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TGIF! Here's the latest on Comcast, Kari Lake, Bernie Sanders, Media Matters, Meta, IMAX, and much more...

👀 All eyes on the East Wing

It all started with an excavator — and a source who thought the public ought to know.

The Washington Post published a startling photo of the East Wing of the White House being demolished on Monday afternoon, triggering a week-long news cycle about President Trump's wrecking ball approach to the presidency. The "on-the-nose metaphor" has been driven home by photos, videos, live feeds and even satellite maps of the teardown. Government officials have seemingly discouraged people from seeing and sharing the construction project, so that's why I want to highlight all the ways journalists made sure it was seen.

The Post's scoop by Jonathan Edwards and Dan Diamond was thanks to anonymous sources: A tipster who took a picture and "two people who witnessed the activity."

"Within minutes, it was national news — the image spoke for itself — as Americans across the country processed the biggest changes to the 'People’s House' in generations," Diamond wrote in a Substack post.

Other reporters scrambled to see it for themselves. Since movement on White House grounds are limited, some walked to a park near the Treasury Department for a decent view.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Day by day, White House aides have recognized they had a messaging problem. Trump and Karoline Leavitt have defended the project and MAGA commentators have pushed back on the widespread criticism. NY Post columnist Miranda Levine asserted that Trump knew what he was doing by surprising everyone: "As a seasoned property developer, he knows that you never give naysayers time to complain."

Maybe this relates to the "cloak of secrecy" over the teardown. For a brief period yesterday, the Secret Service closed access to a park where CNN and Reuters had been capturing live images of the demolition. Stephen Colbert made light of this last night: "If none of it's on camera, they can just claim the East Wing hanged itself in prison." 

"The Trump administration has restricted the public from most vantage points," the Post's latest story notes. And when CNN's Kit Maher tried talking to construction workers leaving the East Wing area yesterday, "some told me they signed NDAs," while "others said everything has to go through the WH press office."

But the project is ultimately too big to hide. One of the most striking views of the demolition came from a passenger on a plane flying out of National Airport yesterday. It was reshared on X and other sites millions of times. This morning, CNN's homepage is highlighting "dramatic," before-and-after satellite imagery of the demolition.

Comcast criticized for ballroom donation

News outlets are also highlighting the list of companies that have donated money toward the ballroom project. Tech giants Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google are all on the list. So is Comcast, which has made for some interesting moments on MSNBC, the cable news channel that is still owned by Comcast, but is currently being spun off into a separate company called Versant.

MSNBC has disclosed Comcast's donation during numerous outraged and anguished segments on the demolition. "With all due respect to Comcast," David Frum said on air during Nicolle Wallace's show, the company is not donating "for love of ballroom dancing; they're doing it with an expectation of something in return." Reporters and Wall Street analysts have recently noted that Comcast M&A activity (like a possible bid for all or part of WBD) could be impeded by Trump's disdain for MSNBC and the rest of Comcast...

IN OTHER NEWS...

NBA gambling scandal news, presented by sports gambling

Andrew Kirell writes: Sports media outlets have become promoters of and stakeholders in online sports betting — causing some seriously awkward moments yesterday after the news broke that the FBI had arrested NBA Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier as part of a massive sports gambling case.

"Sports gambling... was something leagues stayed far away from," a stunned ESPN host,  Mike Greenberg, said moments after the news broke. "It was something networks like ESPN would stay far away from. Those days are obviously long behind us." All the while, an ESPN Bet promo ("Bet $10, Get $100") ran on-screen below him. ESPN removed the promo mid-broadcast, but screenshots went viral.

Max Tani spotted another example: Spotify podcast "The Zach Lowe Show" and its latest episode, titled "Breaking Down the NBA's Latest Gambling Scandals," is presented by... FanDuel, a massive sports betting app.

 >> "The mixed messages are everywhere," writes CNN's Dana O'Neil. "Consider that longtime broadcaster Brent Musburger got summoned to the ESPN offices for referring to an over/under during a college football game, and now game breaks are littered with ads from FanDuel and DraftKings, and the network has its own sportsbook, ESPNBet."

Coming up this weekend...

"Nobody Wants This" season two has launched!

The World Series starts tonight on Fox. Pharrell Williams and Voices of Fire will open the game with a special performance.

CNN's "FlashDocs" unit is prepping a documentary for Sunday night "about the Louvre jewel heist that shook Paris."

Great weekend reads, part 1️⃣

 >> Angela Fu breaks down “how Chicago journalists are covering Trump's immigration policies while living through them.” (Poynter)

 >> Jessy Edwards says "Taxi TV is MAGA now," noting that Newsmax is now playing in some of NYC's yellow cabs thanks to a deal with Curb. (Hell Gate)

 >> Charlie Warzel says the "AI slop is winning," and "our brains are being sous-vided in machine-made engagement bait like poor Pikachu until they're tender and succulent enough to fall apart on contact." (The Atlantic)

 >> Marine Doux says "Meta's ban on political ads in Europe" has unsettled newsrooms there. (CJR) 

 >> Renee DiResta says "there never was a Biden censorship-industrial complex," but MAGA officials are "using this conspiracy to justify their own censorship." (The UnPopulist)

Lying about the Pentagon press

Pro-Trump commentators continue to lie about what went down at the Pentagon this month. Kari Lake went on Newsmax earlier this week and claimed major newsrooms have "abandoned covering the Pentagon because if they can't... force people at the Pentagon to break the law and leak BS stories to them they don't want to cover it at all." That's not true, and BTW, as Scott Nover noted, Newsmax is one of the many outlets that "refused to sign the Pentagon policy."

 >> As Barbara Starr said during our segment on "The Situation Room" yesterday, Pete Hegseth is "embracing influencers and calling them 'press,'" while "the Pentagon press corps of journalists continues to break scoops around the clock."

 >> Breanna Morello of Infowars has been credentialed by the Pentagon.

New survey about political violence

"Americans say politically motivated violence is increasing, and they see many reasons why," according to this new Pew Research Center survey.

When respondents were asked to name the main reasons for this violence, they cited rhetoric from the other side and general polarization. "Sizable shares" also mentioned the media environment, Pew said, though the numbers were lower than you might expect. Read on...

Political media notes and quotes

 >> Another incremental legal win for Media Matters: "US appeals court blocks FTC subpoena targeting Media Matters for now." (Reuters)

 >> "With the NYC mayoral race coming to a close, Andrew Cuomo is courting right-wing creators," Makena Kelly reports. (WIRED)

 >> "The demand for tales of left-wing violence is outpacing the supply of actual incidents," Will Sommer writes in his latest must-read about MAGA media misbehavior. (The Bulwark)

Trump casts shadow over WBD bids

Wall Street analysts keep pointing out that Trump's personal preferences may weigh heavily on the WBD deal process. The commentary is a stark reminder of how the president has reshaped the government — and its regulatory oversight bodies — in his own image. (I wrote more about that for CNN.com here.)

 >> Last night, Charlie Gasparino quoted an anonymous "senior Trump administration official" saying that "who owns Warner Bros. Discovery is very important to the administration" and that the WBD board "needs to think very seriously" about "which player in the suitor pool has been successful getting a deal done. And that points to the Ellisons."

 >> Matt Gertz of the aforementioned Media Matters responded by commenting, "The Orbanization of the U.S. media is happening in plain sight, with the president using regulatory power to direct the sales of news outlets to his wealthy allies." Ellison's fans, on the other hand, say he's simply adept at realpolitik. Some of the critics who portray Ellison as a Trump "ally" might be forgetting that he donated to Joe Biden's campaign last year...

Bernie blasts Larry Ellison

Sen. Bernie Sanders focused on David Ellison's father Larry in a social media burst yesterday. "Trump's billionaire friend Larry Ellison bought CBS. Now he's after CNN. Next up: TikTok. All with Trump's backing," Sanders wrote. "This is how media works in authoritarian societies — a very dangerous trend."

 >> For a refresher about the Ellison family and its (complicated) political connections, re-read Hadas Gold's CNN.com story from last month...

Briefly…

 >> Bari Weiss has begun looking "for a fresh face to helm the 'CBS Evening News,'" Oliver Darcy writes. Naturally, she has expressed interest in Bret Baier, though he has a long-term contract with Fox. (Status)

 >> "The return of the NBA on NBC helped deliver the best opening night since 2011." (SBJ)

 >> Here we go again: Disney is starting to run "public messages to YouTube TV subscribers warning them of a potential blackout" at the end of the month. (CNBC)

 >> CNN alum Michelle Toh has launched a new YouTube show called "Behind the Business." (YouTube)

Today's tech talk

 >> This week's layoffs at Meta "included employees who monitored risks to user privacy," Mike Isaac and Eli Tan report. (NYT)

 >> In other Meta news, it is "bringing its AI-powered photo and video editing tools directly to Instagram Stories." (TechCrunch)

 >> New this morning: "Facebook and Instagram are breaching Europe's Digital Services Act rules related to the handling of illegal content, moderation, and transparency, according to a preliminary decision issued by the European Commission," Jess Weatherbed reports. (The Verge)

 >> YouTube says it paid out more than $8 billion to the music industry in a recent 12-month period and calls it a "testament to the fact that the twin engine of ads and subscriptions is firing on all cylinders." (TechCrunch)

 >> Surprised? New research shows that "AI assistants make widespread errors about the news." (Reuters)

Great weekend reads, part 2️⃣

 >> Lisa Bonos pens a thoughtful column about "the people who dare to say no to artificial intelligence." (WaPo)

  >> Nicole Nguyen says, "I've been using several AI web browsers lately. I’m never going back to the boring old kind." (WSJ)

 >> Mary Julia Koch encourages folks to journal, rather than spend time on the socials: "Keeping a diary helped me to heal — and to remember." (WSJ)

 >> Ross Douthat says Taylor Swift's latest album is "both coarse and conservative," an "in that sense it’s an appropriate text for the Trump era." (NYT)

 >> Peggy Noonan's weekend column might give you chills: "A Republic, but Can We Keep It?" (WSJ)

IMAX goes big

"Imax is seeing a surge in global box office based on a mix of Hollywood and local language titles and other alternative fare to drive revenue and profit gains, judging by the film technologies company's third-quarter financial results unveiled Thursday,” THR’s Etan Vlessing reports.

GammaTime bets on small

"Traditional studios and startups are jumping on the microdrama bandwagon that has swept through China and is making inroads in the U.S. and elsewhere," the WSJ's Joe Flint reports.

 >> The latest example: Former studio exec Bill Block is launching GammaTime, "a microdrama platform with more than 20 shows including two from the ‘CSI’ creator, Anthony Zuiker."

This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here. Hope you have a great weekend!