Happy Monday! We have a lot to talk about. Here's the latest on TIME, Jeff Bezos, Disney, Reed Hastings, TechCrunch, "Good Night and Good Luck," and more...
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This week The AP will be back in court fighting President Trump's ban; journalists from U.S. Agency for Global Media outlets will be appearing before multiple judges to save their jobs; and NPR and PBS will be defending themselves in the court of public opinion.
Let's preview that last one first. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's very first "DOGE" subcommittee hearing is a Wednesday session titled "Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS Accountable." PBS CEO Paula Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher will be testifying.
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A judge will take up Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's lawsuit over its grant termination later today. (Here is RFE/RL's preview of the 2 p.m hearing.) Multiple other lawsuits about the obliteration of USAGM will be taken up by courts this week. On Friday Voice of America journalists, several unions and Reporters Without Borders jointly filed a suit alleging the shutdown of VOA was "unlawful and unconstitutional," NPR's David Folkenflik reports. The coalition is seeking a temporary restraining order.
>> Today at noon the federal workers and union officials will hold a press conference in front of the US District Court on Pearl Street in NYC...
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AP reporters have been barred from press conferences, Air Force One trips, and other essential parts of White House coverage for six weeks. This Thursday in DC, U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden will consider The AP's motion to overturn Trump's ban.
In a new reply brief to McFadden last week, The AP asserted that "the White House proudly continues to engage in unabashed viewpoint discrimination... in defiance of the Constitution and the Court's warning that the White House is violating the law of this Circuit."
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This new story by AP media reporter David Bauder captures all the ways the Trump admin "has journalists on their heels:"
"Lawsuits. A newly aggressive FCC. An effort to control the press corps that covers the president, prompting legal action by The Associated Press. A gutted Voice of America. Public data stripped from websites. And attacks, amplified anew."
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Last month I wrote about "Orbánization" and why the American press needed to convey the similarities between Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The Washington Post's Anthony Faiola does that, and more, in this piece titled "Autocrats roll back rights and rule of law — and cite Trump's example."
Faiola reports that "Orban's vows to expand his net to include judges, journalists, NGOs and others" have "rattled" Hungary. It's all part of "democratic backsliding," his opinion side colleague Ishaan Tharoor says in this strong column.
Turkey and Serbia are also cited in both pieces. Per this report in The Guardian, "press freedom in Serbia is facing a ‘dangerous turning point’ after mounting pressure on independent outlets from ministers and state-backed media, a group of senior editors has warned." In Turkey, authorities "detained several journalists from their homes," a media workers' union reported earlier today...
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'Aggressively authoritarian' |
What about here at home? Amanda Taub, who writes The Interpreter newsletter for the NYT, called up "How Democracies Die" co-author Steven Levitsky to talk about Trump's showdown with the federal courts. Levitsky said the Trump team's "open, authoritarian behavior" is unlike almost anything he has seen before. "We look at these comparative cases in the 21st century, like Hungary and Poland and Turkey. And in a lot of respects, this is worse," he said. "These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding."
>> View from the right: "Trump racking up important legal victories as left's lawfare ramps up," The Daily Signal's Bradley Devlin says.
>> View from the left: "The press's pathological need to normalize autocratic misrule is paving the road to ruin," The New Republic's Jason Linkins writes.
>> CNN's Stephen Collinson with the big picture: "Trump's assault on elites encompasses almost every aspect of American life."
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"Good Night and Good Luck" |
If you have a chance to see "Good Night and Good Luck" on Broadway in the coming weeks, take it. My wife and I landed last-minute matinee tickets on Saturday and were floored by George Clooney's portrayal of Edward R. Murrow.
Clooney and the new production were profiled on "60 Minutes" last night, and the show had a "meta" moment when correspondent Jon Wertheim said Clooney sees parallels between McCarthyism and the political climate today. "ABC has just settled a lawsuit with the Trump administration," Clooney said. "And CBS News is in the process..."
There, Wertheim's voiceover took over, and the correspondent explained Trump's lawsuit and "unfounded allegation" against "60 Minutes," plus the network's parent company needing Trump admin approval.
"We're seeing this idea of using government to scare or fine or use corporations – to make – journalists smaller," Clooney said, calling it a fight "for the ages." Right now "you see it happening at the Washington Post, for god's sake." Watch/read the full segment here...
>> Trump was watching: In a Truth Social blast, he called Clooney a "second-rate movie 'star'" and said the "60" segment was a "puff piece."
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Trump praises Bezos, bashes Post |
Jeff Bezos is "a good guy," Trump said of his longtime adversary in a conversation with Clay Travis of OutKick over the weekend.
"I didn't really know him in the first term," Trump said. "I mean, it's such a difference between now and the first time. Zuckerberg and Bezos and Jensen, who's fantastic." (Presumably he meant Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.)
Trump said Bezos is "really trying to be more fair," then suggested Bezos bashed The Post's newsroom staff during one of their private meetings: "They actually did a couple of bad articles on him. He said, 'This is crazy, I lose my fortune running this thing and they, you know, they're out of control.' These people are crazy. They're crazy people. They're out of control. And he's actually a very good guy..."
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Three new stories this morning |
>> Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings is donating $50 million to his alma mater, Bowdoin College, "to create a research initiative on 'A.I. and Humanity.'" (NYT)
>> Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN's parent) is paying about $57 million for "a minority stake in Dubai-based OSN Streaming Ltd. in a bid to capture a slice of the fast-growing Middle Eastern entertainment market." (Bloomberg)
>> This morning's new issue of TIME, featuring an exclusive interview with Volodymyr Zelensky, is TIME creative director D.W. Pine's 1,000th cover. (TIME)
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Tuesday: New releases include Graydon Carter's "When The Going Was Good."
Tuesday: Rumble reports quarterly earnings.
Thursday: MLB Opening Day!
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>> On the front of today's Monday Business section, John Koblin explains all the reasons why "times are tough on Sesame Street." (NYT)
>> Yahoo is selling TechCrunch to media investment firm Regent. (Axios)
>> Barack Obama has joined Bluesky. (Bluesky)
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Trumpworld notes and quotes |
>> Former VOA director Amanda Bennett's new op-ed: "Kari Lake Isn't Telling the Truth About the VOA" (WSJ)
>> "Has Radio Martí put out its last broadcast?" (NYT)
>> "Trump allies press the White House to dial back Elon Musk's media interviews over his Social Security jabs." (NBC)
>> The FCC is prepared to block mergers "from companies that promote 'invidious' DEI policies," including Paramount's deal with Skydance Media. (Bloomberg)
>> The indispensable Internet Archive has cataloged at least 73,000 web pages on U.S. government websites "that were expunged after Trump's inauguration," Emma Bowman writes. (NPR)
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A personal story about USAID fallout |
Liam Reilly writes: "A budding media start-up producing a culinary docuseries has been stuck in limbo for months. After being approved for USAID funding, the show's co-founders discovered that the agency's money never cleared."
The startup's planned show for Amazon, "The Envoy Show," is styled "as an heir to Anthony Bourdain's legacy." Now, like countless other American businesses and projects, it is being undermined by Trump's attempts to dismantle USAID. Read on...
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>> RIP: Max Frankel, who was executive editor of The Times from 1986 until 1994, has died. He was 94. (NYT)
>> Michael Savage described "how newsrooms are tackling AI's uncertainties and opportunities." (The Guardian)
>> Jonah Peretti sat down with Connie Loizos to discuss how BuzzFeed’s rolling the dice on AI is less risky than staying its current course. (TechCrunch)
>> One of the WSJ's most-read stories over the weekend: Zusha Elinson wrote about Shari Franke "taking on the dark side of Utah's mommy bloggers." (WSJ)
>> "Amazon execs have selected veteran producers David Heyman and Amy Pascal to shepherd the next iteration of James Bond," Matt Belloni reports. (Puck)
>> You, too? "They're missing 2010s media like a bitch, and so am I," Steffi Cao wrote. (ShelfMAG)
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>> "Apple is exploring the idea of adding cameras and visual intelligence features to its smartwatch," Mark Gurman reports. (Bloomberg)
>> Meta has agreed to stop targeting a UK citizen with personalized ads "after agreeing a settlement in a landmark privacy case that could set a precedent for millions of social media users." (The Guardian)
>> X "has suspended several accounts belonging to opposition figures in Turkey." (Politico)
>> Reece Rogers and Victoria Turk tested OpenAI’s AI video generator Sora and "found that it amplifies sexist stereotypes and ableist tropes, perpetuating the same biases already present in AI image tools." (WIRED)
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Sean McNulty's headline for The Ankler says it all: "Snow White Digs '25 Box Office Ditch Even Deeper."
The film "opened to a sleepy $43 million at the domestic box office this weekend amid a slew of controversies," CNN's Auzinea Bacon writes.
Right now the lead story on Breitbart is "DISNEY DISASTER." The NYT's Brooks Barnes points out that some conservatives are taking "a victory lap online" since they argued that Rachel Zegler, who is Latina, "had no business playing Snow White, and that Disney's support of her was an example of Hollywood diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives run amok." He says "analysts pushed back on that theory, saying 'Snow White' also struggled at the box office because the underlying intellectual property was old-fashioned...
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