| | | | There's a moment after every mass shooting when the death toll shocks the conscience.
I remember when this happened after Sandy Hook. After Orlando. After Sutherland Springs. After Las Vegas. It happened again on Wednesday.
At first the news reports are by definition incomplete. "Multiple casualties." "At least one dead." Awful but all too normal in America. Then comes the jolt. The realization that this murder spree is orders of magnitude bigger than first thought. The reminder that a single man (almost always a man), often with a single gun, could end so many lives.
On Wednesday, this moment came right around 6pm ET, about three hours after the gunman attacked Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. News outlets had been reporting at least two dead. The sheriff's office had said there were "at least 14 victims," but didn't delineate between injuries and fatalities. Hopefully, hopefully, the sheriff meant injuries. But no. At 5:50pm, ABC cited two law enforcement sources who said at least 15 people were dead in the attack. At 6:04pm, CNN reported "at least 16." Right now the death toll stands at 17.
Just try, try to imagine being a student at MSD. You might well be afraid to go to sleep tonight, afraid of the nightmares. Or you might lie there dreading the day you will have to wake up and go back to the crime scene to learn... | | "The Parkland shooting is now among the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern US history," CNN's Saeed Ahmed reported...
>> Scripps reporter J. Justin Boggs framed it this way: "In the last year, we've seen the deadliest mass shooting, the deadliest church shooting and the deadliest high school shooting in US history..." | | What makes this shooting different | | Watching the news coverage of the shooting, so much is similar to Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. -- the videos of students fleeing campus, the reunions with parents, the interviews with eyewitnesses. But there are some big differences in Parkland. What stands out to me are the number of cell phone videos from students. The terrifying videos place viewers right inside the classrooms and hallways of the school.
In this video from social media, you hear gunshots and screams, more gunshots, more screams. (Because it is so disturbing, anchors on several networks made a point of warning viewers before showing it.) There are other videos as well. In one video clip obtained by the Miami Herald, you see that some students had to walk by several dead bodies on the way out of the building. No doubt even more videos will come out... capturing even more angles of the shooting and the aftermath... | | Students were tweeting, too | | "There's a real school shooting going on right now i'm not even playing i just heard 10 gunshots there's police everything i'm shaking," @luvanth wrote at 2:42. The tweet triggered a Dataminr alert in many newsrooms.
"I'm at a school shooting right now," @Thecaptainaidan wrote at 2:59. Aidan also posted photos from the lockdown, which have now been seen all around the world... | | Heartbreaking text messages | | Some students also shared their texts with loved ones. This woman posted what she said were texts from her sister who was on lockdown in the school. "i am so scared kaitlin." "im so scared." "tell them i love them so so much."
--> On Wednesday night, a law enforcement source told CNN's Evan Perez that officers were "very disturbed by this crime scene today." Quoting Perez: "Beyond the bodies and blood were also piles of backpacks and cell phones dropped, some still ringing unanswered as parents desperately tried to find their kids to see if they were OK..." | | The suspect posted violent messages on Instagram and YouTube | | | Per CNN's investigative team, the suspect "had a variety of gun and violence-related postings on social media sites..." | | -- On Fox, Shep Smith somberly read a list of "all the school shootings that have occurred in the U.S. since Columbine." It was a long segment...
-- On "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer," ex-FBI agent Phil Mudd broke down in tears while trying to express just how unacceptable these mass murders are...
-- Important point by The Atlantic's Isabel Fattal: "America's inability to track gun violence is standing in the way of preventing the next attack..."
-- In the 9pm hour, Sean Hannity cited his decades of radio/TV experience to say "I don't think anybody's mind is going to be changed" by this mass killing. He said it's not about "the gun." But he also talked about finding a "middle ground" to keep kids safe...
-- In the 10pm hour, Don Lemon described gun violence as a "sickness" and said "this is who we are right now. But is this really who we WANT TO BE? A country where anybody at anytime could be shot to death?" | | | "Today is a mass shooting day in the newsroom, which is a thing that exists," Chris Hayes said on his Instagram Wednesday evening. Later, while hosting his MSNBC broadcast, he remarked to a guest that "I have covered probably 20 of these at this point. I was in Las Vegas. I was in Orlando. I was in San Bernardino." His point: "There's a kind of learned helplessness. You feel like you're sitting in a car in neutral and gunning the engine as you watch this transpire." | | | Lulu Ramadan of the Palm Beach Post tweeted on Wednesday evening, "I envy reporters who only covered an out-of-the-blue mass shooting once upon a time. I'm 23, at a community paper & #Stoneman is my third." | | The Onion story is back... | | "'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens"
The Onion has published this piece after Santa Barbara, after Charleston, after San Bernardino, after Las Vegas, and now after Parkland. For background, here's a WashPost story from last fall... | | The conspiracy theories are back... | | | Oliver Darcy emails: In the hours that followed the deadly Florida school shooting, misinformation circulated online. Lucian Wintrich, White House correspondent for the far-right Gateway Pundit, peddled a photoshopped image of a BuzzFeed News story that supposedly said, "Why We Need To Take Away White People's Guns Now More Than Ever." Jon Passantino, BuzzFeed's deputy news director, quickly shot that hoax down, tweeting, "Let me be clear, this is a fake." Things didn't just stop with the Gateway Pundit, however. Others were just as irresponsible. InfoWars, the far-right conspiracy-peddling website, almost immediately suggested the shooting was connected to ISIS, writing in one story, "MSM already covering it up." | | | Many anchors, including CNN's Alisyn Camerota and John Berman and CBS' Jeff Glor, will be anchoring from Parkland. (Glor will co-host "CBS This Morning" along with his evening newscast...) | | The W.H. repeatedly delayed Wednesday's briefing, then cancelled it altogether when the shooting happened. Josh Dawsey tweeted: "Outside her office, Sarah Sanders declined to weigh in on Pruitt's flying, damning VA report or Rob Porter questions. Said White House was only focused on Florida shooting and closed door."
The W.H. doors remained closed. Some journos expressed surprise that President Trump did not address the nation about the shooting. On very short notice, he can speak at any time on any topic. But he remained in the residence on Wednesday evening... His Thursday schedule doesn't include anything on-camera so far...
--> Maggie Haberman tweeted: "Aides tell me that advisors have recommended he say something, but he has opted not to..." | | "I feel today like our government, our country, has failed us and failed our kids." Failed "to keep us safe."
--H.S. teacher Melissa Falkowski on "AC360..." | | Vice's special about the #MeToo movement | | Producers at Vice are putting the final finishing touches on a special episode of HBO's "Vice News Tonight" about the #MeToo movement. The title: ""#MeToo: Women, Men, and Work."
Per Vice PR, the 7:30pm program will "feature interviews, roundtables and first-hand accounts from individuals working in professions across America," from the hospitality industry to the legal world to construction sites. And the special will also "acknowledge that these issues have affected us here at Vice Media as well." The NYT's story about harassment allegations came out in December... and Vice president Andrew Creighton remains on leave... | | Rebekah Mercer slams Bannon and says Breitbart has a new "opportunity" now | | In this op-ed in Thursday's WSJ, Rebekah Mercer seeks to rebut what she says are media caricatures about her opinions and investments. In this graf, she confirms her break with Steve Bannon and suggests Breitbart will be changing now that he's gone:
"I own a minority stake in Breitbart News (where I have no editorial authority) because I believe it adds an important journalistic voice to the American conversation. Stephen Bannon, its former chairman, took Breitbart in the wrong direction. Now that Mr. Bannon has resigned, Breitbart has the opportunity to refine its message and expand its influence..." | | USA Today names new editor | | | Arizona Republic EIC Nicole Carroll is the new head of USA Today... The appointment was made on Wednesday... Carroll told Poynter's Rick Edmonds that she wants to "focus first and foremost on investigative reporting. The need has never been greater." She'll also emphasize innovation in "digital storytelling..." | | "Tom Ashbrook, the talk show host and public radio personality, was dismissed Wednesday from his nationally syndicated program, 'On Point,' after a review of workplace complaints concluded he had created an abusive environment at WBUR-FM," the Boston Globe's Mark Arsenault reported.
Ashbrook has been on leave since accusations against him surfaced in December. On Wednesday he said his removal was "profoundly unfair both to me" and his listeners, and he hired an employment lawyer... Details here... | | -- AZ Senate candidate Kelli Ward touted an "endorsement" from a "fake-news site..." (Politico)
-- Daniella Emanuel emails: Poynter's David Beard interviewed Jarrod Dicker, who's leaving WashPost to become CEO of Po.et, a blockchain startup... (Poynter)
-- A puzzling story: "Were female reporters shut down during Shaun White press conference?" (CNNMoney)
-- Hadas Gold emails: Fox's pursuit of Sky hit another potential speed bump on Wednesday as a judge allowed a case to proceed claiming that U.K. regulator Ofcom did not properly vet Fox when it deemed the company "fit and proper..." (The Guardian) | | DOJ's AT&T lawsuit heats up as DOJ antitrust chief added to witness list | | Someone told the NYT and the WSJ that AT&T lawyers are including DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim on their list of witnesses for AT&T and DOJ's upcoming date in court.
"The step is unusual because AT&T is essentially seeking to put the lawyer leading the suit against it on the witness stand," Hadas Gold writes. If the company really does call Delrahim to the stand, it might be "part of a strategy to portray the lawsuit as motivated by unfair targeting and not due to any antitrust concerns." Both sides declined to comment on the reports... | | Layoffs at Women's Health mag | | | "Hearst Media is laying off at least 15 editorial employees from its newly acquired Women's Health magazine, as part of plans to combine that publication's staff with other Hearst brands, including Cosmopolitan," FastCo's Cale Guthrie Weissman reported, citing sources. "Currently only 10 people remain from the Women's Health editorial team, while others have been offered severance packages with the potential chance to land a new job on the newly combined editorial team..." | | -- Former E! host Catt Sadler will co-host Vanity Fair's Oscar party live stream... (THR)
-- YouTube TV is expanding... Adding Turner channels like CNN and TNT, plus NBA TV and MLB Network... New subscriptions "will now cost $40," up from $35... (Engadget)
-- Is YouTube Red "having an identity crisis?" (Digiday)
-- Ben Fritz's latest: "Hollywood's push to offer movies at home sooner for a premium price has become a casualty" of Disney-Fox... (WSJ) | | This is a must-read about Reince | | Chris Whipple, author of "The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency," sat down with Trump's first chief of staff Reince Priebus while working on an updated edition of the book. And the conversations with Priebus were a gold mine. This VF excerpt has lots and lots of news... More than anything else, I was struck by this quote... Regarding the sense of a White House in disarray, Priebus told him, "take everything you've heard and multiply it by 50."
This is what lots of outsiders suspect -- that it's a lot worse inside than we know, and the truth will eventually come out -- and Priebus sounds like he's admitting as such... | | "Stormy is going to tell her story" | | We haven't heard the last of the Stormy Daniels story. Far from it. Her manager told the AP on Wednesday that "everything is off now, and Stormy is going to tell her story." Meaning, she feels free to talk about Trump because Michael Cohen confirmed the existence of the $130,000 payment. Hmmm. We'll see...
--> Also: Even though Cohen says the payment was "lawful," legal experts "say the matter is far from settled..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: Before anybody rushes to book that big "get" interview with Stormy Daniels, the producers should go back and watch her appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." While Daniels is now indicating that Cohen's statement about paying her violated her nondisclosure agreement, anybody who books her without assurances that she's not going to pull another "speak no evil" act would fall into the "fool me twice, shame on me" category... | | | Brian Lowry emails: NBC has seized upon an interesting metric for touting its Winter Olympics ratings, consistently calling its nightly performance the "most dominant" night in Olympics history relative to its broadcast competition. On Tuesday, that included more than doubling the combined audience for ABC, CBS and Fox, a regular occurrence since the Games began... | | Who's missing in PyeongChang | | | Daniella Emanuel emails: In this interview with People, Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie were asked about covering their first Olympics without Matt Lauer. "There's no question this has been a transition," Guthrie admits. "We're just trying to move forward and appreciate the good situation we have now and we'll just continue to try to do our best..." | | | Megan Thomas emails this recommended read: "The Out Olympics" by The Atlantic's Spencer Kornhaber. "[Adam] Rippon and [Gus] Kenworthy are among 14 openly LGBT athletes from around the world at Pyeongchang -- the highest number for any Winter Olympics ever. The results, so far, have been a crash course in gay aesthetics, politics, and personalities. Openness, viewers have been reminded, can make great TV -- and a great difference in lives..." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Julia Waldow:
-- A big change for Forbes' network of mostly unpaid contributors: The site "will pay all of its contributors, but purge the worst," Ben Mullin reports... (WSJ)
-- Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow is turning his weekday radio show into "a regular forum for trashing the legitimacy of the federal probes into Trump's Russia connections," Politico's Darren Samuelsohn writes... (Politico)
-- Snapchat is now giving influential users a slew of audience insights on everything from unique viewers to demographics, potentially paving the way for better ad deals... (CNN Tech)
-- With Chrome's built-in ad blocker set to debut on Thursday, TechCrunch reveals what types of ads users can expect to disappear... (TechCrunch) | | "As the Streaming Wars Heat Up, Ryan Murphy Cashes In" | | That's the headline on John Koblin's followup to his Tuesday night scoop about Ryan Murphy's deal with Netflix. The five-year, roughly $300 mil deal is the latest sign of an "overheated atmosphere," as Koblin puts it, with the streaming services "spending in manic style."
Koblin's kicker: "The question now is: How long will the streaming companies continue to spend in a George Streinbrenner-like fashion for talent?" | | What will Dana Walden do now? | | | Fox TV group co-CEO Dana Walden is tight with Murphy. Her Fox contract is up this summer. Koblin quotes her saying that if Fox-Disney hadn't happened, "I think" Murphy "would have been close to a new deal with us." She also says "there's a new template in town" thanks to Netflix: "For any uber-premium creator, the value has gone up 10 times. And Ryan is a once-in-a-lifetime creator..." | | What the Murphy deal means | | | Brian Lowry emails: Two of Wednesday's news stories speak in some respects to the uncertainty raised by the Fox-Disney deal. Most directly, Netflix's poaching of Murphy -- coming on the heels of its deal with Shonda Rhimes -- sends a message to Disney and other content producers that the streaming service is going to up the ante for talent. Ted Sarandos nabbed Murphy after Bob Iger personally sought to reassure him and other bold-faced names about their post-Fox future. The big winners in the short term, as I noted when Rhimes jumped from ABC Studios, will be agents who represent A-list creative players... In fact, WME's Rick Rosen is quoted in Koblin's story saying "top talent wants to pitch to Netflix..." | | | Brian Lowry adds: The CW, meanwhile, announced that it's expanding its programming from five nights a week to six, a signal not only of its successes but also perhaps a means of planting its flag in another night, given the questions about whether Fox's profile might change after the network sheds its programming arms... | | T-minus one day til "Black Panther" | | | Just how big will "Black Panther" be? "Disney anticipates an opening in the $150 million range for the four day holiday weekend," Frank Pallotta reports. Sounds low to me! Analysts expect an even higher total... As Pallotta's story notes, "Black Panther" could "easily become the biggest February opening in history..." | | Netflix cancels "Disjointed" | | | The Chuck Lorre-produced Netflix comedy "Disjointed" has been cancelled after one season... Variety's story notes that "Lorre is also prepping the single-camera comedy series 'The Kominsky Method' at Netflix, which will star Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin..." | | | For the record, part four | | | -- Megan Thomas emails: This made me laugh: NBC's Keith Morrison read the phone book as a Valentine's Day gesture for fans of his voice...
-- More from Megan: The Obamas are proving #RelationshipGoals-worthy once again... Michelle Obama made a very sweet Spotify playlist for the former president in honor of the day. It featured songs from Andra Day, Coldplay and Beyoncé among others...
-- Lisa Respers France emails: Lena Dunham has talked extensively about her struggle with endometriosis, and now the former "Girls" star has revealed she underwent a hysterectomy to try and end her pain... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
