UFOs get '60 Minutes' spotlight; Moonves settles with ViacomCBS; Israeli military accused of deceiving press; BuzzFeed finds Biden's Venmo; weekend reads

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Oliver Darcy here at 9:45pm ET with the latest on a possible 1/6 Commission, Les Moonves' settlement with ViacomCBS, Facebook's race to remove anti-vaccine photo frames, and how BuzzFeed found President Biden's Venmo account. Plus, were media outlets intentionally tricked into falsely reporting Israel had launched a Gaza ground invasion? But first...

🛸 Flying under the radar? 🛸

Is one of the biggest stories of our time flying a bit under the radar? (No pun intended.) Well, this weekend it's getting the "60 Minutes" treatment.

Earlier this week, the NYT's Ezra Klein wrote this banger of a lead: "The most curious subplot in the news right now is the admission, at the most senior levels of the United States government, that the military services have collected visuals, data and testimonials recording flying objects they cannot explain; that they are investigating these phenomena seriously; and that they will, in the coming months, report at least some of their findings to the public. It feels, at times, like the beginning of a film where everyone is going about their lives, even as the earthshaking events unfurl on a silenced television in the background."

I can see the film sequence right now... Can you?

From the conspiratorial fringes to the mainstream

As Klein pointed out in his piece, the topic has been elevated in recent years from the conspiratorial corners of the web and late-night talk-radio programs to the pages of The New York Times. In 2017 the paper published a story about the Pentagon's "mysterious U.F.O." program. And in 2019, it published an explosive story about unexplained flying objects, citing former Navy pilots.

More recently, last month, the New Yorker's Gideon Lewis-Kraus published a story about how the Pentagon "started taking U.F.O.S. seriously." Lewis-Kraus wrote, "For decades, flying saucers were a punch line. Then the U.S. government got over the taboo." It's no longer just the feds. Society also seems to be less dismissive of the notion that UFOs exist. That seems to be taken as a given fact in 2021. The real question is: What are they?

Reports are en route

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other agencies are set to deliver reports on UFOs — or, as the gov't refers to them, UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) next month. And as CNN reported recently, the Department of Defense's watchdog is also "set to examine how the Pentagon has handled reports of UFOs." Which is to say, this story will likely soon gain some traction in the news...

The "60 Minutes" spotlight

The most-watched news program on US TV, "60 Minutes," is set to air a story on UFOs this Sunday. We wondered if it was the first time "60" has trained its cameras toward the unidentified flying skies, so we checked, and a spokesperson for the program confirmed that it is, indeed, the newsmag's first segment dedicated to this topic. (A 1996 story about Area 51 was mostly about a lawsuit over personnel hurt on the base that was tossed because the base is classified.)

The Sunday segment is led by Bill Whitaker. Here's the CBS tease: "Former Navy Lieutenant Ryan Graves says he and other members of his F/A-18 fighter squadron detected strange, maneuverable and unidentified objects flying in the restricted airspace southeast of Virginia Beach nearly every day for two years beginning in 2015. The sightings were so common, he says, pilots and their crews began to take them for granted. Graves is calling those objects a threat to security in a 60 Minutes interview..."

Collapse in public trust?

In his column, Klein wrote that "even if you think all discussion of aliens is ridiculous, it's fun to let the mind roam over the implications." He put it like this: "The way I've framed the thought experiment in recent conversations is this: Imagine, tomorrow, an alien craft crashed down in Oregon. There are no life-forms in it. It's effectively a drone. But it's undeniably extraterrestrial in origin. So we are faced with the knowledge that we're not alone, that we are perhaps being watched, and we have no way to make contact. How does that change human culture and society?"

"One immediate effect, I suspect, would be a collapse in public trust," he added. "Decades of U.F.O. reports and conspiracies would take on a different cast. Governments would be seen as having withheld a profound truth from the public, whether or not they actually did. We already live in an age of conspiracy theories. Now the guardrails would truly shatter, because if U.F.O.s were real, despite decades of dismissals, who would remain trusted to say anything else was false? Certainly not the academics who'd laughed them off as nonsense, or the governments who would now be seen as liars."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Liz Cheney is continuing her media blitz. She told Jake Tapper on Friday that some Republicans voted against impeachment out of fear for their lives... (CNN)

-- Cheney also sat down with ABC's Jon Karl for Sunday's "This Week." She told Karl she believes Kevin McCarthy should "absolutely" testify before a potential commission probing the insurrection... (ABC)

-- She called out Fox during Bret Baier's show on Thursday, so it's also worth noting that she'll be on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace...

-- CBS News is releasing new polling "on the state of the Republican Party" Sunday morning... (Twitter)

-- A DHS bulletin issued Friday warned that "ideologically-motivated violent extremists fueled by perceived grievances, false narratives, and conspiracy theories continue to share information online with the intent to incite violence..." (NBC)

-- "A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Justice Department must create a digital 'drop box' where media outlets can access videos used in Capitol riot court cases after 15 news outlets, including CNN, sought body camera and surveillance video that's been seen by judges but not the public," Katelyn Polantz reports... (CNN)

What will the 1/6 Commission find?

The potential for a 1/6 Commission took a big step forward Friday, with a key Republican and key Democrat agreeing on legislation to be introduced on the House floor. That agreement calls for a commission to study not only the facts around the US Capitol attack, but also the "influencing factors that may have provoked the attack." That suggests to me that, if this commission does become a reality, right-wing media could find itself as a focus of the investigation. As I wrote on the day of the attack, right-wing media gathered the tinder — Trump just lit it on fire. No honest assessment of the insurrection can exclude the role of those who spent weeks peddling disinformation about the election...

Moonves settles with ViacomCBS

"ViacomCBS and former CBS CEO Les Moonves have settled their arbitration over the executive's firing by the company," THR's Alex Weprin wrote Friday. Remember the $120 million that CBS set aside in case Moonves prevailed? It's being returned to the company. However, an unnamed "contractor to CBS" is also involved -- apparently it's one of the law firms behind the Moonves probe, Covington & Burling -- and "the cost of the settlement will be borne by the contractor," per a corporate statement. "Moonves has decided to contribute the entire settlement amount to various charities..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- After the Israeli military announced its ground forces were "attacking in the Gaza strip," several news orgs published stories about an invasion. But there was no invasion. "While the army attempted to play down the incident as a misunderstanding, well-placed Israeli military commentators said the media had been used as part of an elaborate ruse to lure Hamas militants into a deadly trap that may have killed dozens of fighters," Josef Federman reported Friday evening... (Associated Press)

-- David Halbfinger reported that reps for NYT, WaPo, WSJ, NPR, and AFP "peppered" the Israeli military's spokesman "with questions about whether they had been turned into accessories to the military, why it had taken hours for the invasion report to be reversed, and how they would be able to trust the military's statements going forward..." (NYT)

-- A CNN crew was hit with rocks while reporting from the West Bank. Correspondent Ben Wedeman called the scene the "curse of the Holy Land..." (CNN)

Coming up this weekend...

On Saturday the Preakness Stakes are live on NBC... The post time is 6:47pm...

CNN will premiere a new documentary, "Race for the Vaccine," Saturday at 9pm...

Keegan-Michael Key will host "SNL" with musical guest Olivia Rodrigo...

Rochelle Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci will fan out across the Sunday shows...

Fareed Zakaria will host "A Radical Rebellion," a special about the state of the GOP, Sunday at 8pm...

The MTV Movie & TV Awards are on Sunday night, with Leslie Jones as host...

This Sunday on "Reliable Sources"

Brian Stelter writes: "On Sunday morning I'll be joined by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, voting rights reporter Ari Berman, and incoming WaPo editor Sally Buzbee; plus Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Peter Wehner, Juliette Kayyem, and Jake Tapper. See you at 11am ET on CNN..."

Ok, so now what?

So much of Friday's news coverage was asking, and trying to answer, the "now what" question, in the wake of the CDC's abrupt change to masking guidance. The front page of Saturday's WaPo sums it up in five words: "New mask guidance triggers confusion." Different states and stores are moving at different speeds. CNN.com's lead headline right now is a helpful resource: "Where vaccinated shoppers can go maskless..."

Masks are off in briefing room, but...

Following the CDC's new guidance for those immunized against Covid, many masks were seen off during Friday's press briefing. That said, as you can see in the image above, the White House Correspondents Association is still limiting the number of reporters permitted in the room — to the dismay of some. I asked WHCA President Zeke Miller about this and he said that new guidance is in the works and should be out early next week. There are a number of issues to address, including the current daily testing requirement for journalists at the White House. It's worth noting that while the majority of the White House press corps is fully vaccinated — Miller said the number stood just above 80% on Friday, per WHCA's survey — some still are not...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- "How long have we been waiting for this moment?" Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb anchored the "Today" show side-by-side, without a mask or social distancing, on Friday... (Today)

-- Bill Maher is off the air but feeling just fine. He thanked fans for their support following his Covid-19 diagnosis, Lisa Respers France reports... (CNN)

-- Chas Danner writes that the coronavirus lab-leak hypothesis "just got a big credibility boost..." (NYMag)

-- April Glaser and Brandy Zadrozny report on how "viral anti-vaccine infertility misinfo" is reaching "new extremes..." (NBC News)

"Facebook races to remove anti-vaccine profile picture frames"

That's the headline on CNBC's Lauren Feiner's Friday story. Feiner reported that "despite a policy banning anti-vaccine messaging on its platform" Facebook has "continued to host profile picture borders that allow users to promote their anti-vax opinions." Feiner said that when she reached out about one frame, Facebook said it violated its policies and removed it. But Feiner added she was "quickly able to find at least a dozen other examples of profile picture frames that touted similar messages or at least toed the line of Facebook's policy." Facebook told her it's working to remove the frame options, though Feiner reported that "hours after CNBC's initial outreach, many of the frames are still available for users to add to their profiles..."

BuzzFeed finds Biden's Venmo account

It took less than ten minutes for a team of BuzzFeed reporters to identify Biden's secret Venmo account. "On Friday, following a passing mention in the New York Times that the president had sent his grandchildren money on Venmo, BuzzFeed News searched for the president's account using only a combination of the app's built-in search tool and public friends feature," Ryan Mac, Katie Notopoulos, Ryan Brooks, and Logan McDonald explained. Shortly after, they found it. The reporters used the incident to highlight Venmo's "privacy nightmare" and how "peer-to-peer payments app leaves everyone from ordinary people to the most powerful person in the world exposed."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- "Facebook's secret internal rules for moderating the term 'Zionist' let the social network suppress criticism of Israel amid an ongoing wave of Israeli abuses and violence," Sam Biddle reports, citing people who reviewed the policies... (Intercept)

-- "As Iran gears up for a presidential election, people from across the political spectrum are taking to the audio app Clubhouse as a rare forum for debate inside the country..." (AFP)

Meredith Kopit Levien v. NYT Tech Guild

Kerry Flynn writes: "NYT has yet to voluntarily recognize NYT Tech Guild, despite doing so for Wirecutter's union in 2019. Discourse Blog's Jack Crosbie reported Meredith Kopit Levien explained her reasoning during an all-hands meeting Thursday. Levien said Wirecutter's union had 'overwhelming support' and was a union for 'journalists' and not 'digital product development and tech people.' But neither of those reasons make much sense. For one, the union said a majority have already signed union cards. And as former NYT writer Charlie Warzel tweeted, 'honestly outrageous given how much the paper has benefitted from (and how much nyt journalists' work benefits) from the paper's excellent technical infrastructure.' NYT PR did not respond to a request for comment..."

"There were these blazing stars" and "they just disappeared"

Why did WaPo have to look outside its newsroom during its search for Marty Baron's successor? Politico's Paul Volpe, who interviewed more than 20 current and former staffers, reported Friday that it was in part because the paper's "executive leadership pipeline has long been so male dominated that ... there were no women internally who were considered leading candidates to be the next executive editor."

Volpe pointed out that WaPo "was once home to some of the most prominent women in journalism." But Volpe reported there was a lack of opportunity for those women. "Every one of us wanted to move up, but there was no chance," a former female senior editor told him. "There were these blazing stars who you thought were going to take off, and then they just disappeared."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- Amid criticism from Glenn Greenwald and right-wing media, The Intercept published a lengthy statement standing by its reporting on Gab and the "Riot Squad..." (Intercept)

-- Alex Thompson and Theodoric Meyer write about Delaware's The News Journal, or as the duo put it, "the world's most powerful local paper..." (Politico)

-- Cecilia Vega, Nancy Cordes, Kristen Welker, Kaitlan Collins and Yamiche Alcindor "open up about holding the current administration to account while lifting each other up..." (THR)

-- Summer Fridays? Of course! More media agencies are planning to introduce or resume the perks... (Digiday)

-- A bipartisan group of legislators reintroduced the Future of Local News Act, first introduced in September, that would create a committee to study the state of local news and recommend actions to Congress... (Poynter)

-- CeFaan Kim has been named an ABC News correspondent... (ABC PR)

Weekend reads, part one

By Brian Stelter:

-- This, by Joe Flint, is the deepest profile of WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar anyone has done. To borrow Kilar's phrase: "Sounds juicy..." (WSJ)

-- An important column by Margaret Sullivan: "Reality Winner was the FBI's 'head on a pike' for Trump. It's time to set her free." (WaPo)

-- A stunning Column One story about Pop Smoke, penned by Matthew Ormseth: "A rising rapper, an ill-fated Instagram post and a killing in the Hollywood Hills..." (LAT)

-- A great read about the disastrous impact of muddled public health messaging: Megan Molteni profiled Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech aerosol scientist who discovered "a teensy error with huge consequences." Read about what happened when she "decided to collect some data of her own..." (WIRED)

-- Happiest media story of the week? "7News's Juliana Mazza was reporting on a stolen dog in Cambridge. Then she and her photographer saw the suspect with the pup." Here's her TV report... (Boston)

Jim Campbell on the "Reliable" podcast

Jim Campbell, radio host and author of the new book "Madoff Talks: Uncovering the Untold Story Behind the Most Notorious Ponzi Scheme in History," corresponded with Bernie Madoff for years. He convinced former members of Madoff's inner circle to talk, too. And he reported out an exhaustive insider account of Madoff's crimes. Then Madoff died in prison just two weeks before Campbell's book came out. So Brian and Campbell talked about all of that, and more, on this week's RS podcast. Tune in via Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your preferred app...

Weekend reads, part two

By Katie Pellico:

-- Jon Allsop reflects on "a tragic week in Palestine," and the media's role... (CJR)

-- "The average Indian media consumer is inundated with misinformation from the time they open the day's paper to when they lie in bed scrolling on their smartphones at night," writes Sonia Faleiro. Read about the challenges facing the co-founders of Alt News, "one of India's most reputable fact-checking organizations..." (Rest of World)

-- Clubhouse "is exploding in popularity in some Middle Eastern countries. Can it keep its users safe?" Jacob Silverman reports "autocratic regimes are already taking notice of Clubhouse's growing prominence..." (TNR)

-- Lucy Feldman details the yearlong, behind-the-scenes process that led to Time magazine's first BIPOC-led issue... (Time)

-- DeShuna Spencer "was tired of seeing Black stereotypes on TV. So she started her own streaming service..." (CNN)

-- TV writers Liz Alper and Deirdre Mangan co-wrote this must-read column: "In Hollywood, is the press the new human resources?" Their short answer: "We cannot let it be..." (THR)

The broadcast TV upfronts begin Monday

Brian Stelter writes: "I feel like the stories I was writing ten years ago, about the diminishing importance of the broadcast TV upfronts, are finally becoming true. The song-and-dance shows for advertisers are streaming affairs once again this year, which immediately makes them feel smaller. And with linear ratings continuing to sag, the stakes feel lower and lower. Still, lots of ad $$$ is up for grabs starting Monday..."

Missing from NBC's fall lineup...

Brian Lowry writes: "NBC announced its fall primetime lineup in advance of the upfronts, and for the first time in memory the network offered a lineup without any sitcoms on it, holding those for later in the season. Instead, in a clear desire to serve comfort food to viewers after the pandemic year, the network will follow its trio of 'Chicago' dramas on Wednesday with a similar stack of 'Law & Order' shows on Thursday, with the new drama 'For the Defense' joining 'SVU' and 'Organized Crime.'"

>> Lowry adds: "NBC also confirmed that 'This is Us' will end its run after the coming season. More long-running sitcoms, meanwhile, are signing off: 'Mom' concluded its run Thursday – attracting a season-high 6 million viewers – and Fox's 'Last Man Standing' will do the same next week, with NBC's 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' ending this summer. 'Black-ish' will also end after next season, series creator Kenya Barris announced on Friday..."

In other upfronts news...

"Four days before ABC's upfront presentation, the network has made its first new scripted series pickups for the 2021-22 season, with nods to music-themed drama Queens and comedies The Wonder Years, Maggie and Abbott Elementary..."

Lowry reviews this weekend in streaming

Brian Lowry writes: "Thumbs way down for 'Spiral: From the Book of Saw' – starring Chris Rock in an extension of the horror franchise, which has produced eight previous movies – and 'The Woman in the Window,' which languished on the shelf even before Covid, and which finally lands on Netflix. Amy Adams plays an agoraphobic woman who witnesses a murder, in a film that made me yearn for the great outdoors. Netflix fares slightly better with 'Halston,' with Ewan McGregor playing the fashion icon in Ryan Murphy's latest tribute to style over substance. FX, meanwhile, kicks off 'Pride' – exploring the history of LGBTQ rights, examined by different filmmakers across decades – which will subsequently be available on Hulu."

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

-- "Miley Cyrus has signed a wide-ranging overall deal with NBCUniversal. The singer-songwriter, actress and performer will develop and appear in projects across the NBCU Television and Streaming portfolio..." (THR)

-- "A 'Bridgerton' spinoff about a young Queen Charlotte has been ordered to series at Netflix..." (Variety)

-- Lisa Respers France writes: "R&B singer Tank has revealed that he's going deaf..." (CNN)

"The Resident" is tackling real-world medical issues

Lisa Respers France writes: "According to 'The Resident' showrunner and executive producer Andrew Chapman, there was a time when the medical drama took some heat from those in the field. 'We were really the first show to show problems in medicine and to really attack them and we took a lot of flack from doctors all across the country saying, 'Why are you doing this?' Doctors are heroes, et cetera, et cetera,' Chapman said. Now, Chapman says it has all turned around. I spoke to him, one of the drama's stars, and two of the show's writers about how they tackle real-world medical issues..."