Tucker v. Fox News; Branson's 'space speech;' sticking it to the blue states; Marvel saves the day; big change in the Britney Spears case?

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Brian Stelter here at 11:01pm ET on Sunday, July 11 with Monday's headlines, plus the latest on Euro 2020, smelly little lies, "Black Widow," Cannes, "Fear Street," and much more...

SCOOP

Tucker Carlson v. Fox News

Nearly two weeks after Tucker Carlson charged that the National Security Agency spied on him in a conspiracy to destroy his TV show, Fox's leaders and its other shows are mostly silent on the matter. On Saturday night, Jesse Watters framed an entire segment around it, but in the form of a question, "Is Tucker Carlson being spied on by the Biden administration?"

In other words, the network does not seem to believe its highest-rated star.

Maybe that helps explain why Carlson is "furious," in the words of one source, with Fox News executives -- furious because they're not vigorously defending him. "Tensions are sky high," the person told me, and Carlson is especially ticked off at the PR team "for not backing him up."

Another source told Oliver Darcy that Carlson has "always had tension with" management, but said right now he's "extra pissed."

Carlson has complained to colleagues and associates about what he perceives as a lack of support. When we inquired about it, two Fox reps ignored our requests for comment. But Carlson did respond to my text this way: "I'm not mad at anyone at Fox. If I was, I'd say so. I'm mad at you for lying relentlessly. What a loathsome person you are. Please print that."

Well, there you go. We printed it. Here's our full story...

Fox execs remain noticeably silent

The fact remains: Carlson has made numerous claims without any journalistic backup. He has said that Biden's NSA has leaked the contents of his emails to other members of the media. Ordinarily a TV network would be quick to denounce such a thing, if it actually happened. But Fox executives have been noticeably silent during the back and forth.

>> Bottom line: Carlson's show operates almost like its own planet, removed from the vetting and oversight that applies to normal cable news shows...

>> Also: Veteran Fox legal expert Andrew Napolitano, who hasn't been seen on air in a very long time, has written a column in "defense of Tucker Carlson..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- NYT's Frances Robles: "I have been covering Cuba since the 1994 rafter crisis. I have never ever seen anything like the protests today..." (Twitter)

-- CNN's Patrick Oppmann in Havana: "Internet is cut off in parts of Havana right now as frustration has boiled over for many people..." (CNN)

-- Sky's recap of Monday's UK front pages shows the range of emotions following Italy's victory in the Euro 2020 final... (Sky)

-- For more, here's how the British press reacted "as England's so-called homecoming party at the Euro 2020 football championships turned to disaster..." (NZ Herald)

-- As Tom Kludt reported, "the logistical challenges of covering a major sporting event were made even tougher this year by a global pandemic..." (The Guardian)

Week ahead calendar

Monday: "Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes" starts on HBO...

Tuesday: Emmy nominations are announced at 11:30am ET...

Wednesday: The next Britney Spears hearing... Scroll down for details...

Friday: Warner Bros.' "Space Jam: A New Legacy" hits theaters and HBO Max, and CNN Films' "Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain" premieres theatrically...

All week: "Shark Week" continues on Discovery while NatGeo competes with SharkFest...

Lots of big books are coming out this week

Michael Bender's "Frankly, We Did Win This Election" and Michael Wolff's "Landslide" are competing in terms of Trump scoops and book sales and credibility. Meanwhile, Mark Levin's next screed, "American Marxism," is playing to an entirely different book buying audience, and it's No. 1 on the Amazon best sellers list.

Also out on Tuesday: Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang's "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination" and Rachel B. Vogelstein and Meighan Stone's "Awakening: #MeToo and the Global Fight for Women's Rights."

And on Wednesday: "Covering Politics in the Age of Trump," a collection of brand new essays about Trump and the media, compiled by Jerry Ceppos...

So many smelly little lies

We're far, far beyond the "Big Lie" at this point. There are dozens of smelly little lies spreading in all directions. Just listen to Donie O'Sullivan's interviews with attendees at CPAC Dallas or watch Donald Trump's chat with Maria Bartiromo on Fox or watch his speech later in the day at CPAC.

CNN's Marshall Cohen made an incomplete list of Trump's lies to Bartiromo and counted a dozen of 'em. "Just absolutely shameless," he said. "In Trump's delusional revisionist history this morning," CNN's Sara Murray said, which was "enabled and encouraged by Maria Bartiromo," rioter Ashli Babbitt "was part of a peaceful protest, there were no guns [on] 1/6, and there was a 'love fest' between Capitol police and the insurrectionists." What we're seeing, sadly, is the creation of an entirely new, and fictional, narrative about the attack. So many smelly little lies...

Fox is using Trump to promote Fox Nation

Trump, hungry for airtime and attention, gave Fox two separate interviews on Sunday. The second one, with Lawrence Jones, was taped at CPAC and was released on the Fox Nation streaming service at 6pm ET Sunday. Fox says it'll air on TV on Monday's morning show. So in other words, subscribers were given the interview first... A noteworthy attempt to boost the streaming service...

A wild disclaimer

Oliver Darcy notes: "During Trump's CPAC Dallas speech, Fox aired a wild disclaimer on screen for about 40 seconds, clearly having to do with the pending lawsuits against the network. The graphic said 'THE VOTING SYSTEM COMPANIES HAVE DENIED THE VARIOUS ALLEGATIONS MADE BY PRESIDENT TRUMP...'"

>> Speaking of Trump's repetitive messaging... He "lashed out at news media outlets on Sunday, mocking several cable news channels for rating performances and saying the demise of the national press would be 'great news' for the country..." (The Hill)

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Important item from Axios over the weekend: "A growing number of Democrats are ringing the alarm that their party sounds — and acts — too judgmental, too sensitive, too 'woke' to large swaths of America..." (Axios)

-- For more on this, read Peggy Noonan's latest column, which drew heavily on a must-read Kevin Drum blog post... (WSJ)

-- And on a possibly related note, here is Maureen Dowd's diner interview with Bernie Sanders, where the senator indicates that "sometimes part of the Democratic elite does not fully appreciate" the need to communicate with the working class... (NYT)

Fox favorite gets CPAC cheers with anti-vax message

Oliver Darcy writes: "Regular Fox News guest Alex Berenson, who has now staked out an anti-vaccine position after spending most of 2020 pushing nonsense about masks, drew applause at CPAC over the weekend when he celebrated Americans who refuse to get vaccinated. Dr. Anthony Fauci called the moment 'horrifying' during an interview Sunday with Jake Tapper. But the moment was illustrative of how the anti-vax message has surged through and matured the GOP -- and that's in large part due to the nonsense pushed by right-wing media stars like Berenson..."

Sticking it to the blue states – by getting sick?!

Here's my CNN report about how some right-wing media stars are shifting from "vaccine hesitancy" to full-blown vaccine rejection. They act like resisting the Covid vaccines is a badge of honor, a way to "stick it to the blue states." They claim to respect their audience, but are actually putting them at risk...

--> John Dickerson to Fauci on CBS: "You say the facts are hitting people between the eyes. Is it possible that people are a little scared, a little nervous, and the more facts they hear, they don't hear evidence. What they hear is 'You're a dummy for not getting this.' And that essentially people feel insulted" by the messaging "and all that does is put them back in their corner." Fauci said that's why trusted, local messengers, not government officials, are key...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Tiffany Hsu's new story: "Despite outbreaks among unvaccinated, Fox News hosts smear shots..." (NYT)

-- Bigger picture: Rick Klein, Averi Harper, and Alisa Wiersema wrote about how "conspiracy theories and misinformation threaten to overtake the Covid fight..." (ABC)

-- Bret Schafer wrote about how China is spreading conspiracy theories about Covid originating in a Maryland lab, using its "vast propaganda apparatus and covert networks of online agitators and influencers..." (Foreign Policy)

-- A related story: Kerry Allen and Sophie Williams explored how foreign online influencers are helping China spread disinfo... (BBC News)

"Imagine..."

Richard Branson delivered a "space speech" as he reached the point of weightlessness on Sunday morning. He said, "To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream, looking up to the stars. Now I'm an adult in a spaceship with lots of other wonderful adults looking down to our beautiful, beautiful earth. To the next generation of dreamers: If we can do this, just imagine what you can do."

We didn't get to hear his speech live, since the Virgin Galactic live signals from the launch were pretty limited, but what we did see was still pretty impressive. As CNN's newest correspondent, Kristin Fisher, told me during our special coverage, "This is a publicity stunt but it's also inspiring." Both were true at the same time.

Sunday was Fisher's first day on air with CNN — and this was a dream first assignment. Fisher was near the launchpad along with Rachel Crane, who said that witnessing Branson's successful journey to the edge of space will be in her "memory book forever."

Later in the day, Virgin released a variety of promotional video clips, including his "space speech" moment...

View from the Spaceport

I asked former Twitter COO Adam Bain, a member of the Virgin Galactic board, about the feeling at Spaceport America, and here's what he wrote right after Branson landed: "We are all in awe. This is a really important moment in opening up the heavens. It's so inspiring that my kids and kids all around the world got to see this today -- It drives their interest in science, and technology. And more importantly: it drives their sense of 'wonder.'"

The billionaires beat

As Alexis Benveniste wrote for CNN Business, "media outlets across the country covered the Virgin Galactic launch." It was a perfect illustration of the "billionaires beat," something I wrote about in this newsletter a couple of months ago.

It "isn't a luxury beat about the rich and famous doing crazy stuff," Teddy Schleifer, founding partner of Puck News, told me. "These are private citizens who have enormous power, enormous wealth and are able to use it in really fascinating ways." But we can't talk about their success "without talking about the system that creates it in the first place." Branson biographer Nicholas Schmidle joined the conversation as well. Video here...

>> NBC is plugging an "exclusive" interview with Branson "and his family," airing Monday on the "Today" show...

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Seconding what Politico's Blake Hounshell wrote the other day:

"Have to wonder if, in the future, billionaires taking vanity tours of space while the climate overheats will be one of those moments the historians write about."

UAE-based fund invests in new DC-based media company

Well-regarded editors and producers Laura McGann and Mark Bauman are launching a newsroom venture that "goes deep on select topic areas like misinformation, climate and Chinese geopolitics," Sara Fischer reported for Axios on Saturday.

"The pair has already raised more than $10 million in a series A funding round from two investors: One is a U.S.-based individual that the company declines to name; The second is International Media Investments," a UAE-based fund that also has money in Euronews, Sky News Arabia, etc. Felix Salmon, also of Axios, commented that "it will be fascinating to see how transparent this site is w/r/t the degree to which they're owned/controlled by UAE."

>> McGann wrote more about the publication's plans in this Twitter thread...

>> The venture is named Confidential for now, and it has lots of job postings...

Saudi Arabia funds new digital news platform

"Saudi Arabia is funding a yet-to-be-announced digital news platform, which will have a studio in Washington, D.C., as the kingdom begins a new lobbying effort aimed at the White House and Congress," CNBC's Brian Schwartz reported Thursday. He said that "journalists and presenters involved in the project have past experience at Fox News, Al Jazeera, NBC and SiriusXM." Details here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

By Oliver Darcy:

-- Richard Nieva reports that Google is angering employees with "hypocritical" remote work policies... (CNET)

-- Andy Greenberg writes about GETTR, saying it is a "strong contender in the competition for the worst security among pro-Trump social media sites..." (WIRED)

-- Ashley Carman scoops that TED chats are heading to Clubhouse... (The Verge)

-- Jordan Novet with an intriguing story about how some YouTubers "are making a living on videos about Microsoft software..." (CNBC)

Georgians protest after journalist's death

"Several thousand people protested in front of the Georgian parliament on Sunday evening, demanding that the ex-Soviet nation's prime minister resign over the death of a journalist who was attacked and beaten by anti-LGBT protesters," the AP reported. "Cameraman Alexander Lashkarava was found dead in his home by his mother earlier Sunday, according to the TV Pirveli channel he worked for. Lashkarava was one of several dozen journalists attacked last Monday by opponents of an LGBT march that had been scheduled to take place that day in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi..."

Twitter appoints India "grievance officer"

Twitter is continuing its efforts to get things straightened out in India: "Twitter has appointed a resident grievance officer in India," days after the firm was "said to have lost the liability protection on user-generated content in the South Asian nation over non-compliance with local IT rules," Manish Singh reported. "On Sunday, Twitter identified Vinay Prakash as its new resident grievance officer and shared a way to contact him as required by India's new IT rules..."

"How the White Press Wrote Off Black America"

"Since the early 2000s, historically white newspapers in Alabama, California, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and North Carolina have apologized with varying degrees of candor for the roles they played in this history," Brent Staples writes in a new guest essay for the NYT. "When read end to end, these statements of confession attest to blatantly racist news coverage over a more than century-long period." Read more about this "apology movement" here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- Sarah Bahr writes about NYT journalists going on TV networks: "Appearing on TV news shows lets Times reporters take their work to a wider audience. But the opportunities must be handled with care..." (NYT)

Big change in the Britney Spears case?

TMZ had the scoop on Sunday: "Britney wants to hire powerful lawyer and former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart."

The NYT matched the story and said Rosengart "has had discussions in recent days with Britney Spears about representing her in her conservatorship battle, and he plans to attend a hearing in Los Angeles on Wednesday to begin the process of taking over" as her counsel. "If allowed by the court," Michael S. Schmidt and Liz Day wrote, "Ms. Spears's retaining of Mr. Rosengart would signal a drastic change in the handling of the case." Read on...

>> Bigger picture via Amanda Morris: "Britney Spears's Case Calls Attention to Wider Questions on Guardianship..."

Marvel saves the day again

Frank Pallotta writes: "'Black Widow' brought in an estimated $80 million in its North America box office opening this weekend. That was around what the industry was expecting and was also a record for the pandemic era. The film was also a huge hit on Disney+: 'Black Widow' made $60 million globally via Disney's Premier Access function, according to the studio. It was available to Disney+ subscribers for an extra charge of $29.99." Add the international box office, and Disney says the film made more than $215 million globally in all formats. Read Pallotta's full story here...

>> Pallotta's big picture point: "This weekend was a good sign for the argument that theaters and streaming can coexist..."

>> Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw asks: "Will it now disclose sales every time it releases a movie online, or only when it has something to brag about?" He says "right now we get transparency with good numbers and not with bad..."

"Movie theaters remain on the lowest flood plain"

Brian Lowry writes: "While analysts try to sort out what to make of the 'Black Widow' numbers – with the addition of at-home revenue to the theatrical tally – Kara Swisher's piece in the New York Times over the weekend appeared under the provocative headline 'Sorry, We Aren't Going Back to the Movies.' Swisher's obituary might be a little premature, but her broader point is that tech has reshaped and in some instances obliterated industries (see Amazon), and that theaters remain unusually vulnerable. As Swisher put it, 'Covid has only escalated tech power that was already starting to overwhelm many industries. And movie theaters remain on the lowest flood plain.' Certain genres, namely blockbusters and horror, might resist the rising waters the longest, but in terms of certain kinds of movies that were already in retreat box-office-wise pre-Covid, those tides are already here."

"Sluggish" sales at Cannes

That's the word from Variety's Matt Donnelly. "At the halfway point, Cannes 2021 has not seen the expected flurry of deals at the festival's concurrent Marché du Film," he wrote. "The only significant sales have come in the form of an eye-popping $75 million from STX for the global rights to Gerard Butler's forthcoming 'Greenland' sequel, and a multimillion-dollar pact from Netflix for the low-fi horror 'CURS>R' with Asa Butterfield." Details here...

>> Covid reality check: WaPo's Rick Noack reports on the "glitzy gatherings above a subterranean vaccination center..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

-- "The short, unhappy career of Addison Rae as a UFC correspondent is apparently over. The social media influencer, who caused a momentary uproar when she tweeted out her apparently minor qualifications, won't continue..." (Deadline)

-- "A sealed, rare version of the iconic Nintendo game 'The Legend of Zelda' sold for $870,000 at auction on Friday, making it the most expensive video game ever sold..." (CNN)

The appeal of the "Fear Street" trilogy

Netflix's "Fear Street Part One: 1994," based on the R. L. Stine book series, was timed for Fourth of July weekend. Part two, set in 1978, came out last Friday. And part three, set in 1666, will come out this Friday. "The serialized, weekly movie trilogy format works perfectly for this (maybe only this), and feels like an innovative approach to film distribution on streaming, which is still arguably still in its infancy," Julia Alexander of Parrot Analytics commented over the weekend.

Alexander called it "the rare moment where I've been excited for a new movie on Netflix three weeks in a row. I haven't experienced that ever with Netflix. Turns out teen horror + accessible pricing + instant availability works incredibly well. (Gee, who would have thought.)"