Observing – not celebrating – Banned Books Week |
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images |
Do you remember shopping at the Scholastic book fair when you were a kid? I bet many of you do. HuffPost says mentioning the book fair sends grown adults "on the ultimate childhood nostalgia trip."
Scholastic's tractor trailers are still traversing the country today. And I am – at the risk of embarrassing my seven-year-old daughter – helping out at our school book fair this week. That's why Banned Books Week is top of mind.
The annual event exists to promote the "freedom to read." The week started on Monday with two reports that sent "mixed messages," the AP's Hillel Italie reports: "The American Library Association found a substantial drop in 2024 so far in complaints about books stocked in public, school and academic libraries, and in the number of books receiving objections." On the other hand, "PEN America is documenting an explosion in books being removed from school shelves in 2023-24, tripling to more than 10,000 over the previous year. More than 8,000 were pulled just in Florida and Iowa, where laws restricting the content of books have been passed." Italie's story explains why the two reports "don't necessarily contradict each other."
>> More: Washington Post reporter Niha Masih says "books with LGBTQ+ themes dominate the most-challenged list..." Salon's Jonna Perrillo says "educators' stories about preemptive book bans show how schools are censoring themselves..."
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One of Tuesday's biggest nonfiction launches is ESPN senior writer Wright Thompson's book "The Barn," exploring the racist roots of the Mississippi Delta through the forgotten history of the barn where Emmett Till was murdered.
"The thing that totally shocked me, when I got into it, was how much of [this history] had been erased," Thompson told Kaitlan Collins on "The Source" last night. He said he came away from his book project believing that "the real enemy of the American experience is erasure."
>> In "The Barn," Thompson writes, "The tragedy of humankind isn't that sometimes a few depraved individuals do what the rest of us could never do. It's that the rest of us... never learn the lesson that hate grows stronger and more resistant when it's pushed underground."
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Sally Rooney's fourth novel, "Intermezzo," is out today, but if you care at all about literary fiction, you already know that. About 140 bookstores are holding release parties, "a treatment usually reserved for blockbuster series about wizards, fairies, and vampires," TIME's Kate Dwyer wrote in a piece about "the Sally Rooney effect" on publishing.
"Rooney is one of those rare authors who have been able to garner mass readership as well as serious critical attention," the NYT's David Marchese wrote in the intro to his Q&A with her. Via the BBC, here's a taste of that critical attention so far.
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"Big Guy," a not-so-big book |
Imagine the pitch meeting a year ago: New York Post columnist, Fox regular and all-around Biden family antagonist Miranda Devine, author of "Laptop From Hell," would write an election year followup titled "The Big Guy: How a President and His Son Sold Out America." Devine would appear all across right-wing media. She would make "The Big Guy" a massive best seller. Maybe she would even sway some votes.
But then Biden dropped out of the race.
The book is out today, and Devine's publisher, HarperCollins' Broadside Books imprint, will still enjoy strong sales, thanks in part to her TV appearances. But Broadside cut the planned print run by 75% once Biden was no longer the Democratic nominee.
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Marshall Cohen reports: With jury selection in the Smartmatic-Newsmax case scheduled to begin on Thursday, the judge in the case handed a major victory to the pro-Trump network on Monday. Judge Eric Davis said Smartmatic cannot ask for the "punitive damages" that often lead to eye-popping awards – thereby reducing Smartmatic's potential payout from the litigation. Smartmatic can still pursue compensation for actual losses. The AP's Randall Chase has more here.
>> Thought bubble: "The likeliness of a settlement... just went way up," Justin Baragona wrote.
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Trump crowd chants "send them back" |
How can news outlets accurately convey the rambling and nonfactual nature of a Trump rally? I think The Washington Post's Marianne LeVine handled it well here. The headline describes "digressions, threats and vows to be 'protector' of women." At Trump's event in Pennsylvania last night, the candidate "swerved repeatedly," butchered his rival's name, "once again cast doubt about the election results," and "complained that Fox News follows his appearances with 'horrible commercials.'"
Perhaps the most newsworthy part of the rally: When Trump criticized immigration and invoked Springfield, Ohio, attendees chanted "send them back." As Pod Save America's Jon Favreau noted on X, "the immigrants in Springfield are there legally. They've made the city more prosperous. Most residents don't want them to leave." And yet...
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>> Swing state media strategy: Kamala Harris taped an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio that's airing this morning.
>> Colby Hall says MSNBC's liberal opinion shows increasingly look like the DNC: Perhaps most damning "is the complete lack of reporting on air of stories that are in any way negative about Harris." (Mediaite)
>> "It's not just trolling," Matt Gertz warns: "Trump is an authoritarian leading an authoritarian movement, and if he returns to the White House, he will again try to carry out his authoritarian impulses." Journalists "will not be spared.” (Media Matters)
>> Shares in $DJT fell another 10% yesterday, sinking to new lows. (CNBC)
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Mark Robinson ads disappearing |
"National Republican groups are pulling financial support for Mark Robinson, the party's scandal-plagued nominee in the North Carolina governor's race, as he tries to weather the fallout from a CNN report on inflammatory comments he made on a porn website," CNN's team reports. As the money dries up, the TV ads disappear...
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Are other outlets reviewing the work of Olivia Nuzzi in the wake of her relationship with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr? They aren't saying. Bloomberg is not commenting on questions surrounding Nuzzi, who recently hosted the series "Working Capital" at the outlet, where she interviewed prominent political leaders. Separately, AMC Networks, which had commissioned a satirical drama that Nuzzi was set to executive produce, is remaining mum on her involvement in the project.
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>> "Paramount is implementing another round of major company-wide layoffs on Tuesday." (THR)
>> "The Washington Post is laying off a quarter of its workforce from Arc XP, the publisher's stand-alone software unit," Alexandra Bruell reports. (WSJ)
>> Brian Steinberg talks with Joanna Coles and Ben Sherwood about hiring big name contributors for The Daily Beast. (Variety)
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David Hellier writes: "Illegal streaming of live sports has gone mainstream. Can anything be done?" (Bloomberg)
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Telegram's abrupt turnaround |
Clare Duffy reports: In the wake of CEO Pavel Durov's arrest, Telegram says it will now turn over some bad actors' data to authorities. The decision marks a stark reversal for the platform, which has repeatedly faced claims that its stance on protecting user privacy had created a haven for unsavory internet characters and criminals, including drug traffickers, money launderers and extremists. Telegram is now following a model set by other major social platforms that have sought to find a balance between the privacy of users and safety of their platforms. Details here.
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>> News outlets are experimenting with WhatsApp Channels, sending links and headlines directly to followers to grow digital traffic, Katie Robertson and Mike Isaac report. (NYT)
>> TikTok, following in Meta and YouTube's footsteps, has banned RT and other Russian propaganda outlets over "covert influence operations." (NBC News)
>> Speaking of TikTok, "NBC News found 52 videos on the platform tagged with either a 'Paid Partnership' label, #ad or #sponsored that have received up to hundreds of thousands views per video while spreading political messages that appear to violate TikTok’s rules," Victoria Feng reports. (NBC News)
>> TikTok's answer to Patreon, its "redesigned 'Subscription' monetization offering," is rolling out to eligible creators in the U.S. and several other regions,
Aisha Malik reports. (TechCrunch)
>> “X will now make your posts visible to users you've blocked,” Emma Roth and Kylie Robison report. (The Verge)
>> AI fail: German reporter Martin Bernklau spent years as a courts reporter – and then Microsoft Copilot "falsely blamed him for the crimes whose trials he had covered." (Nieman Lab)
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"The Penguin" an ice-cold hit |
Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming service Max said the new Batman spin-off led by Colin Farrell "landed the biggest 4-day audience for a new series on Max in every region globally, since The Last of Us in Jan. 2023," Deadline's Lynette Rice reported. On HBO, the show debuted to 5.3 million viewers over the weekend, topping the last season premieres of "The White Lotus" and "Succession."
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>> "Usher is rushing to squash speculation that his X account was completely wiped clean over the weekend because of his pal Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ arrest," Clay Walker reports. (Daily Beast)
>> "Under his many musical monikers — including Diddy, Puff Daddy and P. Diddy — the industry data and analytics company Luminate said the mogul’s music saw an average 18.3% increase in on-demand streams during the week of his arrest compared to the prior week.” (AP)
>> It’s not TV: John Hopewell writes that Max’s first Spanish-language original, “When Nobody Sees Us,” is worthy of HBO’s golden age slogan, saying “the scenes are pure cinema of the highest order.” (Variety)
>> “There was a previous dispute between me and Janet Jackson over her unbalanced statements, and I was fired,” Mo Elmasri, the individual who published an unauthorized, disavowed statement on behalf of Jackson, told Sean Burch and Mike Roe. (The Wrap)
>> “Erik and Lyle Menendez speak out for the first time in decades in the official trailer for ‘The Menendez Brothers,’ a new documentary feature streaming on Netflix in October,” Zack Sharf writes. (Variety)
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