Hey! Brian Stelter here at 9:50pm ET on Friday, May 20. This is a slightly abbreviated edition of the newsletter because I'm getting ready for my daughter Sunny's fifth birthday party. Here are weekend reads plus so much more...

Recommended reads

From the Buffalo massacre to monkeypox, from the market gyrations to gas prices, this week felt especially grim. Michael Smerconish said he sensed a "tidal wave of negativity" coming from numerous directions. Hopefully this list of weekend reads won't add to that wave – instead, it's a sweeping look at everything from the ugly to the unusual to the unique...

-- Jacqueline LeKachman offers some advice about "how to stay informed without getting paralyzed by bad news..." (WIRED)

-- Gerald Seib retired from his 29-year-old WSJ column this week on some hopeful notes: "After three stormy decades, some reasons to still find optimism..." (WSJ)

-- Elle Reeve's brand new must-read: "How White 'replacement theory' evolved from elderly racists to teens online to the alleged inspiration for another racist mass homicide..." (CNN)

-- Writing from Buffalo, Margaret Sullivan says "local news needs to take a harder and more sustained look than ever before at the ugly inequality that the massacre exposed." Sullivan will join me on Sunday AM... (WaPo)

-- Kyle Chayka examines "the online spaces that enable mass shooters," calling it "the disturbing software kit of terrorists..." (New Yorker)

-- Nicole Hemmer's latest: "What Oprah Winfrey knows about American history that Tucker Carlson doesn't..." (NYT)

-- This Robin Givhan essay about mass shootings and "this country of hate and guns and fear" was widely shared, and for good reason... (WaPo)

-- This Samantha Murphy Kelly story about "the Wikipedia editor who published the Buffalo shooting entry minutes after it started" has wonderful insights into the volunteers who try to inform readers... (CNN)

-- Yes, Tripp Mickle writes, Big Tech is getting "clobbered on Wall Street," but the giants are "positioned to emerge from a downturn stronger and more powerful," and his next two words are key: "As usual..." (NYT)

-- The doomed DHS disinformation board "is the latest cursed news story," Charlie Warzel writes. He predicts that none of these lessons will be learned... (The Atlantic)

-- Michelle Goldberg's latest column is titled "Amber Heard and the Death of #MeToo..." (NYT)

-- There is "no longer any pretending that the Depp-Heard defamation trial was not a terrible, foreboding reflection of our culture’s worst impulses," Aja Romano writes. Here's why... (Vox)

-- Carolyn Hax is celebrating the 25th anniversary of her advice column. Some words of wisdom: "Our selves are our only guarantee; honesty is hardest upfront but easiest to carry in the long run; lying to ourselves is the root of so much needless suffering; when in doubt, aim for the path of least regret..." (WaPo)

-- I think National Geographic's June issue is one of the most beautiful covers of the year. The subject is "The Power of Touch..." (NatGeo)

Recommended reads, part two

-- The NYT and The AP are out with timely profiles of new WH press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre... (NYT, AP)

-- "Trump's Alternate Reality Hits a New Crazy Note with Dr. Oz," Jack Shafer writes: "And it’s only a matter of time before other Republicans echo his call to declare victory early..." (Politico)

-- John Fetterman's success in the Democratic primary in PA comes "in part because many voters are attracted to candidates more by 'vibes' than by detailed policy platform," David A. Graham writes... (The Atlantic)

-- "Much of the media is getting the story of Trump" and the GOP backwards, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, arguing that "the story in 2022 is the strength of Trumpism the movement not Trump the man..." (Substack)

-- Joan Biskupic's latest: "Clarence Thomas calls out John Roberts as Supreme Court edges closer to overturning Roe v. Wade..." (CNN)

-- The new monkeypox outbreak "is testing whether the world has learned anything from COVID," Ed Yong writes... (The Atlantic)

-- Joe Pompeo looks at what BuzzFeed News has gone through, and what might be next, as the "battered" newsroom "forges on..." (VF)

-- Rebecca Sun writes about "how the current wave of more inclusive leadership is changing newsrooms..." (THR)

-- Farhad Manjoo says lawmakers on both the left and right have "terrible" ideas about regulating online speech... (NYT)

-- Interesting piece by Elizabeth Djinis: "Snapchat and Facebook talk a big game around voting, but do these efforts actually get people to vote?" (Teen Vogue)

-- David Bauder and Lynn Elber's recap of the upfronts: "Broadcast TV's reduced role" was "made clear..." (AP)

-- "Tom Cruise Is Our Last Movie Star," and the last hope for movie theaters, Nicole Sperling writes... (NYT)

-- Here's something of a counterargument from the WSJ's Dan Gallagher: "Despite all the trappings of a blockbuster in its own right, though, the new 'Top Gun' is still risky in the Covid era..." (WSJ)

-- ICYMI, this Nicole LaPorte profile is full of insights about "Disney's mysterious Kareem Daniel..." (Ankler)

-- Megan McArdle senses that Hollywood is "moving away from the overt activism of recent years," citing recent moves by Netflix. "Faced with the choice," she says, companies will always choose making money over making history..." (WaPo)

Weekend calendar

The Preakness post time is 7:01pm ET Saturday on NBC...

Natasha Lyonne is hosting the "SNL" season finale...

Davos: The World Economic Forum begins its Annual Meeting on Sunday...

Round 1 of the French Open kicks off on Sunday...

The PGA Championship concludes on Sunday...

Fox News airs a Sunday evening special about Kellyanne Conway ahead of her Tuesday book release...

Meredith Artley departing CNN

BY OLIVER DARCY:

CNN luminary Meredith Artley, our longtime digital editor-in-chief and a champion of this very newsletter, is leaving the company. She made the announcement on Friday. "I’m so honored to have had this time here, and to have worked across the entire organization to build the #1 brand for news on the internet," Artley wrote in her memo to staffers. Artley said that she will "be around for another week or two, helping with the transition" — though no successor has been named.

Axios' Sara Fischer, who first reported the news, noted that Artley, who has worked at CNN for a dozen years, is "the latest executive to leave the company after CNN's parent WarnerMedia merged with Discovery last month." Artley told Variety's Todd Spangler that her departure was "absolutely my decision." Here are just a few of the tributes to her leadership...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- President Biden on Friday "reached a milestone not seen in the recent history of the presidency — 100 consecutive days without conducting a sit-down interview with the media," Haisten Willis notes... (Examiner)

-- Biden's "approval rating dipped to the lowest point of his presidency in May," a new AP-NORC poll shows... (AP)

-- On Friday night Biden formally named Pentagon spokesman John Kirby to be the NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications... (Twitter)

-- "The 'flak jacket' – a men's jacket passed down by generations of White House press secretaries – went missing," Michael Grynbaum reports. "So Jen Psaki went to Macy's to find a replacement: a women's blazer in yellow..." (NYT)

-- Psaki spoke at the IOP Speakers Series earlier this week. One of the resulting headlines: "Psaki hoped to right Trump's wrongs in her dealings with Fox News and Peter Doocy..." (TheWrap)

-- News from the trial of Michael Sussman: "Hillary Clinton personally approved plan to share Trump-Russia allegation with the press in 2016, campaign manager says..." (CNN)

Musk says he's "out for blood" as he goes on tweeting spree

BY OLIVER DARCY:

It's hard to know how Elon Musk was able to get any work done on Friday, given all the time he spent on Twitter. Musk went on a tweeting spree, using the platform to attack critics, while also denying a sexual harassment claim that Business Insider published against him. Early Friday morning, Musk challenged the unnamed accuser to "describe just one thing, anything at all (scars, tattoos, ...) that isn't known by the public." He said "she won't be able to do" that because the incident described "never happened."

Later in the day, Musk moved on to attacking Insider. He responded to a tweet highlighting the fact that Insider CEO and founder Henry Blodget was charged nearly two decades ago by the SEC with fraud, a case he later settled for $4 million and for which he was banned from the financial industry for life. "Doesn't exactly scream 'trustworthy,'" Musk tweeted. In another tweet, Musk wrote, "Their implied full name is Business Insider Trading! They just deleted the last word for being too obvious, but it’s true." Insider EIC Nicholas Carlson said on Twitter that the outlet stands by its story. CNN's Rob McLean and Jackie Wattles have more on that here.

And Musk still wasn't done. The Tesla and SpaceX chief found time to attack Hillary Clinton and agree with Jim Jordan about how "Democrats and the media" lied about Donald Trump and Russia. When someone said they had reported a Clinton tweet as disinfo, Musk tagged Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and head of legal Vijaya Gadde and asked, "What say you?"

Taking on Tesla

BY BRIAN LOWRY:

In hindsight, Musk's tweets might not have been entirely aimed at deflecting/preempting a story regarding his reported behavior involving a flight attendant. The latest New York Times Presents documentary, "Elon Musk's Crash Course," also paints a damning portrait of the executive and his rosy pronouncements regarding Tesla's Autopilot function, in the face of several fatal accidents and questions about the reality of its "self-driving" claims. The film includes a particularly striking mashup in which Musk is shown frequently moving the goalposts over the last seven years, each time saying that autonomous driving is roughly two years away...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Even among corporate raiders, "the world of deal making has never seen a buyer like Elon Musk," Lauren Hirsch writes... (NYT)

-- Deal or no deal, "Musk has created a big mess for Twitter, the effects of which won’t be easily or quickly undone," Clare Duffy and Catherine Thorbecke write... (CNN)

-- What's going to happen next with Musk? Kara Swisher's very honest one word answer: "Dunno..." (NYT)

-- On this new episode of the "Reliable Sources" podcast, I talked with Kathleen Carley, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon, about Musk and BOTS. Check it out via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app...

Roger Angell, 1920–2022

"No one lives forever, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that Roger had a good shot at it," David Remnick wrote Friday, on the day Roger Angell died at age 101.

"Longevity was actually quite low on his list of accomplishments," Remnick wrote. "He did as much to distinguish The New Yorker as anyone in the magazine’s nearly century-long history. His prose and his editorial judgment left an imprint that’s hard to overstate." This appreciation describes Angell as "the most exacting of editors, the most agile of stylists, a mentor to generations of writers, and baseball’s finest, fondest chronicler." For more, read Dwight Garner's obit for the NYT and Jason Gay's tribute in the WSJ...

Several stars exiting "SNL"

Pete Davidson is poised to exit "SNL" during this weekend's season finale, Variety's Brian Steinberg scooped on Friday, citing a person with knowledge of the situation. "His departure is likely to draw a new burst of attention to the long-running program, which typically uses its summer hiatus to recalibrate its cast of players and contributors," Steinberg wrote. The news of Davidson's departure was confirmed by THR's Lesley Goldberg and other outlets.

Steinberg reported that Davidson is "expected to be joined in his departure by veterans Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Kyle Mooney. It's possible that the show may pay tribute to many of its soon-to-be-existing cast during the broadcast."

There has been chatter about Michael Che potentially exiting, as well. In a recent interview with Dave Itzkoff of the NYT, "SNL" boss Lorne Michaels alluded to "a year of change" after this current season...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- The right-wing Daily Wire "spent tens of thousands of dollars promoting misleading news about the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial on social media," Alice McCool and Manasa Narayanan report... (Vice)

-- "After an 18-month acquisition spree," Outside Inc. "is reducing the frequency of most of its magazines and cutting 15% of its workforce..." (Biz Journal)

-- Condé Nast lost this battle: "Vogue magazine publisher asked a British pub to change its name. It refused." (WaPo)

-- "Hulu hopes to usher in a raft of subscribers with a new special deal — offering its ad-supported streaming plan for just $1 per month for three months," Todd Spangler reports... (Variety)

-- "Broadway will continue requiring audiences to mask up at least through June," Greg Evans reports... (Deadline)

Weekend review roundup!

BY BRIAN LOWRY:

"Downton Abbey: A New Era" is as cozy as a warm brandy by the fire, and wouldn't be a bad place to officially say goodbye to this cast and this era in the show's history, even if it's unlikely a franchise this valuable will be allowed to lay dormant indefinitely.

Amazon, meanwhile, offers another strange combo of character-driven drama and eerie sci-fi with "Night Sky," a show elevated by the romance between Sissy Spacek and J.K. Simmons; and "George Carlin's American Dream" is an excellently curated two-part HBO documentary that looks at the comedy legend's life, career and knack for reinvention, with W. Kamau Bell addressing the durability of Carlin's observations by noting, "He still seems to be talking to us," and Jon Stewart saying that even 14 years after the comic's death, "I still refer to him all the time." The two-parter premieres Friday and Saturday night...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

BY OLIVER DARCY:

-- The "New Era" of "Downton" began its North American box office run with a promising $1.1 million in Thursday evening previews from 3,300 theaters," Pamela McClintock reports... (THR)

-- Netflix has dropped the first eight minutes of "Stranger Things 4..." (Variety)

-- More "Heartstopper" is coming: Netflix has ordered two more seasons...(Deadline)

-- The "Glee" library is heading from Netflix to Disney+ and Hulu... (THR)