Hey, good morning. Here's the latest on The AP, Bari Weiss, Sora, Fox News, Michael Calderone, Jake Tapper, Block Club Chicago, VOA, "Famous Last Words," and much more. But first... |
Sometimes a simple photo montage can serve as the most powerful fact-check.
When President Trump resumed his insistence that "Portland is on fire" yesterday, I logged onto Getty Images and searched for photos from Oregon. Photographer Spencer Platt had just published dozens of gorgeous day-in-the-life-of-the-city shots. A man sunbathing in a public square; a woman ordering coffee; a couple strolling through a park; this was the reality in the city Trump called a "hellhole."
Whether you think the troop deployments to US cities are necessary or nonsensical, you should know that Trump's "Portland is burning to the ground" rhetoric is totally divorced from reality. One way is by pairing Trump's words with the pictures. Oregon Public Broadcasting did just that over the weekend, producing an Instagram video with timestamped photos that contradicted Trump's hyperbole.
"Our OPB team is reporting the facts on the ground as they unfold with as much context as we can offer," the network's CEO Rachel Smolkin told me. "When the facts diverge from statements about the city, we note the discrepancies. Video and photos are powerful reporting tools in this type of news coverage."
Another tool: Reserve image search. The Guardian's Robert Mackey noticed the Oregon state Republican Party promoting a fake image of unrest purportedly in Portland — "using photos of South America." When Mackey pointed this out, the party's X account said, "We're not reporters, just bad memers."
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images |
'Conservative media doom loops' |
"At some level, facts matter," as Jeffrey Toobin said on "NewsNight" last night. "And the fact is these cities are not in... anything like a rebellion."
And yet Trump admin officials like Stephen Miller "seem to compete with one another in conjuring new nightmares of urban dystopia based on conservative media doom loops," Stephen Collinson says in this new CNN.com piece.
Some media outlets keep contrasting Trump's overdramatic words with the calm accounts of local officials, which ultimately turns this into a "he said, she said" — or rather, "Republican said, Democrat said" — battle. But it's not. And news outlets shouldn't make it sound like one.
As Shimon Prokupecz said on "AC360," the protests and clashes in Portland have been concentrated outside one ICE building. "It's half a block, not even a full block. But this is where everything's been happening," he said, using the live shot to show the boundaries.
This context doesn't disprove the genuine concerns of residents — "PORTLAND BIZ OWNERS SPEAK OUT ON CRIME CRISIS" was the title of a Fox segment this morning — but it debunks the dystopian claims that are making it hard to have civil conversations.
The Fox angle is important here, as the president has repeatedly appeared to be misled by the network's city chaos coverage. Robert Reich wrote about this topic on his popular Substack earlier in the week. He pointed out that the Oregon lawsuit against Trump's deployment connected the dots between Trump's TV habits and his presidential orders.
Quoting from the suit: "On September 5, 2025, Fox News aired a report on Portland ICE protests that included misleading clips from Portland protests in 2020. Shortly thereafter, President Trump appeared to reference events in the same misleading Fox News report when speaking to the press."
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Chicago journalists sue feds |
Now let's move from Portland to Chicago. The ACLU of Illinois is representing a group of Chicagoans — including journalists from the state press association, Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Headline Club — in a lawsuit alleging First Amendment violations by the federal government. The attorneys say that "attempts to report the truth have been met with targeted attacks and widespread government violence" outside the ICE facility in Broadview, another flashpoint for protests.
The suit is garnering lots of local news attention in Chicago. "There have been multiple incidents where our teams have been affected by the use of tear gas and pepper spray balls fired into crowds," ABC7 Chicago noted in its coverage on Monday.
>> Block Club Chicago co-founder Stephanie Lulay, one of the plaintiffs, says, "We intend to continue to report on the protests, but our ability to do so, to the standards that we hold ourselves to, continues to be impacted by our fears of violence and arrests of our employees and contractors."
>> The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is asking for a meeting with federal officials to discuss the "disturbing detentions, arrests, and physical attacks that we have seen in recent weeks targeting journalists."
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Drone ban raises press concerns |
The FAA and DHS quietly placed a temporary ban on drones over parts of Chicago last week, citing "security concerns" for law enforcement amid the so-called Midway Blitz immigration sweeps.
The restriction "looks suspiciously like an attempt to ban press coverage," the ACLU says. "We can't let government block drone photography of newsworthy events simply by claiming a need to fly their own aircraft in an area or claiming the existence of vague 'security threats.'"
>> The National Press Photographers Association says, "This unprecedented flight restriction prevents journalists from using drones to document matters of clear public concern."
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Michael Calderone, most recently the editor of VF's The Hive, is joining TheWrap as media editor starting next week... Eduardo Porter, who quit WaPo in July over the new direction of the opinion section, is now a weekly columnist for the Guardian, writing economic analysis... Adam Rubenstein, a close friend and former NYT colleague of Bari Weiss, is joining her as deputy editor at both CBS News and The Free Press, the NY Post's Alex Steigrad scoops. I have confirmed Rubenstein is coming aboard, though it hasn't been announced internally yet. Scroll down for more on Weiss...
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Studios want 'decisive' action by OpenAI |
The Motion Picture Association is urging OpenAI to take "immediate and decisive action" to stop all the copyright infringement on Sora, days after Sam Altman promised more "granular" controls are on the way. Puck's Matt Belloni says studio lawyers have "made it pretty clear that OpenAI and its Pikachu-grilling videos would be sued shortly, I'm told," so there's more to come soon. Speaking of Sora, it is still #1 on Apple's App Store...
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Dozens of news outlets back AP |
The White House Correspondents' Association, the aforementioned Reporters Committee, and 46 news outlets have signed an amicus brief supporting The AP in the ongoing legal case over White House press access. Noteworthy among the outlets: Fox News. The list also includes CNN, CBS, and pretty much every other major news brand that covers the White House on a daily basis, excepting the pro-Trump outlets that now regularly join the press pool. Here's the PDF. Oral arguments are slated for Nov. 24...
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Advertising Week 'pulse check' |
Advertising Week is underway in NYC, and it feels like "Q4's ceremonial kickoff" and a "pulse check" for the industry, Digiday says. 🔌: I'll be moderating a session at 11 a.m. today with CNN ad sales lead Guy Griggs, CNN digital products and services EVP Alex MacCallum, and T-Mobile for Business CMO Mo Katibeh...
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Today's new nonfiction releases |
Bari Weiss introduced herself on this morning's 9 a.m. editorial call at CBS News, one day after taking the helm as editor-in-chief, and then the meeting went ahead as usual.
As Weiss met with CBS News execs for the first time yesterday, outside critics assailed her for lacking reporting and management experience, and insiders wondered if she wants the news division to become as opinionated as The Free Press. Her allies, meanwhile, celebrated her ascendance and said she'll straighten out CBS. I'd say the four-word headline, "How Bari Weiss Won," on Jessica Testa's must-read NYT article, crystallized the day's media news chatter perfectly.
>> "One doesn't have to be in sympathy with Weiss' views in order to appreciate the staggering nature of this achievement: She has pulled off an elaborate Count of Monte Cristo–style revenge," Reason's Robby Soave wrote in "Bari Weiss Has Won the War on Wokeness in Media."
>> Another recommended read: Andrew Prokop's Vox piece titled "Why does Bari Weiss keep winning?"
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For Paramount, The Free Press "isn't a financial bet, it's a cultural one," Peter Kafka writes. "Ellison isn't buying revenue; he's buying alignment. So what's he aligning with? That's the hard part to parse. Maybe Ellison, who previously supported Democrats — or his father, Larry Ellison, an open Trump supporter — genuinely believes the media is too liberal and needs to be moved rightward."
Or, Kafka writes, "maybe he's simply appeasing Trump and his allies, like FCC chair Brendan Carr, who had real power to slow or stop his merger. Either explanation fits the facts. But that's exactly the problem: We can't tell which one is true. And that uncertainty is what defines this moment in American business and media."
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>> "Boycotts in Hollywood, government crackdowns at home: Israel's troubles engulf the entertainment industry," Pamela Paul and Joe Flint report. (WSJ)
>> "To all of those young people of TikTok, I saved TikTok, so you owe me big," Trump said in his first TikTok from the Oval Office. (The deal to "save" TikTok in the US hasn't actually gone through yet.) (Business Insider)
>> Newsmax goaded Trump into commenting on Bad Bunny's Super Bowl gig last night. "I never heard of him, I don't know who he is, I don't know why they're doing it. It's, like, crazy," Trump said before pivoting and saying the NFL should scrap its new kickoff rule. (X)
>> A three-judge panel reviewing one of the VOA cases has delivered "another loss for Kari Lake and the government in court," Scott Nover reports. (X)
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Viewers want 'Famous Last Words' |
The Verge's Terrence O'Brien writes: "For the last several years Netflix has been quietly banking episodes of a new show called Famous Last Words, interviews with famous people entering their twilight years. The catch is that episodes will only air after the subject passes away. The full list of interviewees is a closely guarded secret, but last week Netflix quietly posted the premiere episode featuring Jane Goodall."
The Goodall episode has cracked Netflix's top 10 US TV shows list, suggesting this new franchise will have staying power...
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There has been a sudden shift in ~the discourse~ about Taylor Swift. Swifties are facing "all kinds of harsh realities and online scorn, from Swift's absolutely mercenary levels of multiple and expensive versions of physical media to a meh song that seems to be about her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, being a sexual powerhouse. And then there's the reviews," CNN's Choire Sicha writes. Lead single "The Fate of Ophelia" is "getting dragged as much as it's getting streamed," he says.
You can sense the mixed reactions to the new album in this NYT critics chat and this New Yorker notebook titled "Do We Still Like Taylor Swift When She's Happy?" (For the record, I do!)
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Final few notes and quotes |
>> An update on Mark Sanchez: He is "now facing felony charge in Indianapolis fight that left him hospitalized with stab wounds." (CNN)
>> Jimmy Kimmel is back home in LA. (LateNighter)
>> MrBeast "is worried about AI's impact on creators’ livelihoods." (TechCrunch)
>> Instagram is going to award 25 top creators with "a literal gold ring and a matching badge on their profile." (CNBC)
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