Heads up: Next week Reliable Sources will be on spring break. But today we have lots of headlines about The AP, Voice of America, TikTok, Newsmax, "Jeopardy!" and much more... |
💰 Uncertainty surrounds earnings season |
A scene from "Black Mirror" season seven. Nick Wall/Netflix |
Media earnings season is here – and is causing even more agita than usual.
Investors are listening for first quarter results (recognizing that the economy was already deteriorating well before President Trump's "Liberation Day") and bracing for lower forecasts due to the economic turmoil.
Netflix, which is thought to be a relatively safe stock in this storm, reports quarterly earnings after the closing bell. "Wall Street will be especially focused on ad sales progress now that the company will no longer report quarterly subscription numbers," Business Insider's Lucia Moses wrote.
Two advertising holding companies, Omnicom and Publicis Groupe, posted Q1 earnings earlier this week and said clients are being cautious about the months ahead. Like every pundit on TV has been saying: Companies yearn for certainty and right now everything seems uncertain.
"Many of our clients are facing a very challenging situation due to uncertainty on tariffs, rising inflation and a geopolitical context that is more volatile than ever," Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun said on an earnings call. Sadoun told AdWeek that advertisers are increasingly taking a "wait and see attitude" about long-term spending, and "until there is more clarity, this is not going to get better."
These are some of the many knock-on effects of Trump's tariffs. As the NYT's Tiffany Hsu wrote yesterday: "Should a retailer commit to holiday television commercials for toys manufactured by newly vulnerable trading partners? How do social media companies account for the potential disappearance of Chinese companies that have spent billions of dollars promoting their wares? How does an automaker pitch vehicles that may cost consumers thousands of dollars more than they did a year ago?"
Hsu quoted insiders who said advertisers feel "paralyzed" and "somber" at the moment...
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"Wall Street anticipates that Netflix will report strong results for the period... and that the company is relatively well positioned to withstand economic headwinds," Variety's Todd Spangler wrote in this walk-up story.
Deadline's Jill Goldsmith outlined some of the reasons: "The company has little tariff exposure, sustainable 2025 growth, strong engagement data and has gotten to the other side of a round of price increases, which bug customers but enthuse profit-hungry investors."
>> $NFLX shares climbed earlier this week when the WSJ reported on its five-year plan to "join the $1 trillion club..."
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Dawn Chmielewski and Harshita Mary Varghese surveyed the landscape for this Reuters story titled "tariffs, recession fears cast pall over US media earnings" ... Dick Tofel's newest Second Rough Draft column is about "managing newsrooms through a Trump recession," with specific advice about what to do ... And CNBC's Lori Ann LaRocco published the best reality check of the day, reporting that U.S. Customs and Border Protection "has collected more than $500 million under Trump’s latest tariffs," contradicting Trump's repeated claims that "the United States is taking in $2 billion per day from tariffs."
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The AP heads back to court |
This afternoon Justice Department attorneys will urge a federal appeals court to pause Judge Trevor McFadden's order that lifted access restrictions on The AP, while the wire service's attorneys will argue that the White House has already violated the order by cutting the dedicated wire spot in the pool.
"The White House has asked to put the ruling on hold while it appeals," Reuters explains here. The three-judge panel set to hear the request "includes two circuit judges Trump appointed during his first term, Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, as well as Judge Cornelia Pillard, nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama."
>> Today's White House press pool (chosen by Trump's press aides) almost seems composed to send a message to the appeals court. And the message is "we're not committing viewpoint discrimination!" An AP photographer is being allowed in the pool today; the print pool outlet is The Atlantic; and the "new media" outlet is Semafor...
>> The NYT is out with a great interactive piece that explains how the White House briefing room is changing under Trump 2.0.
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Arguments in two lawsuits against Voice of America's dismantling will be heard by a judge in Washington later today. In the month since VOA news coverage abruptly stopped, "the damage has been severe," an advocacy group called Save VOA says. "VOA's silence leaves a void in global news coverage and information access, particularly in regions with restricted media. This void allows other entities, like China and Russia, to potentially fill the gap and exert greater influence."
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Disinformation has completely destabilized global politics, from the Oval Office to the town council level. Deliberate lies and disinformation campaigns make it much harder for neighbors to relate to one another and share the same reality. But – as if to prove the point – conservative thought leaders decided several years ago that the real danger was "censorship."
Ergo, "Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday announced the closure of the agency's hub for fighting foreign disinformation campaigns," Politico's Maggie Miller wrote. Rubio's announcement was titled "Protecting and Championing Free Speech at the State Department."
>> Eileen Guo, who broke the news for MIT Technology Review, said it's "a win to foreign governments like Russia, Iran, and China — and the office's mostly conservative critics."
>> In a more constructive political environment, we'd be able to hold two thoughts in our head simultaneously: That free speech must be protected and that disinformation must be recognized as a danger. Alas...
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Trumpworld notes and quotes |
>> "Just hours after proclaiming that the Trump administration is 'restoring free speech rights to Americans,' the FCC chairman is implicitly threatening a news outlet over its editorial decisions," Deadline's Ted Johnson observed, pointing to Brendan Carr's latest X blast against Comcast. (X
>> Last night the PBS "NewsHour" thoroughly covered Trump's new threat to public media $$ with a nearly five minute long report by William Brangham. (PBS)
>> New from KFILE this morning: Trump's pick to be DC’s top prosecutor, Ed Martin, "failed to report hundreds of media appearances he’s made in the past few years, including many on far-right outlets and Russian-state media, when he first filed his mandated disclosure forms to Congress." (CNN)
>> "When the Washington Post reported on Watergate, Nixon resigned. When the media reports on Trump's lawlessness, he digs in," Gabriel Sherman writes. His latest piece is about "why hard-hitting journalism makes Trump do worse things." (Vanity Fair)
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Marshall Cohen reports: A high-stakes trial was scheduled to begin April 28 over Newsmax’s coverage of the 2020 election, and whether it intentionally defamed Dominion Voting Systems. But the judge unexpectedly announced that, due to a professional matter unrelated to the case, the six-week trial will be postponed. Before his announcement, things were moving full speed ahead for trial. A new date hasn't been set yet...
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>> Redbird Capital Partners "is drawing up plans to take control of the Telegraph in an attempt to bring an end to the protracted two-year sale of the British newspaper group," Daniel Thomas and James Fontanella-Khan report. (FT)
>> Henry Blodget is launching Regenerator, a publication that will analyze "the most important questions in innovation." (LinkedIn)
>> Thanks to Gayle King's trip to space, "CBS Mornings" was "the #1 network morning newscast on Monday." (CBS)
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Zuckerberg rests his case |
Mark Zuckerberg is done testifying in FTC v. Meta. Pushing back against the government's monopoly claims, he talked up rivals like YouTube and TikTok, saying at one point that "TikTok is still bigger than either Facebook or Instagram, and I don’t like it when our competitors do better than us." He also talked about YouTube winning the attention war.
CNN's team listed some other takeaways here, including Zuckerberg's observation about how Meta app usage has been changing: "Messaging has been growing dramatically, and sharing with friends in feeds has been declining."
>> Sheryl Sandberg was up right after Zuckerberg, and she will continue testifying today.
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TikTok's version of Community Notes |
"As TikTok continues to wait for a deal that will secure its future in the United States, the company is embracing a crowd-sourced approach to fact-checking," Engadget's Karissa Bell reports. "The service is adding 'Footnotes,' a Community Notes-like feature that will allow contributors to add 'more context' to videos..."
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>> TikTok's US public policy chief Michael Beckerman will transition into a global advisory role, Kaya Yurieff reports. (The Information)
>> Beyond this week's restrictions on Nvidia, the Trump administration is "weighing penalties that would block DeepSeek from buying U.S. technology and debating barring Americans' access to its services." (NYT)
>> A French streaming platform called Deezer says "more than 20,000 AI-generated tracks are uploaded on its platform each day, which is nearly twice the number reported four months ago." AI-made songs now account for 18% of all uploads there. (Reuters)
>> "The hot new C-suite role on Madison Avenue is – no surprise – the Chief AI Officer," Joe Mandese writes, skeptically... (MediaPost)
>> Patreon is "finally experimenting" with a "native live video feature where creators can stream 24/7." (TechCrunch)
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CBS wins game show appeal |
>> Deadline's Dominic Patten with the lead of the day: "This is why they call it Jeopardy! Less than a week after Sony snagged back the distribution rights to the Ken Jennings-hosted game show and Wheel of Fortune, a California appeals court today handed those rights back to CBS, at least for now."
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Entertainment odds and ends |
>> Smart move: Nickelodeon has "plucked a show from its development pipeline and opted to distribute it in full on YouTube," Natalie Jarvey reports. (The Ankler)
>> The season finale of Paramount+'s "1923" became "the most-watched episode in the history of the drama, securing 14 million global viewers." (TheWrap)
>> Nate Bargatze will host the 77th Emmy Awards this fall. (THR)
>> "Fahrenheit-182," the memoir by Blink-182 singer and bassist Mark Hoppus, has debuted at #1 on the NYT best sellers list. (NYT)
>> "Warner Bros. will collect more eggs than any other studio at the Easter weekend box office, between smash sensation A Minecraft Movie and Ryan Coogler's critically acclaimed original film Sinners," Pamela McClintock writes in this box office preview. (THR)
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