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Happy Wednesday. Here's the latest on the Kennedy Center, YouTube, Vanity Fair, Google's "preferred sources," WaPo's "creator network," Vogue, "Wednesday," and "Mamma Mia!" But first...

'Fake' everything?

Deny the data. Disrupt the data collectors. And demand a different result.

That is what we're seeing now from some federal officials. It's a common theme in several of this week's biggest stories, and it has big implications for news coverage.

"Crime stats in big blue cities are fake," President Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said yesterday on X, clearly reacting to the news media's fact-checking of Trump's extreme exaggerations about crime in DC. "The real rates of crime, chaos & dysfunction are orders of magnitude higher," Miller insisted.

"Coupled with the attack" on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein said, "this is rapidly advancing deeper into the territory of insisting that all data that doesn't conform to Trump preferences is inherently invalid and that only the leader can tell you the truth." Brownstein called it "a hallmark of authoritarians" throughout history.

He invoked the BLS for good reason: Trump's commissioner choice, E.J. Antoni, is being scrutinized from left to right. Numerous economists have criticized him "for misunderstanding the data he would now oversee," the NYT's team reported.

 >> For more on the jobs data controversies, check out Alicia Wallace and David Goldman's latest piece for CNN here. One of their subheds: "Federal data under siege." 

'Nullify the real'

President Trump's rhetoric about "fake news" keeps expanding to new categories. In the past month, he has assailed "fake intelligence agents," dismissed "fake polls," claimed "the Russia thing was fake," and declared that "the Democrats are fake."

The effect is to sow doubt about anything and everything. As veteran journalism professor Jay Rosen said in a Q&A with Mark Jacob earlier this week, "with this doubt comes friction, controversy, commotion, emotion, backlash, accusation, disgust, momentum. And with the energy released by these reactions you can power your political movement." 

Rosen asserted that Trump has trained the MAGA movement to "reject reality on a sweeping scale, and discredit the whole idea that we can know what's happening in our world." The idea, he suggested, is to "nullify the real." Republicans often argue that this distrust in institutions was well-earned and is well-deserved. But the process of restoring trust? That's a whole lot harder.

MAGA editor at the Smithsonian?

Do you want Trump White House political aides vetting the tone and framing of museum exhibits? That's really the question now that the WH has notified the Smithsonian that it is reviewing eight museums with an eye toward making "content corrections where necessary" and "replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions." CNN's Betsy Klein has more here. 

 >> Last night on "AC360," Cornell William Brooks called it "censorship tied to a celebration," namely, the America250 anniversary. "The White House is essentially engaged in a kind of cultural micromanagement," he said.

 >> The Smithsonian is not part of the executive branch, as I noted on "CNN News Central" this morning. The museum says it will work "constructively" with the White House, but that could mean a lot of things. It also reaffirmed a commitment to "accurate, factual presentation of history."

The pictures he wants 

"By sending National Guard soldiers into the streets in the absence of a crisis, Trump really is adopting the intimidatory tactics of strongman leaders," CNN's Stephen Collinson writes this morning.

The president is getting the pictures he wants: "National Guard troops spotted in Washington DC," this Fox headline says. And MAGA media commentators are agitating for more: Additional cities, more aggressive actions.

 >> Fox alum Jeanine Pirro has had "a starring role in promoting the president's federal takeover on TV," the NYT's Michael Grynbaum observes.

 >> Media critic Jeff Jarvis says "the story, which media keep missing, is not crime in DC. It is Trump's fascist plan to invade and intimidate (Black and blue) cities in America."

🔁 Trump's Fox feedback loop for today

We led yesterday's Reliable with an example of the enduring Fox-Trump feedback loop, so here's another fresh one from this morning:

Fox News, 5:09 a.m.: "A whistleblower has told the FBI that Adam Schiff signed off on leaking classified information to discredit Donald Trump."

Trump on Truth Social, 6:17 a.m.: "Just out, irrefutable proof that Adam Shifty Schiff 'APPROVED PLAN TO LEAK CLASSIFIED INFORMATION TO DAMAGE DONALD TRUMP.'"

It's all one big meme

In this bracing new piece for WIRED, Tess Owens describes how the Trump administration is "turning deportations into one big meme," fueling propaganda that normalizes "mass deportation and Christian nationalist narratives." 

Coming up today...

Trump is slated to speak at the Kennedy Center later this morning. WaPo says George Strait, Kiss, and Michael Crawford are being eyed for this year's Kennedy Center Honors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to speak at a Newsmax reception in Jerusalem around 1 p.m. ET.

Taylor Swift's episode of the "New Heights" podcast drops at 7 p.m., and we will be live-blogging it over on CNN.com. "If there's one thing male sports fans want to see in their spaces and on their screens, it's more of me," Swift jokes in a new teaser for the episode.

WaPo turns 'third newsroom' into 'Creator Network'

"Creators are increasingly important alongside our deeply reported News and Opinion," WaPo chief strategy officer Suzi Watford wrote in a Tuesday memo. "The newest iteration of our third newsroom will focus on building a creator network and responsibly embracing AI. This new unit will focus on building personality-driven content and franchises in topic areas that are of interest to our target audiences."

Watford announced that the "Creator Network" will be led by Sara Kehaulani Goo, who is returning to the Post after a stint as EIC of Axios. Goo described it this way: "I will be leading a team based outside the newsroom focused on the creator economy..."

Vanity Fair's refocus

VF let go of its chief critic and two Hollywood correspondents, along with other staffers, Variety reports. The mag will also wind down its editorial verticals, The Hive and HWD, both of which were launched to give the VF some digital-first edge in the mobile- and SEO-driven 2010s — remember those days?

It's all part of what newly minted editorial director Mark Guiducci described in a Tuesday memo as a re-focusing on Vanity Fair storytelling about "money, politics and style," while scaling back on "news aggregation, reviews and trade coverage."

Briefly…

 >> Sara Nathan says Chloe Malle, current editor of Vogue.com, "is the frontrunner to take over at Vogue." (Page Six)

 >> Speaking of Vogue, the mag is out with a new September issue profile of Alex Cooper, who says "I'm a marketer through and through." (Vogue)

 >> The power of a picture, or in this case, a projection: "Unsettling photos show the effects of climate change projected onto our everyday lives." (CNN)

 >> The Washington Post's most-read piece this morning: "Inside the 13-year search for Austin Tice, the journalist who disappeared." (WaPo)

YouTube begins an age test today

The world's biggest video site will begin "testing a new age-verification system in the U.S. that relies on artificial intelligence to differentiate between adults and minors, based on the kinds of videos that they have been watching," the AP's Michael Liedtke reports.

Google enables 'preferred sources'

Google is adding a new feature, preferred sources, that "will let you choose the outlets you want to see featured the most in Search's 'top stories' section," TechCrunch's Emma Roth reports. "With Google positioning AI as the future of Search," she says, "it's a bit refreshing to see the company rolling out a feature that doesn’t have anything to do with the technology..."

More tech talk

 >> Tuesday's reports about Perplexity making an unsolicited $34.5 billion offer to purchase Google Chrome earned an eye-roll from NYT tech reporter Mike Isaac, who suspects it was a marketing stunt: "Leak what is most likely a completely improbable bid in order to keep your name out there."

 >> Here's the Chrome context via Martin Peers: The offer "came shortly before a judge is expected to rule on whether Google should be forced to sell the browser to remedy its illegal search monopoly." But "if Chrome is sold, Perplexity almost certainly won't be the buyer." (The Information)

 >> Ryan Struyk is CNN's first director of AI innovation. (LinkedIn)

 >> LinkedIn's newest game is a miniature version of Sudoku. (CNBC)

The Hollywood A-list

 >> "With the exception of Comcast's Peacock, most major streamers in the U.S. have started to turn a steady profit, which means the streaming wars have officially entered a new era of maturity," Sara Fischer observes. (Axios)

 >> "'Wednesday' certainly didn’t face a sophomore slump, with the debut of Season 2 racking up a whopping 50 million views in just five days on Netflix." (TheWrap)

 >> "The 'Mamma Mia!' revival became one of the top five earners on Broadway last week, with the ABBA musical selling out and grossing $1,573,128 for seven previews at the Winter Garden." (Deadline)

 >> Hulu has dropped the trailer for the fifth season of "Only Murders in the Building." (YouTube)

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