Hey, good morning. Here's the latest on TikTok, Paramount, Pam Bondi, Matt Murray, Reuters, YouTube, Elon Musk, "Superman," and much more... |
How misinformation can create false hope |
Everyone wanted the story to be true.
A life-affirming account about two missing girls found alive in the Texas flood zone quickly circulated on social media yesterday, but the girls didn't exist. The episode filled people with false hope and sparked understandably angry reactions against the news outlets that had reported it as fact. And it underscored the awful reality on the ground in Hunt, Texas, and beyond: That time is running out.
I tried to piece together what went wrong with the "rescuers find 2 girls in tree" story. That's how the Kerr County Lead, a local digital rival to the Kerrville Daily Times newspaper, headlined the news, citing unspecified "witnesses."
Apparently the first online account of a rescue came from an Austin-based volunteer, Cord Shiflet, who was posting disaster updates on his popular Facebook page. "Overwhelmingly thrilled to report two young girls were just found alive," he wrote, and posted a video about it too — borrowing both the "reporting" language and the visual rubric of the news industry, as so many people do nowadays.
Rumors about the miraculous rescue spread among local residents in text chains. The Kerr County Lead said it received "numerous messages." The NBC affiliate in San Antonio repeated the Lead's report. Far-right influencer Laura Loomer posted the story while saying she had a friend nearby. The New York Post aggregated the claims and stated it as a fact in a headline: "Miracle rescue..."
But reporters who called around found nothing to back it up. Rep. Chip Roy, knowing his constituents wanted to believe the rumor, did the right thing and wrote on X that it was "100% NOT verified." Later in the day, the Lead retracted the story, calling it "a classic tale of misinformation that consumes all of us during a natural disaster." And Shiflet posted another video profusely apologizing. "Was I too quick to share it? I don't know, I was so excited, it made my whole day," he said, attributing the false story to public safety officials who told him about it.
>> "Please be careful about social media rumors and misinformation," the Kerr County sheriff told residents last night. "False information can cause pain to families and those already devastated by this event."
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The death toll now stands at 82, with dozens still missing. CNN's live updates page has the latest. Ever since the 4th of July, when news outlets scrambled to cover the middle-of-the-night catastrophe, journalists have been frustrated by unanswered questions at news conferences. Again Sunday, at multiple pressers throughout the day, many officials "dodged when pressed about whether Texas was adequately funded and staffed ahead of time to prepare for the floods," WaPo's Anusha Mathur wrote.
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'Warning fatigue' is real |
"The forces that descended upon the Guadalupe River in Texas' Hill Country on Thursday night were a worst-case scenario," as CNN's team explained here. There were a slew of warnings; "the question is whether the warnings reached who they needed to reach."
Among other factors, "warning fatigue is a thing," AccuWeather meteorologist Geoff Cornish said during CNN's special live coverage last night. I suspect we're going to hear that phrase a lot in the days to come. When everything is labeled "extreme weather," nothing seems extreme anymore, and yet...
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Once a camper, always a camper |
CNN anchor Pamela Brown was a camper at Camp Mystic thirty years ago, so she knows firsthand that it has been "a magical place" for generations of girls. Today she is back there, covering the aftermath of the flood tragedy, and how "so much innocence has now been lost." She co-anchored several hours of coverage last night and is back on "The Situation Room" later this morning...
>> NBC's Savannah Guthrie and Tom Llamas, ABC's David Muir and Fox's Lawrence Jones are also anchoring from the flood zone.
>> NBC's Morgan Chesky, who grew up in Kerrville, is back there covering the aftermath.
>> Fox Corp announced a donation to the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country's Kerr County Flood Relief Fund.
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MAGA media outrage over Epstein |
Prominent MAGA media figures are absolutely furious over last night's Axios story saying "DOJ, FBI conclude Epstein had no 'client list,' died by suicide."
"Conspiracy theories are officially being rejected," ABC says. But new, more convoluted, even more deranged theories are being created. And Attorney General Pam Bondi is the newest target, largely because when she was asked on Fox about the supposed list back in February, she said "it's sitting on my desk right now to review."
As one close observer of the right-wing media ecosystem, Damin Toell, wrote last night, If Kash Patel and Dan Bongino "hadn't gotten jobs in the administration, they'd be posting right now about how the FBI is full of shit." Both men previously questioned official claims about Epstein...
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TikTok = 'starkest power grab' |
We now know exactly what AG Bondi told tech companies when she said they could rest assured that they wouldn't be prosecuted for violating the TikTok ban. The NYT obtained Bondi's letters through a FOIA lawsuit. Charlie Savage says the letters advance a "sweeping claim that President Trump has the constitutional power to set aside laws."
>> Some legal experts told Savage that this TikTok action, claiming "the power to enable companies to lawfully violate the statute," is Trump's "starkest power grab" yet: "It appears to set a significant new precedent about the potential reach of presidential authority, they said." Read on...
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Trump asserted over the weekend that he "pretty much" has a deal with China re: TikTok. "I think we're going to start Monday or Tuesday, asking, talking to China," he added. But as CNN's John Liu and Marc Stewart report here, China's government has "sidestepped" a question about Trump's claim.
Meantime, The Information reports that TikTok is building a "new version" of its app for US users: "Under the plan, TikTok users will eventually have to download the new app to be able to continue using the service. The existing app is slated to be shut down in the US in March 2026."
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Trump asserts side deal with Ellison |
Trump has all but confirmed a so-called "side deal" with the would-be future owners of Paramount. Charlie Gasparino was the first to report on this last week, asserting that on top of the publicly announced $16 million payment to settle Trump's legally dubious "60 Minutes" lawsuit, David Ellison had secretly agreed to run PSAs for Trump-aligned causes. Paramount denied any knowledge, but that was the point — the company wouldn't know.
On Thursday night, Trump told the press pool, "We did a deal for about $16 million plus $16 million, or maybe more than that, in advertising... It's like $32 to maybe $35 million."
Trump also praised his "friend" Larry Ellison — "I think he's going to run CBS really well, and I think he's making a good deal to buy it. I think he's great" — before getting around to David: "He's got a son who's a fantastic young man too." All of this will, of course, escalate concerns about the Ellisons inside CBS News...
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The Atlantic's Michael Scherer reminds us that Trump still has a pending suit against Google and CEO Sundar Pichai alleging that YouTube restricting his account after January 6 violated his First Amendment rights. Meta and X already settled; "now it may be Pichai's turn," Scherer writes. "Lawyers for President Trump and Pichai have begun 'productive discussions' about the next steps of the case against YouTube..."
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Calling sources is not 'harassment' |
WaPo editor Matt Murray was compelled to remind everyone how journalism works the other day. And to be realistic, lots of people genuinely do not know. But Tulsi Gabbard has been a public figure for a long time, so she does know; yet she tried to score political points on Thursday by saying Post reporter Ellen Nakashima "appears to be actively harassing ODNI staff" by contacting sources.
Outlets like Fox News took the claim seriously, giving Gabbard the headline she wanted, while Murray said what was needed: "Reaching out to potential sources rather than relying solely on official government press statements regarding matters of public interest is neither nefarious nor is it harassment. It is basic journalism."
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Uproar over NYT's Mamdani scoop |
An NYT story about checkboxes on a 2009 form — Zohran Mamdani "Identified as Asian and African American on College Application" — has "sparked an uproar over sourcing, newsworthiness, and race," Liam Scott reports for CJR. If you missed it, Scott can get you caught up here.
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>> POTUS signed it into law on Friday; "now Republicans have to sell Trump's megabill to voters." (WSJ)
>> A related Daniel Dale fact-check: "Trump falsely claims his highly unpopular big bill is the 'single most popular bill ever signed'" (CNN)
>> Edward Helmore argues "Trump is waging war against the media – and winning." (The Guardian)
>> "Tesla stock tanks after Trump dismisses Musk's new political party plan and calls him 'off the rails.'" (CNN)
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>> "The Reuters News account on X was restored in India on Sunday, a day after the social media platform suspended it, citing a legal demand." (Reuters)
>> Users continue to profit off pirated movies and TV shows on YouTube, finding novel ways to avoid the platform's efforts to curb the practice while "advertisers have unwittingly supported illicit content," Nico Grant and Tripp Mickle write. (NYT)
>> Charlotte Klein goes "inside the traffic apocalypse" to make sense of how outlets are being hit across the board by digital search's restructuring. (NYMag)
>> Meanwhile, Katherine Blunt writes that "at least a dozen new companies are pouring millions of dollars into software meant to help brands prepare for a world in which customers no longer browse the web and instead rely on ChatGPT, Perplexity and other artificial-intelligence chatbots to do it for them." (WSJ)
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Weekend box office report |
"Dinosaurs are alive and well at the box office as Universal's 'Jurassic World Rebirth' trampled competitors, grossing $147 million domestically over five days of the Fourth of July weekend," CNN's Auzinea Bacon writes. The film "nearly matched its predecessor from 2022, 'Jurassic World Dominion,' which grossed $145 million in its first three days before raking in over $1 billion worldwide."
>> "F1" ranked #2 for the weekend, grossing another $26 million domestically...
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This is the wraparound cover of this morning's USA Today — a clever bit of sponsored content:
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The "Superman" hype machine is reaching well beyond Metropolis. The world premiere will take place tonight in Hollywood. James Gunn is about to officially fire "his first shot as the leader of DC," Rotten Tomatoes says.
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Gunn gave a compelling interview to The Times of London that garnered lots of followup coverage over the weekend. “I mean, 'Superman' is the story of America," Gunn said. "An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost."
Is that... offensive? "I'm going to skip seeing Superman now," conservative radio host Clay Travis exclaimed on X after reading Gunn's quote. "Director is an absolute moron to say this publicly the week before release. America is desperate for apolitical entertainment and Hollywood is unable to deliver it."
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>> Over the weekend Ozzy Osbourne performed what was "billed as his final show with the original members of Black Sabbath." (CNN)
>> Oasis ended a 16-year hiatus on Friday "with a punchy, powerful trip through one of Britpop’s greatest songbooks, kicking off a reunion tour in Cardiff, Wales to a crowd ecstatic for the band’s 1990s hits." (CNN)
>> Bob Vylan's removal from a headliner spot at Radar Festival in Manchester following a "death to the IDF" chant at Glastonbury has sparked a "growing wave of artist withdrawals" in support of the punk rap duo. (Billboard)
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