Biden's course correction; 'political sectarianism;' week ahead calendar; World Press Freedom Day; reassessing Covid risks; NPR's 50th birthday

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Brian Stelter here at 8:30pm ET Sunday – hitting send early so that I can watch the premiere of CNN's "The Story of Late Night" (9pm ET and PT) in real time. Here's what to watch this week, plus a big anniversary at NPR, Twitter's new campaign, and much more...

Biden's course correction

CNN reporter and resident fact-checker Daniel Dale has noticed something very interesting about President Biden's relationship with fact-checks.

When proven wrong, Biden actually course-corrects.

At least in some cases, the Biden White House has been responsive to fact-checking. "There are some false or misleading that claims that Biden has repeated without correction," Dale said, "but I've counted at least two cases in which he or his team said something wrong; I've fact-checked it as false, others fact-checked it as false; and they never said it again. They significantly amended their language."

This is a concrete example of a post-Trump return to normality.

"One hallmark of Trump's dishonesty is that if he thinks a false or incorrect claim is a winner, he will repeat it constantly, no matter how often it has been proven wrong," The Washington Post's fact-checking staff, led by Glenn Kessler, wrote in the 2020 book "Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth."

"Many politicians are embarrassed to receive a Four-Pinocchio rating; often, they will drop or refine the offending talking point," the authors wrote. "Some even apologize for their departure from the truth. Trump digs in and doubles down."

Biden does the opposite, at least in a couple of highly publicized cases. Here's what Dale said on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" telecast: "One notable example is, they rolled out their infrastructure plan by saying 'This will create 19 million jobs.' Biden himself used a slightly more correct formulation but it was still pretty misleading. And then when I said 'look, this is false, this is misleading,' they never used that 19 million figure again. In fact, it's closer to 2.7 million jobs."

"I'm not saying let's all congratulate them for fixing their false claim," Dale added, "but it's much better and it's much different than what we saw in the Trump era, when you might see the president repeat the same false claim literally 100 times."

>> Read more from Dale about the relative honesty of Biden's first 100 days in this CNN.com story...

It "warms our hearts" when...

Fact-checkers typically say they're working for the public, not politicians. "Regular readers know we don't write fact checks to change the behavior of politicians," Kessler wrote last month. "Still, we'll admit it always warms our hearts when a politician drops a talking point or admits error in response to a fact check." He has called out some Biden claims "that appear impervious to fact-checking," but like Dale, he has noticed Biden course-correct in other cases. After Kessler pointed out a "messed-up calculation of war deaths," Biden no longer made the comparison...

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Where we are: Weaponized lies echo through right-wing media and end up as policy... (Twitter)

-- Jake Tapper on "SOTU:" "It's my opinion that the United States needs a healthy, thriving, fact-based Republican Party. It is difficult to look at these events, all of them just from the last week, and conclude that we have one..." (CNN)

-- Sad but true: "For Republicans, fealty to Trump's election falsehood becomes defining loyalty test," Ashley Parker and Marianna Sotomayor report... (WaPo)

-- Nicole Hemmer on "Reliable," talking about adding key context to fact-checks: "Rather than just saying 'No, Joe Biden isn't coming for your hamburgers,' we can talk about the role that lies play as a rhetorical and a political strategy for trying to discredit the Biden admin..." (CNN)

-- Quick plug: Later this month, I'll be speaking at PolitiFact's "festival of fact-checking..." (PolitiFact)

Monday's media biz calendar:

IAB NewFronts week begins at noon ET, spurring lots of digital media news...

Neeraj Khemlani and Wendy McMahon start work as the new presidents of CBS News and local stations...

The Epic v. Apple trial begins in federal court. Brian Fung has a preview...

Bill Whitaker begins his turn as "Jeopardy!" host...

Pete Hegseth hosts the rotating 7pm hour on Fox News...

Monday is World Press Freedom Day

The UN marks World Press Freedom Day each May 3rd. The theme this year is "Information as a Public Good." Check out the events associated with the day via UNESCO... and/or search Twitter for the #WPFD tributes...

WaPo's newest ad

This full-page print advertisement by The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership is running Monday, highlighting Austin Tice for World Press Freedom Day...

Happy birthday, "All Things Considered!"

The first "ATC" broadcast took place 50 years ago Monday. It included this "sound portrait" of a protest against the Vietnam War held in DC that day. "Times may have changed but NPR's mission and commitment to informing the American public has not," NPR CEO John Lansing says.

The organization is marking the 50th anniversary with this special website; several radio segments; and new merch. Monday's episode of "1A" will spend an hour looking back and an hour looking toward NPR's future...

Later this week...

Tuesday: New books include "The Premonition: A Pandemic Story" by Michael Lewis, "Persist" by Elizabeth Warren, and "The Tyranny of Big Tech" by Josh Hawley...

Wednesday: Fox Corp and Vimeo report earnings after the close...

Thursday: ViacomCBS releases earnings before the bell; News Corp, Roku, and AMC Entertainment, after the close...

Saturday: Elon Musk hosts "SNL." Over the weekend, he solicited Twitter suggestions for skits...

Next Sunday: Mother's Day!

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Margaret Sullivan's Monday column: "The politicians who tried to overturn an election — and the local news team that won't let anyone forget it." I'll have more on this tomorrow... (WaPo)

-- Strategist David Kochel on 2024 jockeying within the GOP ranks: "It's a contest about who can trigger the media and Democrats the most... It's, 'Can I come up with something that's going to inflame Rachel Maddow and raise awareness among conservatives because Fox will cover how much the left hates me?'" (NYT)

"Political sectarianism"

ICYMI, I led Sunday's "Reliable Sources" telecast with a crash course in political science. What is the root cause of all the big and little lies in the news? Is it "political sectarianism?" I talked about this research paper about the subject and interviewed Eli Finkel, who likened it to "holy war." Finkel said his expertise in studying marriages came in handy: "We've basically built the most toxic marriage, the most toxic union, if you will, that I can imagine," he said...

>> Nicole Hemmer added: "It's a ratings winner to say that the other side is inhuman..."

>> Note what the NYT's Nate Cohn observed last month: "Sectarianism has been so powerful among Republicans in part because they believe they're at risk of being consigned to minority status... It is not easy to accept being ruled by a hostile, alien rival..."

WaPo, NYT, and NBC retract Giuliani reports

Oliver Darcy writes: "Over the weekend, three of the country's top newsrooms retracted one of last week's biggest stories. And Rudy Giuliani celebrated the result. WaPo, NYT, and NBC News all published corrections to their reports that said Rudy had been warned by the FBI that he was the target of a foreign interference operation. WaPo, which broke the news, was first to offer a mea culpa — followed shortly by NYT and NBC. The episode once again underscores the perils of reporting that is based entirely on anonymous sources. It's unclear exactly what happened that prompted the news orgs to retract their stories. But NBC's correction offered a hint, saying that a new source explained a briefing was 'only prepared for Giuliani' but not 'delivered to him.' Here's my full story..."

Susan Collins: CBS 'grossly mis-edited' interview

Oliver Darcy writes: "Susan Collins went after CBS News on Sunday during an interview with Jake Tapper, arguing that an early February interview she had done with the outlet had been 'grossly mis-edited' and that it had 'chopped out' much of the context around her answers. Collins' office provided us a copy of the full transcript of her interview — and some of her answers were indeed edited to be shorter. The transcript published by CBS also omitted context from her answers. It seems that the interview was probably edited for time and the person who put it on the web transcribed the portion that aired, not the raw footage of the interview..."

The media's shifting tone about masks

"With new CDC mask guidelines in place, newsrooms are shifting tones when it comes to reporting on the pandemic," Alexis Benveniste wrote for CNN Business Sunday.

I interviewed David Leonhardt and Zeynep Tufekci about this topic on "Reliable Sources." Leonhardt talked about the convincing data about outdoor safety and the extraordinary success of the vaccines. It's critical to start to open back up, he said; "If we stay kind of buttoned up inside our homes forever, we're actually going to be doing much more damage to ourselves..."

>> Another key quote from Leonhardt: "Normal doesn't mean waiting until there is no Covid risk. It means thinking about the fact that if you're vaccinated or you're outdoors, Covid presents the sort of risk that we accept..."

It's your "patriotic duty" to take off the mask if vaccinated

Oliver Darcy writes: "CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner continued on Sunday to skewer the Biden admin for not going far enough in relaxing Covid restrictions. Reiner contended that the CDC and WH 'are behind the curve on this' and pointed out that the vaccines work. And on 'Inside Politics Sunday with Abby Phillip,' Reiner argued, 'Your patriotic duty now is really no longer to wear a mask if you, if you've already done your patriotic duty which is to get vaccinated.' The idea behind this? To show others that the vaccines do work and incentivize people to get them..."

"The Premonition" arrives Tuesday

"When Michael Lewis began work on his book about America's failed response to the pandemic, he had a beginning, but no middle or end," John Dickerson said on Sunday's "60 Minutes." The story was the kickoff to the book tour for "The Premonition," which comes out Tuesday.

"I did something a little unusual with this book," Lewis said. "Into my lap landed, I think, three of the best characters I've ever had. And I thought, let's just write the people and worry about how the story plays out when the story plays out. I got the richest narrative I think I've ever had..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Recommended listening: Dr. Sanjay Gupta in conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, reflecting on the times they talked each other off the proverbial cliff... (CNN)

-- Jean Guerrero writes about "how conspiracy theories about COVID-19 prey on Latinos..." (LAT)

-- "Biden admin officials are aware of the harmful impact of misinformation, but know they are walking a fine line between people who legitimately want more information and those who just want chaos," Nathaniel Weixel writes in his story about how the White House "works to stomp out misinformation..." (The Hill)

Twitter wants us all to #FollowLocalJournalists

The company's pro-reporter campaign "will launch with 28 full-page, color ads in local newspapers across the Gannett/USA Today and McClatchy network," Sara Fischer reports. "The ads will direct readers to Twitter Lists of local journalists created by each newspaper and Twitter." It'll encourage the use of Twitter Spaces as well, and will continue all year...

Apollo buying Verizon Media?

Verizon "is nearing an agreement to sell its media division to Apollo Global Management," Bloomberg's Scott Moritz and Liana Baker reported Sunday, citing sources. The move to "jettison once-dominant online brands like AOL and Yahoo!" could be announced "as soon as Monday." The usual caveats: "No final decision has been made and discussions could fall through..."

>> Verizon is "signaling that it has given up on its media business," the NYT says...

"Help keep Facebook free of charge"

Oliver Darcy writes: "How is Facebook hoping to convince users to let the company track them across apps with Apple's latest privacy update? By suggesting that users are helping to keep the product free by allowing Facebook to collect data on them. Pop-up notices that urged users to 'help keep Facebook free of charge' were noticed over the weekend. Facebook has called them 'educational screens' that provide 'more details about how we use data for personalized ads.' The Verge's Kim Lyons has more details here..."

>> Donie O'Sullivan's point: "In the greater scheme of things Facebook says this does get closer to the truth than most... you're the product on Facebook..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- NBC is forecasting that the final Nielsen #'s will show nearly 15 million viewers for Saturday's Kentucky Derby, "topping all awards shows for the first time ever..." (Twitter)

-- During the derby coverage, MSNBC's analytics star Steve Kornacki correctly picked Medina Spirit to win! And he made a quick buck as a result. Richard Deitsch interviewed Kornacki about his expanding side gig with NBC Sports... (The Athletic)

-- And speaking of beating award show ratings, the NFL draft was a TV sensation... (AP)

NYT Opinion editor: We want to offer solutions

Kathleen Kingsbury joined me on Sunday for her first TV interview since becoming The New York Times' Opinion section editor. We talked about her changes to the section, like replacing the old term "op-ed" with "guest essay." While NYT news pages strive to inform readers about "how the world is," Kingsbury says "our opinion pages are really trying to tell our readers how the world can and perhaps should be."

"What we do every day – my editors, who are the best in the business – is go out and find the best solutions, interrogate ideas and really examine the human condition," she said. Watch...

Catch up on Sunday's Reliable

Catch video clips on CNN.com, watch the entire episode via CNNgo or VOD, or tune into the podcast edition via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app...

Grassley complains about Fox's ticker in bizarre tweet

Oliver Darcy writes: "Chuck Grassley, a US senator who presumably has a full-time comms shop, just can't help himself from posting nonsensical tweets. On Sunday, Grassley posted another, saying 'cable companies are getting to big like goggle [sic] so they can ignore their customers.' Grassley's beef appeared to be that Fox had briefly 'taken their ticker off.' Grassley complained, 'For those of us tired of hearing the same story ten times we can mute and read. So now just turn to another channel NOT HISTORY CH.' And before you wonder, yes, that's a verbatim quote..."

Bill Carter's insight into late night TV changes

With "The Story of Late Night" premiering on CNN tonight, I asked Carter, what about the current landscape of lat- night TV? Are the hosts going easy on Biden? And what about Fox's new entry into the marketplace? Here's what he said...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- "Japanese anime blockbuster 'Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train' edged out video game adaptation 'Mortal Kombat' at the weekend box office, according to Sunday estimates," but "final numbers will be released Monday, and could change the order," Pamela McClintock reports... (THR)

-- "More good news for LA moviegoers: Revival house New Beverly Cinema has set a reopening date of June 1..." (Deadline)