Biden the 'storyteller;' Facebook's hot potato; Fox's acquisition; 'please buy this newspaper;' are Wednesdays the new Fridays?

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Hey! Brian Stelter here at 11:15pm ET with the latest on Facebook, Fox Corp, Jeff Bezos, "Emily in Paris," Sean Penn, ICM, and more...

View from the Biden White House podium

There's a lot of news today about the people out of power and their methods of propaganda. But let's begin with those in power. In a pair of new interviews, White House press secretary Jen Psaki shared a lot about her approach to the job, the news cycle, media fragmentation, and Twitter. Here are ten takeaways...

Psaki's focus

In a candid interview with her former Obama WH colleague David Axelrod on "The Axe Files" podcast, coming out Thursday morning, Psaki likens President Biden to "a storyteller." She says "he's always looking to tell the story, and he is always pushing and testing whether we're speaking about things in an accessible way."

-- Psaki defends Biden's accessibility to the press corps while saying, of the times he spontaneously fields Q's, "that is not something we recommend." She says, "In fact, a lot of times we say 'Don't take questions,' you know, but he's going to do what he wants to do because he's the president."

-- Psaki says, bluntly, "We're never going to satisfy the White House press corps and their desires for access. And I think there have been mistakes made in the past of trying to do that."

-- Another candid comment: "We're often asked, 'Why doesn't he go to the border?' Important issue. We're focused on it. What percentage of the public is focused on the border? A much smaller percentage than who's focused on the pandemic and the economy. So that may be maddening, but, you know, that's what we try to do."

-- On the transition from the Trump WH to the Biden WH: "We're kind of still in recovery from the 'Game of Thrones' period of our history here that, you know, some of some of what I think the job is in this moment -- and this won't always be and certainly hasn't been historically -- is kind of reaffirming and restating like what the role of government is, right? And what the role of agencies are and what the role of policy processes are and how a bill becomes a law."

-- On the 2021 news cycle: It's "so fast that even what's in the print newspaper is rarely going to be what we're going to talk about at the briefing that day."

-- On her tenure: Psaki makes clear that she loves the challenge and the responsibility, but, "I think it's going to be time for somebody else to have this job, in a year from now or about a year from now."

This full episode of "The Axe Files with David Axelrod" podcast will be online Thursday AM...

A new tone from the top

Psaki was interviewed Wednesday during a virtual symposium held by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service and the White House Correspondents' Association. Mo Elleithee moderated the convo. Some notable observations:

-- Times are tough, times are stressful, "but the tone" from the briefing room "is a part of the message we're sending too, to the country, to the world," Psaki said.

-- Attendance at the briefings is still severely restricted due to Covid. "It's our hope to get back that up to about 50 percent or so sometime in the next few weeks, now that so many of our press corps is getting vaccinated," she said.

-- On media fragmentation: "Our job is to get information out to the public," Psaki said. "The media is a means of doing that. It's not the only means of doing that."

-- On this WH's tweeting strategy: "The big audience of Twitter for us is the media... You're actually speaking to the media through Twitter. You're not trying to go around them. Because a lot of reporters are on Twitter."

Flashback: Four years ago today, Sarah Sanders held her first on-camera briefing for the Trump WH, filling in for Sean Spicer...

"The president's view"

At Wednesday's briefing, Psaki declined to say anything specifically about the Facebook Oversight Board's ruling on Trump, but she did come prepared with a comment about FB et al: "The president's view is that the major platforms have a responsibility related to the health and safety of all Americans to stop amplifying untrustworthy content, disinformation and misinformation, especially related to Covid-19, vaccinations and elections," she said. "His view is there's more that needs to be done to ensure that this type of misinformation, disinformation, damaging, sometimes life threatening information is not going out to the American public."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- With Biden traveling to Louisiana on Thursday, Psaki's principal deputy Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a gaggle aboard Air Force One...

-- Don't miss Jessica Goldstein's story about the reporters awkwardly "rooting" for Psaki, who they describe in the piece as a "pro" and "competent" compared to the press secretaries of the Trump years... (Washingtonian)

-- "The Bidens appeared to have turned into giants" during their visit to the Carters last week. Heather Murphy wrote about the "wide-angle oddity" here... (NYT)

-- Biden responded to Mitch McConnell's comment that "100%" of his focus is "on stopping this new administration" by "asserting that he had heard such threats from the Kentucky Republican before and worked through them..." (CNN)

"Unplug the polarization electricity"

I love the way John Harwood put this on Wednesday, in describing Biden's discipline when talking about the GOP's descent into deceit. Harwood said Biden's policies "are bold/aggressive," but "he's trying through his words and manner to unplug the polarization electricity." So: Is unplugging really possible?

He's at it again...

...I'm sorry to say. Tucker Carlson led his show with another disgraceful anti-vax segment on Wednesday. His banner said "EVERYONE IN AUTHORITY WANTS YOU TO GET YOUR VACCINE," and it went downhill from there, with Carlson fear-mongering about mass deaths. Since Fox won't dare to fact-check him, other news outlets will have to. Here's a prebuttal from Reuters a month ago: VAERS data does NOT prove that thousands died from receiving vaccines. PolitiFact also wrote about the database just a couple of days ago, explaining how it's become "a breeding ground for misinformation..."

>> Carlson keeps pretending to "ask questions" when the answers are readily available. He could interview his colleagues who have the answers, but he doesn't...

>> The aforementioned Mo Elleithee, one of Fox's small number of Democratic contributors, tweeted in response to Carlson, "Please ignore anyone who tries to make you question the safety of getting vaccinated. Trust the science that has proven that getting vaccinated is the best way to make us all safe."

>> Charlie Warzel reminds us all: "Newsworthiness is a choice masquerading as an inevitability. There is no Hippocratic Oath for journalism that suggests we must amplify lies or provide our most shameless politicians with an endless supply of attention."

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Best thing I read today about this phase of the pandemic: People will "increasingly have to make their own judgments about Covid-19 risks," Joseph G. Allen writes... (WaPo)

-- Dr. Jonathan Reiner on "The Lead:" "Over the next few weeks we're going start to see deaths in the United States drop dramatically. Having said that, come fall we're going to need to be vigilant for any resurgence..." (Twitter)

-- Advance tickets for Broadway shows will go on sale on Thursday, and the theaters will be "ready to open September 14 at 100% capacity," Andrew Cuomo announced... (CNN)

-- What a line: "The last time the theater industry opened from a pandemic, Shakespeare was still writing new plays..." (NYT)

-- "CNN has set a May 15 debut for Race for the Vaccine," a documentary narrated and produced by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, featuring extraordinary access to the labs and the scientists who made the vaccines... (THR)

Facebook's hot potato

While the Oversight Board upheld FB's riot-related ban of Trump, it also said the "indefinite" nature of the ruling was unjust, and gave FB six months to decide Trump's fate. "By choosing to hand the decision back to Facebook," Donie O'Sullivan wrote, the board put Mark Zuckerberg's "powerful role in overseeing public discourse in the United States in the spotlight, along with the arbitrary nature of how Facebook moderates its platform. Forcing Facebook to make the decision was in itself an exercise of the board's power and independence." Read on...

Right-wing media claims bias, of course

Oliver Darcy writes: "This was arguably the least predictable consequence of the Oversight Board's ruling. Right-wing media orgs and prominent GOP politicians immediately accused Facebook — and, more broadly, Big Tech — of having an anti-conservative bias. 'CONSERVATIVES CENSORED,' blared a banner on Fox. 'BIG TECH TYRANNY,' read another, as if promoting Josh Hawley's new book. Most notably, some influential voices explicitly called for revenge in the form of regulation. Read my full story here." 🔌: Oliver will be on "New Day" in the 6am hour with more...

Trumpism lives on

Despite the Trump account ban, it's critical to see how Trumpism continues to live on and flourish on the platform. The Facebook Top 10 — Kevin Roose's bot that posts the top-performing links over the previous 24 hours — underscored this with Wednesday's list. Nine of the top ten posts on the platform were from conservative sources like Dan Bongino, Sean Hannity, and Ben Shapiro. As I said on "AC360," this contradicts all the censorship rhetoric...

Questions moving forward

>> Oliver Darcy asks: "Will Facebook ultimately decide to permanently remove Trump's account? Or will the company surprise everyone by deciding against taking such stringent action?"

>> Will this case end up with the Oversight Board again?

>> Donie O'Sullivan asks: "What happens if FB does decide to suspend him indefinitely by November, but then he becomes a candidate... or is re-elected in 2024... how permanent is a permanent ban?"

>> The Oversight Board said Facebook needs to "undertake a comprehensive review of Facebook's potential contribution to the narrative of electoral fraud." Will FB do it, and if so, what will that review find?

>> Kara Swisher also has some questions for Mark Zuckerberg, including, "Why build a platform that requires an arbiter of truth if you don't want to be one?"

THURSDAY PLANNER

It's National Nurses Day... TikTok, Meredith, Penske, NBCU and others will present at the final day of the IAB NewFronts... News Corp will report earnings after the bell... "That Damn Michael Che," a sketch comedy show featuring the "SNL" regular, will premiere on HBO Max...

NYT reveals a new reader stat

Kerry Flynn writes: "When NYT earnings landed on Wednesday, the first # I looked for was total subscribers. That's because it really matters to the company and they're getting so much closer to the '10 million by 2025' goal. But this time around, Meredith Kopit Levien surprised me with a new stat: 100 million registered users. Subscription growth is down, which the NYT attributed to transitioning off the 2020 news cycle, but the opportunity to convert users to subscribers is big. More details in my story here..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- The NYT "is facing the wrath of several journalists who are accusing the publication of creating a fake controversy surrounding Billie Eilish's new British Vogue cover," Andrew Shuster writes. The takeaway: Entire stories shouldn't be built out of random Twitter comments... (Mediaite)

-- The newest episode of Slate's "Slow Burn" podcast about the Iraq invasion is titled "Selling the War on the Sunday News Shows..." (Slate)

-- Ariel Edwards-Levy, most recently of HuffPost fame, is joining CNN as polling and election analytics editor... (Twitter)

-- Andrea Valdez, founding editor in chief of The 19th, will join The Atlantic as SVP of audience strategy later this month... (The Atlantic)

-- Pegged to the Oversight Board's ruling, Adam Satariano and Cecilia Kang are out with a new profile of FB comms chief Nick Clegg... (NYT)

"Please buy this newspaper"

The latest plea for a break-up of Tribune's newspapers came from inside the pages of a Tribune publication. In Wednesday's NY Daily News, reporter Larry McShane practically begged someone local to "step up and save New York's Hometown Paper." His SOS came as Alden Global Capital closes in on its takeover of Tribune. Here's my full story about it...

>> Related: On Wednesday the NewsGuild formally made its case that shareholders "should reject Alden's takeover offer," Poynter's Rick Edmonds reports...

"Fox News keeps profits flowing at Murdoch's Fox Corp"

That's the headline on Edmund Lee's earnings story for the NYT. Fox News "kept its parent company flush in the first three months of the year, notching a slight gain in profit and sales despite a drop in viewers," he wrote. Ad sales at the cable segment also dropped somewhat, but subscriber fees matter more to the bottom line. "Fox News still makes up the vast majority of Fox Corp's profits," Lee noted...

Fox acquires Clay Travis' sports site

Oliver Darcy writes: "Lachlan Murdoch announced on Fox's Wednesday earnings call that the company has acquired Clay Travis' sports website Outkick. (You might recall that the outlet recently ran a very friendly interview with Tucker Carlson.) The WSJ's Joe Flint noted in his story that the site's 'right-leaning viewpoint' is 'in sync' with Fox's own programming. Murdoch said he expects that 'the synergies presented across Fox's existing portfolio of assets will turbocharge this exciting business...'"

NewFronts Day 3: The buzzword is incremental

Kerry Flynn writes: "A big theme from NewFronts 2021 is increased attention to diversity. Snap's Peter Naylor started his presentation by saying, 'We repudiate racism.' Vice Media Group touted its diverse audience and newsroom and announced more plans for Refinery29's Unbothered. Twitter noted at least 50% of creators in its Amplify program come from underrepresented communities. BuzzFeed showcased its Latinx culture brand Pero Like and Black culture brand Cocoa Butter. Ken Blom, BuzzFeed's SVP of ad strategy and partnerships, told me he wants brands to know: 'You should be funding journalism, and you should be funding these audiences...'

Flynn adds: "Snap's Naylor dubbed 'incremental' the buzzword of NewFronts 2021. I asked BuzzFeed's Blom if he agreed, to which he said, 'The buzzword you won't hear is fragmentation. Everyone's pitching incremental because they realize this is fragmented. I need to make sure I'm incremental to someone's spend..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Happy anniversary to The Guardian, which celebrated its 200th birthday on Wednesday... (Guardian)

-- A sneak peek at Brad Stone's new Jeff Bezos book: Bloomberg Businessweek published a big excerpt from "Amazon Unbound," with revelations about Bezos and the National Enquirer... (Bloomberg)

-- There are four new books atop the NYT's nonfiction lists this week: Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey's "What Happened To You?" is No. 1, followed by Malcolm Gladwell's "The Bomber Mafia," the anthology "You Are Your Best Thing," and Leslie Jordan's "How Y'All Doing?" (NYT)

-- Craig Hunegs, the president of entertainment at Walt Disney Television, "has decided to step down six months after a major restructure at the company..." (Deadline)

The LAT investigates ICM

As the talent agency ICM Partners has grown, it has "confronted persistent questions over its treatment of women," the LAT's Wendy Lee wrote in an in-depth investigation that came out Wednesday morning.

Lee's topline finding: "More than 30 former and current ICM employees said in interviews that the company tolerated a hostile work environment, where women and people of color were subjected to harassment, bullying and other inappropriate conduct. Since 2017, nearly a dozen women reported allegations of mistreatment by male agents and managers companywide to ICM Partners' human resources department or senior leaders, according to interviews with the women and those with direct knowledge of the incidents." Read on...

Lowry reviews "Citizen Penn"

Brian Lowry writes: "Sean Penn admits during 'Citizen Penn' -- a documentary that chronicles his humanitarian efforts in Haiti, and the organization that grew out of it -- that he's not always an easy guy to like. But when it comes to putting his actions where his money and mouth are, Penn, like many other celebrities, does more than just talk the talk, despite what fashionable targets they have become for voices on the right. The film is airing on Discovery+..."

Wednesdays are the new Fridays?

Brian Lowry writes: "Disney+'s 'Wednesdays are the new Fridays' pitch – shifting the premiere date for Marvel's "Loki" to Wednesdays – might reflect a slightly optimistic outlook on the summer for movies: Why compete with films hitting theaters for attention when you can beat them by a couple days (the same strategy, incidentally, that Netflix follows with most of its movie releases)?"

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- Lisa Respers France writes: "I talked with Glenn Close, who told me her performance of 'Da Butt' at the Oscars wasn't scripted. The esteemed actress has a new album coming out and a newfound appreciation for go-go music..."

-- One more from Lisa: "Kelly Osbourne and her older sister are so different that she says they are not even on speaking terms..."

-- "Emily in 'Emily in Paris' is going to be a bit more Parisian in Season 2," Marianne Garvey writes. "Creator Darren Star says Emily, played by Lily Collins, will learn how to better assimilate into French culture..."

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...

Dog of the day!

Reader Nancy Young emails: "Abbey waits patiently for me to read Reliable Sources so we can discuss it when we can finally go out for a walk. She always has an interesting opinion..."