| | | | | Exec summary: What's going on with: Newsweek? Spotify? The LA Times? Megyn Kelly's show? Congress? James Franco? That's what this edition is all about... Plus, Sundance is underway and the government might shut down... | | NEW TURMOIL AT THE LOS ANGELES TIMES | | "Frat-boy executive" running the paper? | | NPR's David Folkenflik reported on Thursday afternoon that the Los Angeles Times' new CEO and publisher, Ross Levinsohn, "has been a defendant in two sexual harassment lawsuits and that his conduct in work settings over the past two decades has been called into question repeatedly by female colleagues."
Folkenflik conducted 26 interviews and reviewed court documents, among other things. He writes that what he found suggests "a pattern of questionable behavior and questionable decisions on the job. The portrait that repeatedly emerges is one of a frat-boy executive, catapulting ever higher, even as he creates corporate climates that alienated some of the people who worked for and with him." Make sure you read Folkenflik's story here...
--> What did Levinsohn do when Folkenflik started poking around? He called NPR CEO Jarl Mohn, Folkenflik says. He tweeted that "Mohn reminded Levinsohn of the concept of a firewall protecting newsrooms from corporate pressure..."
--> CNN has confirmed through court records that the two lawsuits Folkenflik reported on were filed... | | Tronc says it didn't know of the allegations | | The LAT's parent company, Tronc, issued a statement after the NPR story hit: "This week, we became aware of allegations that Ross Levinsohn acted inappropriately. We are immediately launching an investigation so that we have a better understanding of what's occurred. At Tronc, we expect all employees to act in a way that supports a culture of diversity and inclusion. We will take appropriate action to address any behavior that falls short of these expectations."
--> Levinsohn was hired in August. It was a big deal at the time. Why wasn't Tronc "aware" until now? | | How the paper is covering the story | | Pour one out for Meg James, the LATimes reporter who wrote about Thursday's news... Her story points out that the newsroom's union organizing effort is the backdrop for this current controversy: "On Friday, the National Labor Relations Board is set to announce the results of an election held to determine whether newsroom staffers want the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America to represent them in collective bargaining."
--> Context: Levinsohn has been a top target of the guild's organizing committee. On Thursday evening the group said he is "not fit to lead our newspaper" and should be fired... | | What will the Tronc board of directors do? | | The LA Times newsroom is in a state of revolt. On Thursday night, per Folkenflik, twelve senior editors at the paper issued a statement saying they're aware of "additional, credible reports" of misconduct. "Such behavior is unacceptable and jeopardizes The Times' 136-year legacy of integrity."
As far as I can tell, Levinsohn hasn't answered anyone's requests for comment. And Tronc PR simply referred me back to the earlier statement. So what will the board decide to do? | | Manhattan D.A. raids Newsweek HQ | | Hadas Gold is back from her honeymoon! And back writing stories: "Investigators with the Manhattan's District Attorney's office raided the headquarters of Newsweek Media Group, the parent company of Newsweek and the International Business Times, on Thursday," she writes. "The DA's office executed the search warrant and multiple sources told CNN that authorities took pictures of computer servers. Two sources with knowledge of the situation said staffers were told by management the search had something to do with loans and the purchase of the servers.
>> Update: Late on Thursday, the company confirmed the visit by the investigators and said "no information regarding the company's content, stories, personnel, or sources was given." And: "Newsweek Media Group has been assured by the DA's office that the investigation is not about any content-related issues...." | | Problems behind the scenes at "Megyn Kelly Today" | | This email had been circulating inside NBC for a few days. Now it's public. It's a 4,400-word dossier alleging "abusive treatment," bullying, incompetence, etc. by "Megyn Kelly Today" executive producer Jackie Levin and co-EP Christine Cataldi.
According to Page Six, Kevin Bleyer was fired from the show on Tuesday, right after he sent the dossier to NBC HR. Then he shared his detailed notes about Levin and Cataldi with other staffers. On Thursday The Daily Mail published his dossier in full. Page Six framed the story this way: "He was fired even though Kelly has made fighting abuse her personal crusade. Plus, in the wake of Matt Lauer's firing, NBC ordered all staff to report workplace bad behavior, supposedly without fear or reprisal..."
--> NBC's response: "Jackie and Christine are being attacked unfairly. They are both excellent and experienced producers, and have the full support of everyone here. They, and the team, are fully focused on continuing the show's momentum as it continues to climb in the ratings."
--> New statement from NBC when I inquired on Thursday night: Bleyer "was let go for one reason only: he was the wrong fit for this role, as a comedy writer at a morning news broadcast." | | Reality TV crew arrested at Newark airport | | "At least seven members of a cable television crew were arrested after they tried to sneak a fake explosive device through a security checkpoint at Newark Liberty International Airport, the Transportation Security Administration said Thursday," NJ.com's Paul Milo reports.
The crew was apparently working for a production company affiliated with Endemol Shine Group. And the show was in the works for CNBC. So far, CNBC is declining to comment... Here's what Endemol told me: "We are looking into the details of what happened as a matter of priority and are in contact with relevant authorities on the ground. While this process is ongoing we are unable to comment further but in the meantime, we sincerely apologize for any disruption caused." | | -- No standards? No vetting? "Trump appointee Carl Higbie resigns as public face of agency that runs AmeriCorps after KFile review of racist, sexist, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT comments on the radio..." (CNN)
-- HuffPost's unpaid contributors platform, a big part of the site's foundation back in 2005, is going away... This has been expected for a while... Lydia Polgreen explained the change here... (HuffPost)
-- Snap is laying off "two dozen employees, including some from branded content teams..." (The Verge)
-- The Atlantic is poaching Natasha Bertrand from BI... She'll continue covering the Trump/Russia investigation... | | Amid all the "shutdown?" coverage... | | | What will happen on Friday? I'll defer to the experts. But Sam Stein tweeted something worth considering: "The paucity of voices in the stories about the shutdown of people whose lives do actually hang in the balance on this. Its relative absence is evident in the coverage and among those doing the coverage..." | | Reason's EIC of everything | | | Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason mag's EIC for the past 18 months, will now be the EIC of the whole place -- print, digital, and video... Nick Gillespie shifts to editor at large... (Reason) | | "The NYT Defends Its Trump Fan Takeover" | | That's the headline on Lloyd Grove's latest. He digested the angry reactions to the paper's decision to print a page full of letters from steadfast Trump supporters on Thursday.
>>> On Friday, the rebuttals appear in print: Two letters from Trump voters who regret their decision, plus other letters from readers who say "please don't ever do that again..." | | How the Fox-Trump feedback loop causes trouble | | Go behind the scenes with Politico: "White House aides say the president woke up spoiling for a fight and focused his attention on the spending deal after it came up on his favorite cable news show." That would be "Fox & Friends." More...
--> Another trouble spot: Trump's relationship with COS John Kelly. Here's how the NYT depicted Thursday morning: "As the television blared, he typed out a series of tweets that rebutted Mr. Kelly without actually naming him..." | | "The Art of the Deal" v. "Fire and Fury" | | | Fresh reporting by James West: "According to numbers provided exclusively to Mother Jones by Donald Trump's co-author and the country's leading book sales tracking company, 'Fire and Fury' is projected to reach 1.75 million in sales, while Trump's 'Art of the Deal' has only sold up to 1.67 million during the decades it has been available in bookstores." But there are lots of caveats to this... Read West's story for all the details... | | Help out David Fahrenthold! | | | Another smart crowd-sourcing attempt by the WashPost whiz. On Thursday he tweeted: "YOUR HELP NEEDED: I'm trying to start a constantly-updated Q-and-A that will update readers about @realDonaldTrump's businesses & conflicts of interest. Now i need the Q's. So....what big-picture questions do you find yourself trying to answer?" | | Who's connecting the dots? | | "Discussing character can be tricky, because we in the media often do such a poor job of it." Paul Waldman is right about that. He raises some important points in this new piece for The Week.
Pull quote: "The media has from the beginning been enthralled with the Trump show, and as a result, at times the coverage seems disconnected from past or future. You could drop into any moment in the first year of his presidency and learn about the crazy thing he tweeted that day, but it would probably seem to have no bearing on what came before or after. Today we're talking about what he did or didn't say about African countries to a group of senators, next week it will be something else, and the week after that it will be yet another thing." This is an ongoing challenge and opportunity for newsrooms: Who's really connecting the dots well? | | | Lee Alexander emails: In the last year, a lot of TV time and ink has been devoted to answering this question: "Why is the United States so divided?" Seven photographers from the Washington Post flipped the framing: "What unites us?" After 102 interviews with people from all 50 states, they have created a fascinating snapshot of the U.S. one year after Trump's inauguration. Read insights from the photogs here... | | This week's "Reliable" podcast guest... | | | ...is Charlotte Alter, the author of this week's Time mag cover story about the surge of women running for office as a result of the Trump presidency. The pod will come out on Friday afternoon... | | -- Dylan Byers tweeted: "Happy First Birthday to Axios, which fast succeeded in becoming a must-read for people across politics, media, tech and beyond. Rare media growth story in the age of cuts and closings... #ReaderFirst"
-- Bloomberg is retiring its "Gadfly" brand and consolidating its "opinion offerings" under the name "Bloomberg Opinion..." (WSJ)
-- New from Gizmodo: "We Sued for Roger Ailes' FBI File—Here's What We've Got So Far..." (Gizmodo) | | | "Former Missouri politician and reliable Trump supporter Ed Martin is out as a CNN contributor," THR's Jeremy Barr reported Thursday. CNN confirmed the news and declined to comment further. Barr said Martin "essentially filled the Trump-backer slot that was vacated when the network fired Jeffrey Lord..." | | Spotify to offer audio newscasts | | Spotify "will begin offering news and political coverage to lure listeners away from radio and podcasts" from Apple, Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw reports. BuzzFeed, Refinery29 and six other brands "have agreed to produce programming for the new initiative, called Spotlight." This is part of Courtney Holt's effort to "figure out what the company should be doing beyond music..."
--> BuzzFeed EIC Ben Smith told me: "We aim to be the MTV News of Spotify, with Julia Furlan as Kurt Loder..."
--> The Q for producers: How much is Spotify willing to pay for these shows? | | | For the record, part three | | | -- The NYT just posted the first on-camera interview with Moira Donegan, the creator of the "media men" spreadsheet... (NYT)
-- Sam Bee nailed it Wednesday night: "We know the difference between a rapist, a workplace harasser and an Aziz Ansari. That doesn't mean we have to be happy about any of them..." (Vox) | | Listen; vet the allegations; and publish carefully | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: Matthew Belloni shared an editor's column on Thursday detailing THR's investigation into allegations made against Michael Douglas by journalist and author Susan Braudy. As you'll recall, Douglas gave an exclusive interview to Deadline, denying the allegations against him before THR's story ran. In that interview, Douglas was critical of some media outlets' behavior in this time of #MeToo.
Belloni responds to this in the column, rejecting the idea that "the media is either complicit in a burgeoning witch hunt or, worse, exploiting the situation for notoriety or web traffic or whatever."
"While there are stories that have crossed a line, I don't think the solution is to listen to women less or dismiss their stories more," he writes. "Responsible media outlets, it seems, should be listening to these stories, vetting them thoroughly and presenting those that pass muster in the proper context." | | SAG Awards get ready for #MeToo close-up | | Brian Lowry emails: The #MeToo/Time's Up movement dominated the Golden Globes, and continued into the Critics' Choice Awards. Up next: The Screen Actors Guild Awards, which, along with the Producers Guild of America's honors this weekend, figure to extend the balancing act between tackling the issue and self-congratulation, while adding further clarity to the wide-open Oscar race. Read Lowry's full preview here...
Speaking of the SAGs: | | | Chloe Melas emails: A rep for James Franco tells me he will attend the SAG Awards this weekend. There's been speculation as to whether he'd go since he skipped the Critics' Choice Awards last week -- and he even won an award that night. A friend of Franco's tells me that his decision to attend comes after women like Ashley Judd have praised him for how he's handled the accusations of misconduct against him: "It has been a really tough time, but James has appreciated the support from his friends and others both in and out of the industry." Franco is nominated and it'll be interesting to see what he says on stage if he wins. | | | Lisa Respers France emails: Dylan Farrow detailed the alleged abuse by her father Woody Allen in her first televised interview, which aired on "CBS This Morning" on Thursday. She also talked about what's been happening in Hollywood with victims coming forward... Read more... | | | "As Sundance begins its 2018 edition in Park City on Thursday, the question weighs on the minds of many in the film business: Can the feast continue? And just as important: Should it?" Here's Steven Zeitchik's curtain-raiser for the WashPost... | | Here's what Amazon wants to buy | | Amazon Studios "plans to shift resources from independent films to more commercial projects," Reuters' Jeffrey Dastin and Jessica Toonkel report... "The change in the movie strategy parallels a similar shift in Amazon Studios' TV operation, which is also moving to bigger-budget fare. Amazon expects to go after films with budgets in the $50 million range at the expense of indie projects costing around $5 million, one person familiar with the plans said..."
--> Related: Joe Adalian's deep dive into streaming TV cancellations... | | Lowry reviews "12 Strong" | | | Brian Lowry emails: The search for another breakout war movie has been in pretty much full swing since "American Sniper" became a huge hit. "12 Strong," a fact-based post-Sept. 11 story starring "Thor's" Chris Hemsworth, looks as if it's too by-the-numbers to qualify... Read more... | | What should reviewers do? | | More from Lowry: In this new column, THR's Tim Goodman weighs the evolving role of TV criticism, and whether critics should cut back on reviews of mediocre or bad shows in order to try steering people toward more deserving ones. Personally, it's a balancing act, one that's constantly in flux these days. But I still think there's a populist strand to this -- namely, that it's worth considering whether a lot of people are apt to watch a show in deciding to write about it.
Case in point: Fox's "The Resident," which will premiere Sunday after the NFC championship game, will likely be sampled by as many people as the next 10 new cable/streaming shows combined. Ignoring programs like that isn't necessarily serving readers/viewers and, from an admittedly self-serving perspective, might also mean sacrificing web traffic... | | | For the record, part four | | | Lisa Respers France emails:
-- Justin Timberlake says he's made peace with Janet Jackson after that Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction...
-- Breakthrough rapper Cardi B has surpassed Beyoncé on the charts... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... I love the feedback, corrections, suggestions, and tips. Thank you! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
