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Hey, good morning. Here's the latest on Fred Pleitgen, Sam Altman, Kaitlan Collins, Tucker Carlson, Jessica Kurdali, David Ellison, Emily Jashinsky, "28 Days Later," and more...

Studying 'screen addiction'

Those words popped out from, yes, the screen, as I read about this high-quality new study looking at links between "addictive screen use trajectories" and suicidal behaviors in teens.

According to Kara Alaimo, who wrote about it for CNN.com, the study suggests that "to figure out how these platforms are affecting our kids," we need to focus on the addiction aspect. "Kids with high or increasing use of social media and mobile phones were at two to three times greater risk for suicidal behavior and suicidal ideations than the kids on the lower trajectory," according to a four-year examination of 4,000+ US kids. The NYT put it this way: The "real risk to youth mental health is 'addictive use,' not screen time alone."

NPR's Rhitu Chatterjee interviewed the researchers, who asserted that "screen time" is not an especially useful metric because it's not inherently good or bad; signs of "screen addiction" are more meaningful.

Practice touching grass

Alaimo, a comms professor and author, said she has been holding training sessions for counselors at summer camps to help them put their phones away and enjoy the outdoors. "I point out that learning to get comfortable with ourselves and our own thoughts rather than pulling out a phone every time we have a spare moment is, unfortunately, a skill that requires practice these days. We can try it by going for walks (sans headphones), sitting and watching a sunset or lying around in a hammock. What could be more fun in the summer?"

Her CNN piece also has lots of concrete advice for parents; check it out here.

Pushing for phone-free norms

"The Anxious Generation" author Jonathan Haidt and his NYU colleague Zach Rausch teamed up with the Harris Poll to analyze the impacts of screens on kids and families. Their new survey of parents found "widespread feelings of entrapment and regret. Many parents gave their children smartphones and social media access early in their lives — yet many wish that social media had never been invented, and overwhelmingly they support new social norms and policies that would protect kids from online harms."

Most parents, they found, support limits on teen smartphone use. Read more about the norms here. As Haidt noted on X, this awakening is not just happening in the US: "Parents around the world see the damage. Some of those parents are legislators." Last week, Politico reported, French president Emmanuel Macron said he would "ban social media for under-15s in France 'in the coming months' if progress isn't forthcoming at EU level."

Seeing too much of each other?

Screen addiction isn't just something that applies to kids. Algorithms are causing "doomscrolling." AI chatbots are hooking users and sending them down rabbit holes.

Noah Smith recently published a persuasive essay noting that "the fall in institutional trust, and the rise in mental illness and unhappiness, line up well with the rise of the smartphone." He posited that the social media apps on all those phones in the early 2010s "destroyed one of America's key advantages," namely that we used to be geographically really spread out. Now, perhaps, we all see too much of each other.

Smith wrote: "America's unique strengths were always its size and its freedom; it was a great big country, and everyone could spread out and do their own thing and find their people. Social media collapsed that great big country into a small town — or a handful of small towns — full of busybodies and scolds and disreputable characters and people who disagree with each other's values. And we haven't yet learned how to deal with that."

 >> New this morning from WIRED: "7 Ways to Limit Your Endless Doomscrolling."

'What will he do next?'

President Trump "conducts foreign policy like it's a TV show," but "we shouldn't cover it like a TV show," former TIME editor and Obama State Department official Richard Stengel wrote on X last night. I emailed and asked him to elaborate. 

"He's programming every day as a reality show with himself as the star," Stengel wrote back, "and every hour the question is, 'What will he do next?' Most of the time there is no action — which would be news — but just the artificial drama of whether he will do something."

Yesterday, for instance, Trump remarked that "nobody knows what I'm going to do" regarding Iran. He's creating "phony cliffhangers," Stengel argued, so that "we cover the whole thing like it's an episodic drama with him as the central character."

Stengel's bottom line: "We should ignore the drama and instead we stoke it."

Trump is in the drivers' seat. But "what will he do?" is just one of many questions to ask. This morning's new cover of The Economist asks another:

The Economist

Will MAGA media 'get on board'?

"This is a MAGA civil war," CNN's Donie O'Sullivan said as he showed the different ideological camps in this "Erin Burnett OutFront" report.

Tucker Carlson has a starring role, and knowing Carlson, I bet he is enjoying it. His "two hours of jousting" with Ted Cruz captivated politicos and media types yesterday. Kevin Madden observed that the throw-down was "an instructive case study of today's shifting information landscape: A creator-led digital outlet initiating and driving an entire media news cycle across traditional, linear media. MAGA Media sneezes, MSM catches a cold."

I would just note, though, that most Trump voters are taking their cues about Iran from Trump himself and from Fox News, not from Carlson's YouTube account (where the debate has 1.5 million views so far). As Steve Bannon said yesterday at a Christian Science Monitor event, if the US uses its "bunker buster" bomb, the "vast majority of the MAGA movement will say, 'look, we trust your judgment, you walked us through this … maybe we hate it but you know, we'll get on board.'"

Did Tucker really say sorry?

Tucker is "a nice guy," Trump said in response to a question from Kaitlan Collins yesterday. "He called and apologized the other day because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that."

Did Carlson really say sorry? That's hard to believe. I texted him to see if he'd confirm, deny, or reply to Trump's comments, but he hasn't responded. (During the Cruz interview, which was taped on Tuesday, Carlson merely framed the phone call as "I talked to him last night.")

CNN on the ground in Tehran

CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen is the first Western journalist to enter Iran since the conflict with Israel started. Yesterday he arrived in Tehran, and today he was able to see inside the Iranian state TV studio that was hit by an Israeli airstrike. Here's the video.

AI slop abounds

A timely warning about online videos of the conflict: "Social media is being flooded with AI-generated media that claims to show the devastation, but is fake," 404 Media's Matthew Gault and Emanuel Maiberg report.

Trump praises Ellison

A reporter lobbed Trump a question about what's holding up Skydance's takeover of Paramount, and the president responded by praising David Ellison, the mogul who is in line to own CBS if the FCC ever approves the deal. "Ellison's great, he'll do a great job with it," Trump said.

Then Trump immediately brought up last fall's "60 Minutes" interview of Kamala Harris and his pending lawsuit. In his mind, it seems, the Paramount deal and his CBS dispute are one and the same.

Political notes and quotes

 >> The State Department "is restarting interviews for student visas and installing stricter social media guidelines, including a requirement that all applicants have their accounts set to public to be scrutinized for hostility toward the US." (WaPo)

 >> Rachel Levinson-Waldman and Melanie Geller say "DHS's new social media vetting policies threaten free speech." (Just Security)

 >> The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is calling for the immediate release of Mario Guevara from ICE custody. (NAHJ)

 >> Pete Hegseth "offered a strident defense of Kingsley Wilson, the recently promoted Pentagon press secretary with a history of espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories, under questioning" at a Senate hearing. (Jewish Insider)

 >> "Some Senate Republicans wish President Trump would quit standing in the way of the TikTok ban," Stef W. Kight reports. (Axios)

>> VP JD Vance joined Bluesky yesterday, "got banned immediately," then had his account restored. (TechCrunch)

Briefly...

 >> NBCUniversal news talent exec Jessica Kurdali will oversee talent strategy across all of Versant's platforms. (Variety)

 >> A headline from Neal Mohan at Cannes: "YouTube Shorts Now Averages 200 Billion Daily Views." (TheWrap)

 >> Emily Jashinsky is joining Megyn Kelly's MK Media network as the host of a twice-a-week "late-night" video podcast called "After Party." (Variety)

Today's tech talk

 >> "In a move that could change the video landscape, YouTube will integrate Google's most advanced AI video generation tool, Veo 3, into YouTube Shorts later this summer," Alex Weprin reports. (THR)

 >> Sam Altman says he is "not totally against" the idea of ads on ChatGPT, though "he warned that it would take 'a lot of care' to get the experience right." (Adweek)

 >> New research published in Nature Human Behaviour found that "AI can generate a larger volume of creative ideas than any human, but those ideas are too much alike." (Axios)

 >> "An unscientific peek inside Meta's Community Notes shows the pilot is 'not ready for prime time,'" NiemanLab says, highlighting this Alexios Mantzarlis report. (Indicator)

'The richest deal in sports history'

That's how the WSJ describes Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter's acquisition of the L.A. Lakers "in a move that makes it the world's most valuable sports franchise."

The sports world "got sticker shock" at the $10 billion valuation, Ryan Glasspiegel wrote for Front Office Sports. How did the value of the Lakers double in just under four years? "The NBA's lavish new TV deal" was a major factor, he said.

Hollywood odds and ends

 >> The world premiere of "28 Years Later" was held in London last night. Right now it has an impressive 95% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes! (RT)

 >> Alcon Media Group "has won its $417.5 million bid" to acquire the bankrupt Village Roadshow's library of 108 feature film titles. (Deadline)

 >> Francis Ford Coppola is taking "Megalopolis" on tour this summer. (THR)

LAST BUT NOT LEAST...

Springsteen knocks on wood

For this new NYT feature, Bruce Springsteen opened up to Jon Pareles about the "current situation" in the US, calling it an "American tragedy" and labeling Trump a "moron."

Springsteen remains hopeful, however, "because we have a long democratic history. We don't have an autocratic history as a nation. It’s fundamentally democratic, and I believe that at some point that's going to rear its head and things will swing back. Let's knock on wood."

This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.