ukrainian statehood. But the Kremlin leader's history obsession has now brought him into a new and more heightened phase of open conflict with the West -- and that confrontation threatens to flare into a cataclysmic new war."
Remember: Putin has a stranglehold on Russian media
"Putin has spent the past year, especially since Alexei Navalny's return, methodically and effectively putting an end to the last remaining vestiges of independent media," CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga told me. "He's been doing this gradually for years but nothing as ruthless as this past year -- either through arrests, intimidation killing their business models, and/or by labeling them as foreign agents."
"Now that he and the Kremlin have had total control of the media, the propaganda machine (via state media) has convincingly turned average Russians onto his side," Golodryga said. "Though they don't want war, they believe him when he says (as his did today in his hour long revisionist history lesson) that the West is the aggressor and has always wanted us to fail, thus corrupting our 'brothers in sisters in Ukraine,' while Russians are the aggrieved party."
Her point: Putin's framing is working with his intended audience. For more on this, read this Julia Davis dispatch for The Daily Beast about Russian TV...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- CNN is live all night and into the morning US time, with Michael Holmes anchoring from Ukraine...
-- The WaPo editorial board says "this is the way the postwar world ends, and the post-Cold War world, too: not yet with a bang, and not with anything close to a whimper, but with a rant..." (WaPo)
-- "This is Vladimir Putin's forever war," Tom Nichols writes, "and Russia, cursed as it has been so many times in its history with a terrible leader, will be fighting it for as long as Putin remains the master of the Kremlin..." (The Atlantic)
-- Reporter Philip Crowther is getting well-deserved attention for his ability to broadcast in many different languages on many different TV networks. His compilation video from Kyiv was shared by A-listers like Ava DuVernay and Jose Andres... (Twitter)
-- Last week a fight broke out on Ukrainian TV over the potential Russian invasion: "Journalist and activist Yuriy Butusov hit pro-Russian MP Nestor Shufrych in the face on a political talk show..." (CNN)
Right-wing media's rhetorical jujutsu
NPR's David Folkenflik speaking with Alex Wagner on MSNBC Monday night: Right-wing media figures like Tucker Carlson are "accusing the Biden administration of some sort of aggression, as though it's intending to go to war, something the administration has ruled out. It's a kind of rhetorical jujutsu, the kind which Carlson all too readily embraces."
It's "the world we now live in," Wagner reacted, "where we have to care equally about what Vladimir Putin wants to do, and what Tucker Carlson's response to Vladimir Putin's actions is..."
>> Carlson said Monday night that his show is pursuing interviews with both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky...
IN OTHER NEWS:
Remembering Bob Beckel
Cable news veteran Bob Beckel, a longtime liberal commentator on "The Five" and other Fox shows, has died, according to his friends Cal Thomas and Sean Hannity. Beckel was 73. "We miss him already," Hannity said on air Monday night.
Beckel worked in Jimmy Carter's administration and went on to manage Walter Mondale's 1984 run for president. He was a familiar face on TV for decades thereafter. He was the co-host of CNN's "Crossfire Sunday" for three years in the late 1990s. He joined Fox in 2000 for the first of multiple stints...
TUESDAY PLANNER
The 15th annual Knight Media Forum begins virtually...
"Race: Bubba Wallace," a docuseries about the NASCAR driver, premieres on Netflix...
Can people be talked "Off the Edge" ?
Daily Beast reporter Kelly Weill's new book "Off the Edge," out Tuesday, is subtitled "Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything." Weill joined me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" for her first TV interview for the book.
"Flat Earth is fascinating," Weill said, "because it's proof that people really believe anything that they want to. You can believe a fringe theory about contrails in the sky, but Flat Earth asks you to discard every known fact and replace them with your own." Weill said she has met some people who have de-converted, away from Flat Earth lies, "but it's actually pretty hard to talk people out of beliefs that they are really dead set on holding." Doing so is difficult, she said, but compassionate discussion works better "than tense debate and trying to prove someone wrong..."
Cavuto: I almost died from second battle with Covid
Oliver Darcy writes: "Neil Cavuto on Monday returned to Fox's air from a lengthy absence and revealed that he had nearly died from a second battle with Covid-19. The immunocompromised Fox host said that his second encounter with Covid was 'far, far more serious' than when he first battled it in October. Cavuto said he was 'in intensive care for quite a while' and that it was a near-death experience. 'It was really touch and go,' Cavuto said. 'Some of you who've wanted to put me out of my misery darn near got what you wished for! So sorry to disappoint you!' Cavuto used the opportunity to praise the Covid vaccines, telling his audience he 'wouldn't be here' without them. More in my story here..."
Acclaimed health columnist says farewell
An Phung writes: "Jane E. Brody has been NYT’s Personal Health columnist since 1976. In her final column, published Monday, she said she 'based the advice in these columns on the best available evidence at the time' that she wrote them. She adds: 'But the very nature of the scientific process dictates that medicine evolves, and will continue to do so. As occurred with the coronavirus, this evolution will necessarily spawn new health recommendations. Only one thing remains static and continues to jeopardize the health of all who fall for it: quackery.'"
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Tyler Kingkade and Ben Collins have this new report on parents who object to mask mandates bombarding school districts with "sham legal claims..." (NBC)
-- "COVID won't end up like the flu. It will be like smoking," Benjamin Mazer asserts... (The Atlantic)
-- Joel Achenbach says the disease experts who are preaching continued caution are enduring a "kill the messenger" moment... (WaPo)
-- Kyle Rittenhouse appeared on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" and announced an initiative called the Media Accountability Project. He said "we are going to hold everybody who lied about me accountable..." (Fox)
Olympic afterglow?
Brian Lowry writes: "While obituaries are already being written for NBC's investment in the Olympics, one of the longtime perceived benefits of the Games will be put to the test this week as NBC trots out new and returning programs, seeking the benefits of all that on-air promotion during the Olympics and the Super Bowl. Up first: 'The Endgame,' a promising thriller starring Morena Baccarin, and 'America's Got Talent,' an 'Extreme' edition. Still to come: 'This is Us' is back as it continues toward its finale, and 'Law & Order' returns after a dozen-year hiatus. Of course, lower ratings means fewer eyeballs saw all those ads, but because broadcast ratings have dropped substantially overall during the last four years, everything's relative." About that...
The complex truth about Olympic ratings
The NYT's headline: "Beijing Olympic Ratings Were the Worst of Any Winter Games."
WSJ's headline: "NBC Draws Lowest Olympics Ratings Ever With Beijing Games."
With that in mind, Lowry adds: "Joe Adalian shared some good perspective on Twitter about the Olympics vs. the rest of broadcast TV. "NBC's spin aside,' Adalian wrote, 'what is true is that a lot of people watched the Olympics, particularly relative to almost all primetime shows this season. Its TV audience of 10.7 million viewers is 4 million more than the season-to-date primetime average of CBS (6.7 million), which was No. 1 before Super Bowl/Olympics...'"
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- "Reporting conditions for journalists covering the Beijing Winter Olympics fell short of international standards despite assurances from the IOC, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China has said..." (The Guardian)
-- "The Suisse Secrets investigation by 47 media outlets around the world revealed allegations of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption." Here's why Switzerland-based news outlets were excluded from the probe... (Press Gazette)
-- The Knight Foundation is investing "more than $4 million over three years to help local publishers of color become more financially sustainable..." (Knight)
-- "Spotify's biggest decision after Joe Rogan-gate" is "whether to police its content," Antoinette Siu writes... (TheWrap)
Rocky start for Truth Social
Oliver Darcy writes: "I first started trying to sign up for an account on Donald Trump's Truth Social app early Monday morning -- and a full business day later, I'm still unable to access the service. I fully expected the app to be ridden with errors and bugs (all new sites like this are), but I did not anticipate it being this bad. As I tried to sign up, I encountered a litany of errors, many of which I ultimately muscled through. But the last step in the sign up process, verifying one's phone number, was the obstacle I was unable to get past (the app never sent me a text with a verification code). I also tried signing up for the wait list on Truth Social's website, but kept getting sent to a 405 error page. And when I attempted to read the terms of service and privacy policies for the app, I also got sent to error pages. Building an app is difficult. But the Trump team, which has essentially copied Twitter, has had many months to work on executing a smooth launch. They failed to do so -- and that doesn't bode well for the future of the site..."
A new chapter in the war on truth
Trump promoting a service called Truth Social is like Hillary Clinton launching a club for Fox News fans. It's an inherent contradiction. The app's name places the words Trump and Truth in the same sentence – and reporters should be careful not to fall for it. After one of my live shots on Monday, a viewer commented that Trump "rebrands everything - now it's Truth he's aiming to rebrand..."
"Populist flamethrowers rock media"
"Provocateurs from outside traditional party politics are driving a polarizing new strain of American political conversation," Neal Rothschild and Sara Fischer of Axios wrote Monday. The key point: "After a backlash, these hosts often rebound stronger." Read on...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- "CBS Sunday Morning" profiled Byron Allen and his media companies, pegged to his plans to "bid to buy the Denver Broncos..." (CBS)
-- Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was in Jackson, Mississippi on Monday "to make a big donation to Tougaloo College." The $10 million gift is part of his larger push to support HBCUs... (WAPT)
Congrats to this year's Polk Award winners!
While reporting from Ukraine on Monday, CNN's Clarissa Ward learned that her team's work in Afghanistan last summer won a coveted prize: The George Polk Award for foreign television reporting. Fourteen other winners were also named on Monday, from a total of 610 submissions, "the most ever," Katie Robertson of the NYT reported.
The Times, The New Yorker and The Washington Post won two awards each. The Wall Street Journal was recognized for its "Facebook Files" series. Two papers in Florida, The Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald, were winners for critical investigations in the state. (ProPublica shared in the award for the Herald.) Details here...
Source: S&S paying $15 million+ for Britney Spears' book
Chloe Melas writes: "Britney Spears has said she wants to tell her life story and now she's landed a book deal to do just that. A source close to Spears tells CNN that the singer has recently inked a contract with publisher Simon & Schuster, valued at more than $15 million. The New York Post's Page Six was first to report the news..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- "The 2022 NAACP Image Awards is announcing winners in several non-televised categories via streaming presentations this week," Hilary Lewis writes. Here are Monday's awards... (THR)
-- "Lacey Chabert and Crown Media Family Networks have agreed to an exclusive multi-picture overall deal..." (Variety)
-- The beloved show "Arthur" is coming to an end this week after 25 seasons... (CNN)
"New hit movie franchise"
Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro wrote Monday: "Sony's $106.4M global box office weekend for 'Uncharted' was another reminder to a streaming-obsessed entertainment industry that the tried-and-true business model of theatrical features still works — and that there's an audience for them. Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman underscored this in a companywide email." Key quote from the email: "'Uncharted' is a new hit movie franchise for the company." Rothman also called the film "yet another blow to the theatrical naysayers and further proof of the efficacy of our model..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Lisa Respers France:
-- "Tinder Swindler's" Simon Leviev says he "just wanted to meet some girls" and isn't a con man...
-- Singer Keke Wyatt is expecting her 11th child...
-- James Gunn is engaged to his "Peacemaker" star Jennifer Holland...
SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...
Pet of the day!
"Fareed Zakaria GPS" executive producer Tom Goldstone writes: "Nine-month old Winnie – a French Bulldog – curls up in front of the TV at 10am every Sunday for GPS then Reliable Sources then SOTU..."
Thanks for reading! Email your feedback anytime. Oliver will be here tomorrow...
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