Unidentified aerial phenomena; 'first responders battling the unimaginable;' Garland credits the media; Springsteen back on Broadway; Lowry's weekend streaming guide

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Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy here at 10:02pm ET Friday with a co-anchored edition of the newsletter, covering UFOs, Google, Bulletin, Merrick Garland, GB News, "F9," the Daytime Emmy Awards, and much more...

The truth is (still) (far) out there

"We are living in times of uncertainty," says "The X-Files" creator Chris Carter -- times when "truth may be unknowable."

Into that unstable environment, the US intelligence community dropped a long-awaited report about "unidentified aerial phenomenon" on Friday afternoon. UAP? That's not a user-friendly acronym. So let's stick with UFOs. Per CNN's team, "the Pentagon said in a statement after the report's release that it plans to formalize the study of UFOs." And Rep. Adam Schiff said it's "increasingly clear that unidentified aerial phenomena are not a rare occurrence." Lawmakers are vowing to take this issue seriously. There are national security issues at stake, along with the public's hopes and dreams and fears.

But for Carter, who wants to believe we are not alone, Friday's report was "D.O.A." because it "revealed nothing conclusive" -- and besides, "the portions that remain classified will only fuel more conspiracy theories." This line from Carter's guest essay for the NYT stood out to me:

"'The Truth Is Out There,' 'Trust No One,' 'Deny Everything' went the provocative catchphrases on 'The X-Files,' but that was in the '90s, when we had a relatively shared reality. The slogans are now a fact of life..."

A reporter's POV

I asked CNN's Zachary Cohen about what it's like for national security and intel reporters to cover this story. It's certainly unique, Cohen said: "For one, it's pretty fascinating that so much of this story is about what the US government does not know or more importantly, is unable to definitively rule out, including aliens. When you read this report, it doesn't even list alien aircraft as one of the possible explanations -- but the first question asked of US officials and lawmakers is almost always about aliens. The response to those questions has typically been 'there is no evidence' these objects are from another world, but with the added caveat of 'we will follow the data wherever it takes us.' "

How it's being covered

-- The AP's lead by Nomaan Merchant: "A long-awaited US government report on UFOs released Friday makes at least one thing clear: The truth is still out there..."

-- CNN: This is "one of the first times the US government has publicly acknowledged that these strange aerial sightings by Navy pilots and others are worthy of legitimate scrutiny..."

-- NYT: The result "is likely to fuel theories of otherworldly visitations..."

-- The Guardian summed it all up in six words: "They're real, but are they alien?"

-- And the LA Times editorial board had this to say: "What are we, interplanetary social rejects? If E.T. or his kind come for a visit, they never seem to want to talk to us..."

My personal favorite theory

Just for fun: It's the theory that these UAPs or UFOs or whatever are humans from the future. Producer Gavin Purcell asked this Q on Twitter on Friday: "If the aliens, who possess sufficiently advanced technology from us, didn't want to be seen, would they?" Publishing exec Eric Nelson posited the following: "If the UFOs are flown by intelligent life, it's almost certain they are humans with time machines." There you go – debate amongst yourselves...

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- How the Minneapolis Star Tribune captured hometown history: "Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced Friday afternoon to 22½ years for murdering George Floyd last year..." (Star Tribune)

-- The NYT's Friday scoop, quickly matched by CNN and other outlets: "The Manhattan district attorney's office has informed Donald J. Trump's lawyers that it is considering criminal charges against his family business..." (NYT)

-- Speaking of Trump, he called into Newsmax Friday morning while his former Acting DNI Ric Grenell was guest-hosting on the network... (Newsmax)

-- Michelle Toh's latest: "Apple Daily's demise deals another blow to Hong Kong's battered reputation..." (CNN Business)

-- One of this weekend's biggest stories: A historic heat wave will peak in the Pacific Northwest... (CNN)

"Have hope"

In an emotional interview with Wolf Blitzer Friday evening, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Andy Alvarez urged the families of people still missing at the Champlain Towers to "have hope." Alvarez said "we are doing everything we can in our efforts to go and comb this building and try to find anyone that is still viable that we can save." That was the overarching theme of Friday's coverage, from everything I watched and read.

CNN's Chris Cuomo, one of several CNN anchors at the site, tweeted this photo along with the caption, "Those of us who lived 9/11 remember the silhouette of the first responders battling the unimaginable... here they are again against so many challenges... smoke from who knows where and who knows what... just to get to loved ones."

Weekend reads

By Katie Pellico:

-- News coverage "continues to underplay the climate story, regarding it as too complicated, or disheartening, or controversial," write Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope, the co-founders of Covering Climate Now... (Orlando Sentinel)

-- Go "inside a Chinese propaganda campaign." NYT and ProPublica analyzed more than 3,000 videos, identifying "evidence of an influence campaign" in "one of China's most elaborate efforts to shape global opinion..." (NYT)

-- Andrew Deck explores "the Chinese content farms behind Factory TikTok..." (Rest of World)

-- Don't miss this piece by Nicole Santa Cruz, a ProPublica reporter formerly with the L.A. Times. She shares what she learned by "covering hundreds of homicides..." (LAT)

-- A weekend listen: On the newest episode of WNYC's "On The Media," Brooke Gladstone spoke with Barbara Roessner, the founding editor of new non-profit news outlet The New Bedford Light, "about the challenges facing the fledgling outlet and the benefits that local journalism brings to the civic health of a community..." (WNYC)

Bruce Springsteen is bringing Broadway back

Saturday kickstarts Broadway's reopening, as Chris Jones eloquently writes for the NY Daily News: "The Saturday night audience will be stoked, celebrity-encrusted and double-jabbed. And then it will be up to The Boss to bring Broadway back. And it's been one long walk home."

>> "Theater has been this Holy Grail in the unseeable distance... Finally, Bruce has convened us all," Jujamcyn Theaters head Jordan Roth said...

>> On a related note, NYC is launching a marketing campaign with "an urgent plea for visitors to start rushing back..."

WEEKEND PLANNER

The Women's PGA Championship airs Saturday at 1pm ET on NBC...

The US Olympic men's gymnastics trials begin at 4pm on NBC. The track and field trials air at 9pm and continue on Sunday at 7pm...

Trump holds a campaign-style rally in Ohio on Saturday evening...

Mitt Romney sits down with Jake Tapper on "SOTU" Sunday morning...

The BET Awards are live at 8pm Sunday...

This Sunday on "Reliable Sources"

I'll talk with Adam Serwer, whose book "The Cruelty is the Point" comes out Tuesday, and Nikole Hannah-Jones. Plus two guests from the Capital Gazette: editor Rick Hutzell, who recently took a buyout, and reporter Rachael Pacella, who survived the attack three years ago. And a surprise or two. See you Sunday at 11am ET on CNN...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Surgeon general Vivek Murthy is warning that misinformation is the biggest threat to vaccination efforts... (CNN)

-- Meanwhile: "Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a vocal critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, announced plans Friday to hold a news conference bringing together people who claim to have had adverse reactions to the vaccine..." (ABC)

-- New from FactCheck.org: "The Facts – and Gaps – on the Origin of the Coronavirus..." (FactCheck)

Garland: "I want to give credit to the news media"

When the DOJ announced a task force to address the rise in threats against election officials, AG Merrick Garland said "there were a number of articles that collected all the threats... putting them together in a way that I have to say frankly I have not seen before. And when I saw that significant number collected in that way, I realized quite clearly how important this was." So the task force was the product of news coverage...

Plus: Garland will work with Congress on press protections

Oliver Darcy writes: "During the same Q&A with reporters, Garland said he would work with Congress on legislation that would make it more difficult for prosecutors to seize the records of journalists. 'You are right in suggesting that the only way to make it permanently durable is through legislation, and I personally will support working with Congress to develop legislation that would make protections for obtaining the press' records part of the legislation,' Garland said. That said, as Politico's Josh Gerstein pointed out, Garland saying that he was speaking 'personally' did create 'some ambiguity about whether he was announcing a formal stance on behalf of the admin...'

"Stories aren't falling off the trees anymore"

For the relaunch of Politico's Women Rule newsletter, Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown, NYT's Elisabeth Bumiller, Vox's Swati Sharma, and WaPo's Krissah Thompson got together to discuss the post-Trump newsroom. They all agreed that things have indeed changed. "It's both easier and more difficult now," Bumiller said. "Easier in that every day isn't an all-out panic like it would go on for months on end during the Trump administration. But also stories aren't falling off the trees anymore." Budoff Brown echoed that sentiment, saying, "It's calming in a way that we all sort of longed for on many, many days in the Trump administration. But even for me, on these calm days, I'm agitating my team of editors, on, like, how are you going to tell a really interesting story about infrastructure negotiations for the 50th time?"

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

By Oliver Darcy:

-- Did Sean Hannity jab Tucker Carlson for "gutlessly" leaking about him behind his back? It sure seems that way... (HuffPost)

-- Glenn Greenwald tells Aidan McLaughlin that he does believe Carlson is guilty of "deliberately inflaming" racial divisions. But, Greenwald also says he thinks Carlson's beliefs are "misunderstood..." (Mediaite)

-- Caleb Ecarma writes that Carlson has taken "his racial paranoia to its inevitable end point by predicting that America is heading for an all-out race war..." (Vanity Fair)

-- @Southpaw: "Today's a really good day for US military installations to stop playing Fox News on all their TVs all the time..." (Twitter)

-- Jim Sciutto: "Right-wing attacks on the military should not be a surprise because it – like the police – has become a foil in our tribal politics. We support the military, except when it disagrees with us. We support the police, except when it's on the other side of a Trump mob. See also: doctors..." (Twitter)

Right-wing media's takeaway from VP's border trip

Oliver Darcy writes: "Did Kamala Harris 'snap' at Fox's Peter Doocy while on the border Friday? If you were getting your news by the way of the right-wing media, you'd probably answer yes. That narrative dominated the conservative news web for most of the day, as CNN's Jon Passantino pointed out. But if you watch the video of the exchange, you'd see she just answered Doocy's question by pointing out it wasn't her 'first trip' to the border. She didn't 'snap' at him at all. But narrative > facts to some..."

Andrew Neil to take a break after GB News launch

This seems a bit strange: Just two weeks after launching GB News, the network's chairman and marquee host Andrew Neil announced that he will be going on break. Neil said he would be "back before the summer is out, and popping up when you least expect it." And a spokesperson for the channel added that it was just Neil's "annual leave." Still, it's an interesting move to go off the air so soon after launch, especially since, as Neil admitted, it's had "a bit of a rocky start." Moira Ritter has more for CNN Business here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Ali Breland examines Amazon's relationship with the press, writing that the company "bullies, manipulates, and lies to reporters..." (Mother Jones)

-- "A human rights group that attracted millions of views on YouTube to testimonies from people who say their families have disappeared in China's Xinjiang region" is moving its videos to Odysee "after some were taken down by the Google-owned streaming giant," Victoria Waldersee and Paresh Dave report... (Reuters)

-- "Australia's competition watchdog is looking into a claim that Facebook refused a publisher's request to negotiate a licensing deal ... setting the stage for the first test of the world's toughest online content law," Byron Kaye reports... (Reuters)

-- "Google will now tell users when search results are rapidly changing around a breaking story," Adits Robertson writes... (The Verge)

-- "Instagram is testing a feature that lets users post photos and videos from their desktop computers, after more than a decade without the capability," Isabella Simonetti scoops... (Bloomberg)

Google's new warning during breaking news

This seems like a common-sense, and potentially quite important, change by Google: The company "will now tell users when search results are rapidly changing around a breaking story," Adi Robertson writes for The Verge...

The warning says "it looks like these results are changing quickly," adding, "if this topic is new, it can sometimes take time for results to be added by reliable sources." Hey, I like that turn of phrase...

Here are some of the writers who are joining Facebook's Bulletin

Peter Kafka broke this news Friday, previewing a list of names that have been recruited to join Bulletin, Facebook's answer to Substack. Per Kafka, the names include Malcolm Gladwell, Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabarrok, Erin Andrews, Adam Grant, Ron Claiborne, Tan France, Andrew Revkin, Sohla El-Waylly, Austin Channing Brown, Sloane Stephens, and Ian Bremmer...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- "Richard J. Meislin, a New York Times editor who helped kick a tradition-bound newsroom into the internet age, changing how Times journalists gathered the news and how readers received it, died on Friday at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 68..." (NYT)

-- Marc Stein is leaving NYT and moving his coverage to Substack. "Fully independent and in-depth NBA coverage… unfiltered and as personal as ever," he wrote... (Twitter)

-- A TV host on Zambia's KBN TV alleged on-air that he and his colleagues haven't been paid, and the reactions were wild... (CNN)

-- The Daytime Emmy Awards are being presented while I'm hitting send... Alex Trebek posthumously won the Emmy for outstanding game show host... (TheWrap)

-- Jill Goldsmith has details here: "Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and First Lady Jill Biden made surprise appearances at the Daytime Emmys to laud the late Alex Trebek along with Robin Roberts and Ken Jeong in a moving tribute section at the awards that also included paeans to Regis Philbin and Larry King..." (Deadline)

"Let's try some things"

My interview with LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and editor Kevin Merida in Thursday night's newsletter generated lots of reactions on Friday. Merida shared a post with a simple caption: "Let's try some things." His trail of emojis were a further statement about the publication's plans: 🎤 🎻 🎭 🍿 👟 ☄️ 🎯 😎

The movie industry needs a hit. Enter "F9"

Frank Pallotta emails: "As Dominic Toretto, the main character of the 'Fast & Furious' franchise, once said, 'It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning's winning.' That's true, but the movie theater industry really needs this weekend's box office to win by a mile. 'F9: The Fast Saga,' the latest film from the high octane action franchise, opened Thursday night. In many ways 'F9' is truly kicking off the summer movie season. The film, which stars Vin Diesel as Toretto, is opening in 4,000 domestic theaters, the largest theater count since the pandemic started..."

>> Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro calls this the "first great sign that the box office is coming back:" The movie is "seeing $29.5M today, including last night's Thursday previews, for a 3-day at $66.5M... Amazing and the best 3-day we've seen since mid-March 2020 when the pandemic started." We will break down the final numbers on Sunday night...

Lowry's weekend streaming guide

By Brian Lowry:

>> After its success with "Bridgerton," Netflix tries to steam up the screen again with "Sex/Life," and produces a series most notable for generating laughs in the wrong places – the equivalent of a trashy summer read that yields more guilt than pleasure. And while critics are sometimes reluctant to admit that negative reviews are more fun to write, perusing the response to this show pretty well demonstrates that they are...

>> Liam Neeson has been working virtually nonstop since "Taken" became a well-deserved success, churning out a series of tough-guy thrillers. Yet watching his latest, the forgettable "The Ice Road," skid onto Netflix, it's easy to wish he'd make good on his pledge to slow down a little...

>> "Wolfgang" doesn't break much ground as documentary biographies go, but this ode to Wolfgang Puck makes clear the extent to which he deserves credit – or blame – for creating the modern version of the celebrity chef, and the impact that's had on the restaurant and food industry...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

-- NBC's "Good Girls" has been cancelled, and "efforts to move the series to Netflix... have imploded," Lesley Goldberg reported Friday... (THR)

-- "Nathan Fielder, star of Comedy Central's 'Nathan For You' and exec producer of lo-fi laugher 'How To With John Wilson,' has set up his latest project with HBO. The comedian has scored a series order for half-hour comedy 'The Rehearsal...'" (Deadline)

-- "J.J. Abrams is adding another DC Comics-inspired TV series to his slate. The prolific producer is teaming with Angela Robinson to adapt DC's Madame X as a scripted drama series for HBO Max..." (THR)

-- "The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon" co-showrunner Nedaa Sweiss "is expanding her relationship with producers Universal Television..." (THR)

-- "A two-song performance by Madonna was the big surprise on Thursday night during a Pride party in New York City..." (Variety)

Colbert and Kimmel offer tributes to Conan

Brian Lowry writes: "Reinforcing that the small group of late-night hosts is a pretty tight-knit fraternity (and yes, it's mostly a fraternity), Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel offered tributes to Conan O'Brien on the night of his final TBS show. Kimmel also couldn't resist throwing in a jab at Jay Leno, saying, "I also want to say, congratulations to Jay Leno on his new time slot at TBS..."

"Dune" delay

"Warner Bros. has shifted the sci-fi epic to three weeks later, putting it at Oct. 22. It was previously set for Oct. 1," Variety's Jordan Moreau reports.

"Dune" stars Timothée Chalamet -- and "coincidentally," the new release date "falls on the same day as 'The French Dispatch;' both films star Chalamet..."

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...

Pet of the day

Reader Elizabeth Rowe emails about the "nightly drama" that occurs in rural Mississippi: "No, human," says Drusilla, "I am NOT coming out until Reliable Sources drops!"