Ida emergency; New Orleans updates; new 'GMA' boss; Afghanistan's 'brain drain;' remembering Ed Asner

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Brian Stelter here. It's 10:29pm ET on Sunday, August 29. Hurricane Ida is lashing Louisiana. New Orleans is without power. A flash flood emergency is in effect. Here's the latest...

The way we see hurricanes is changing

In an ever-more-internet-connected world, we are getting close-up views of extreme weather in ways that were hard to imagine a generation ago. The newest example: When Ida barreled ashore on Sunday, ransacking the Louisiana coast, we were able to see the storm surge inundate Grand Isle through remote video cameras that were installed by storm chasers. Some networks licensed the live streams. Residents also uploaded web-connected security camera footage of the rising waters to social media and streamed the winds on Facebook Live.

Slightly further inland, traffic cameras and levee monitoring webcams provided views from inside the eyewall. Reporters weren't embedded in these coastal and low-lying areas because the danger was simply too great, so webcams were the main way to assess the damage on Sunday. Some locations lost power and/or internet connectivity during the storm, but an impressive number of the cameras remained online throughout the day. It's evidence that the way we witness landfalling hurricanes is changing -- perhaps providing a more visceral education for the public. Can all the live feeds and social snapshots, showing the real-time reality of the weather, cause viewers to take the threat more seriously?

And/or do some folks see the video clips and decide to head outside with their own cameras? "A video of a man plowing headlong into storm surge from Hurricane Ida garnered a stern warning from National Weather Service officials," urging everyone to stay inside, Missy Wilkinson of The Advocate reported Sunday afternoon.

Later in the day, storm chasers showed the surge pouring into towns like Golden Meadow, Larose and LaPlace. One camera crew said they were surrounded by water but safe at a Motel 6 with high-enough ground. As the center of Ida punched north, videos on Twitter and Instagram showed debris flying through the air in NOLA. By nightfall, a man on Twitter who called himself an oil field worker had posted a video from the actual site of the landfall, Port Fourchon, showing a toppled crane and other damage. Much more to come on Monday...

"Dark and dirty" in NOLA

"This is the hardest day of my 30 year career. And tomorrow isn't looking much better. We are being devastated," David Bernard, the chief meteorologist at WVUE, the Fox affiliate in NOLA, said around 8:30pm CT.

Around the same time, I asked CNN senior producer Sarah Boxer to describe what it feels like in NOLA. "Dark and dirty," she responded: "Our hotel lost power hours ago, security has been hit with flying debris, and the storm has been unrelenting — but our crews are resourcefully crafting safe spaces for us to still be live and tell the story. Mercifully, we haven't seen anyone on the streets for the last few hours in the French Quarter as the city continues battening down – and our teams will continue to report no matter when the lights come back on..."

"Physically shaking"

At WGNO, the ABC affiliate in NOLA, newsroom staffers evacuated to interior hallways as the winds picked up. Reporters said that one of the station's satellite dishes was "smashed" outside. The weather center is "physically shaking at this point," Brooke Laizer said. Her colleague Hank Allen tweeted, "flakes of ceiling falling on me in studio here." Water started leaking into the newsroom, as well...

More Ida coverage notes

-- CNN has been live for 40+ straight hours, and will stay live overnight Sunday into Monday...

-- The Weather Channel will also stay live. "We still have a long night to go," Justin Michaels said on the air just now...

-- Fox News aired an hour-long hurricane special at 8pm ET, but reverted to regular Biden-bashing programming at 9...

-- David Muir came in to anchor Sunday's "World News Tonight." NBC had Tom Llamas co-anchor the "Nightly News" from NOLA, with Hallie Jackson co-anchoring from DC. Here's Llamas out in the elements earlier in the day...

-- Llamas is anchoring the "Nightly News" all this week, BTW, while Lester Holt is on vacation. He'll anchor from the storm zone on Monday night...

-- Al Roker was slammed on social media after being "slammed by waves" during "Sunday Today." To his critics who said he was putting himself in harm's way, he responded that he knows how to stay safe. And to the trolls who said he was too old to be doing this, he said, "Screw you... Try to keep up!"

-- Powerhouse NOLA station WWL's live broadcast from its studios in the French Quarter occasionally switched to its backup studio in Baton Rouge, partly to make the point that it has built-in redundancy...

-- Stations in Texas are covering the storm too: KTVT in Dallas-Fort Worth sent a crew to Beaumont to cover the evacuees coming across from Louisiana...

-- The Advocate and Times-Picayune editor Peter Kovacs told me that the company's websites were running 3x usual traffic in the run-up to the hurricane...

-- For the latest, check CNN.com's live updates page here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Drudge is calling Ida the "BEAST OF THE BAYOU..."

-- The AP's evening lead: "Hurricane Ida blasted ashore Sunday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S., blowing off roofs and reversing the flow of the Mississippi River..."

-- Right before I was about to hit "send," the lead shifted to this: "Ida knocked out power to the entire city of New Orleans..." (AP)

-- "We've lost contact with Grand Isle," Jefferson Parish president Cynthia Lee Sheng told Pamela Brown on CNN. In other communities, there are reports of people "with water up to their chest..." (CNN)

FIRST LOOK

NY Mag's "Succession" cover

The new edition of New York mag, coming out Monday, features the "Succession" cast's first magazine cover ahead of season three. It is also New York's very first triple gatefold cover:

Media week ahead calendar

In the traditional media biz, this is one of the quietest weeks of the year... Knock on wood?

Tuesday: "Only Murders in the Building," co-created by and starring Steve Martin, premieres on Hulu...

Thursday: Dragon Con begins in Atlanta and Bonnaroo begins in Tennessee...

Friday: "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" muscles into theaters -- exclusively...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Sunday's "dignified transfers" of the 13 service members killed in Kabul were shown across cable news for 30+ minutes... (CNN)

-- "Two families opted for no media coverage..." (Twitter)

-- Mark Hertling during Wolf Blitzer's coverage on CNN: The 120,000 evacuees "who are going to have a better life -- somewhere in the world than in Afghanistan under the Taliban -- are certainly grateful for the sacrifice that these 13 made..."

-- The 13 "never knew a United States that was not at war..." (WaPo)

-- President Biden "saw no middle ground in Afghanistan between ending the war or endless escalation..." (NYT)

-- New from Hanna Trudo and Amie Parnes: "Biden allies are heaping criticism on the national media for what they say is unfair coverage of the president's handling of Afghanistan..." (The Hill)

-- "Web traffic, social engagement and TV ratings for conservative outlets are booming in response to the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan," Sara Fischer pointed out... (Axios)

Getting the news from Kabul

Western news outlets are covering Afghanistan mostly from a distance right now. Some news reports are cloaking staffers in Afghanistan in a form of anonymity to keep them relatively safe. I noticed NBC reference "a freelance producer" in Kabul confirming the explosion that later turned out to be a US strike targeting suspected ISIS-K bombers. CNN attributed reporting to "a journalist working with CNN who visited the compound" where the rocket hit.

That said, there are some western journalists still in the capital, including Kathy Gannon of the AP, Marcus Yam of the LA Times, and Lyse Doucet of the BBC. Doucet described the "Kabul soundscape" Sunday night: "The rumble of an American military plane, a snatch of song somewhere in the streets, an occasional crackle of gunfire .. parting notes of this long chapter of war."

>> There's a "very, very real concern" that Afghanistan will become a "black hole" for news, Anna Nelson of Reporters Without Borders told me. For example...

This journalist exemplifies Afghanistan's 'brain drain'

Earlier this month, Beheshta Arghand made history in Afghanistan. The female anchor at TOLONews interviewed a senior Taliban representative on the air, generating headlines around the world. Two days later, Arghand did it again, interviewing Malala Yousafzai in a first for Afghan TV.

Arghand was blazing a trail, but her work is now on hold: She decided to leave Afghanistan, citing the dangers that so many journalists and ordinary Afghans are facing. I corresponded with her via WhatsApp... And she said she hopes to return to the country someday... Here's my full story...

>> Saad Mohseni, the owner of TOLO, told me Arghand's case is emblematic of the situation in Afghanistan. "We have the twin challenge of getting people out [because they feel unsafe] and keeping the operation going," he said, confirming that "almost all our well known reporters and journalists have left..."

Three critiques of the US coverage about Afghanistan

Rounding up the insights from my "Reliable" guests:

-- Azmat Khan said the lack of US news coverage about Afghanistan in recent years has had "terrible effects" on the public's perceptions of the withdrawal this summer. She also pointed out that much of the coverage is Kabul-centric, while so much of the war has been fought in rural areas. For more, check out her Twitter thread...

-- James Fallows said media outlets made a "gross failure" by making an "instant equation of the fall of Kabul with the fall of Saigon." He argued that the two events had almost nothing in common except helicopters. "Keeping things in perspective is where the media has fallen short," Fallows said...

-- Eric Boehlert said "the media's biggest Afghanistan sin" was that "it got married to a narrative..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Over the weekend WNDB announced the death of conservative radio host Marc Bernier, "who informed and entertained listeners" for over 30 years... (Politico)

-- Josh Jordan: "There have now been at least four different conservative radio hosts who were anti-vaxxers that have passed away due to COVID. I don't say this to make light of their deaths, but to point out that a lot of anti-vaxx people are way more interested in ratings/$$ than your health..." (Twitter)

-- The spokesman for National Religious Broadcasters "was fired Friday following an appearance on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' earlier this month in which he discussed how his faith motivated him to get the Covid-19 vaccine..." (NBC)

-- On Saturday the aforementioned Pamela Brown took on the ivermectin craziness: "If you don't have hooves; if you don't wear a saddle to work; and if you don't stand in a field chewing grass, then ignore the noise on social media, and the hot air coming from right-wing talking heads..." (CNN)

-- Don't miss TIME's investigation into the folks who are selling access to these "bogus Covid-19 treatments..." (TIME)

Twitter bans Berenson

Oliver Darcy writes: "Twitter over the weekend permanently suspended the account belonging to Alex Berenson, the anti-vaccine, anti-mask, anti-lockdown personality who makes regular appearances on Fox News. A Twitter spox told me that he was banned from the service 'due to multiple violations of our covid-19 misinformation rules.' On his Substack, Berenson said he had been 'defamed' and denied a 'very important platform.' Berenson for months has been one of the top peddlers of anti-vaccine rhetoric, racking up thousands and thousands of interactions alone on Twitter. The only thing surprising here is that it took so long for the social media company to take action against his account..."

>> Justin Baragona's take: "This is exactly what he wanted. Now he can spend every other night on Tucker's show urging people to subscribe to his substack to get the TRUTH about covid that the DEEP STATE is trying to suppress..."

The new "GMA" boss is...

Simone Swink. She was named executive producer on Sunday. Swink is a veteran of the show, so this promotion is about stability, not a shakeup from the outside. (And it comes as the lawsuit against former "GMA" boss Michael Corn roils ABC.) I said on Twitter that when I spent long stretches at "GMA" to write my book "Top of the Morning" years ago, I could tell Swink would run the show someday. And now she is...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Speaking of the ABC turmoil, NBC's Corky Siemaszko spoke with numerous ABC News staffers who are "growing frustrated..." (NBC)

-- Ben Smith has the first interview with Robert Allbritton about his decision to sell Politico to Axel Springer. Lots of Axios-related intrigue here too... (NYT)

-- Mediagazer's recap of Ryan Broderick's latest post: "Digital media, as a business, is broken because outlets are being SPAC'd into vague network blobs publishing the same content, not because people no longer read..." (Garbage Day)

-- "A Newsroom, On Pause:" Maureen Dowd's piece is paired with Kathy Ryan's dramatic photos of the pandemic-emptied NYT newsroom... (NYT)

-- On "Reliable," Sacramento Bee editor Colleen McCain Nelson about Larry Elder's anti-media campaign and why voters are the losers when politicians run against the press... (CNN)

Billions for an ESPN-branded sportsbook?

Front page news in the weekend edition of the WSJ: "ESPN is seeking to license its brand to major sports-betting companies for at least $3 billion over several years, according to people familiar with the matter, aiming to capitalize on the fast-growing online gambling industry," Cara Lombardo and Ben Mullin reported.

>> What's up for grabs: "The right for a suitor to use the ESPN name for branding purposes and potentially rename its sportsbook after the leading sports TV network in the US." This is quite a shift for Disney...

"The D'Amelios Are Coming for All of Your Screens"

The NYT's Alexandra Jacobs embedded with Charli and Dixie D'Amelio, a/k/a "social media's starriest sisters," and their parents Marc and Heidi. The news peg: "TikTok's most famous family wants to reintroduce itself on TV. Whatever that means now." The question: "Can they sustain the attention of America for more than one-minute online chunks? Can anything?" Read on...

Remembering Ed Asner

Brian Lowry writes: "When Gavin McLeod died earlier this year, Ed Asner tweeted that he would join him and his other 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' co-stars in 'a bit.' He has joined them now. Asner died Sunday morning. He was 91. He had a remarkable life punctuated by Emmys and activism, one in which his most famous character across two series and a dozen years, Lou Grant, was just the tip of the iceberg..."

>> Read Lowry's full tribute to Asner here...

"Candyman" exceeds industry expectations

It "was summoned to the top of domestic box office charts, collecting an impressive $22.37 million from 3,569 theaters in its first three days of release," Variety's Rebecca Rubin wrote Sunday. "The R-rated slasher film, written by Jordan Peele and directed by 'Captain Marvel 2' filmmaker Nia DaCosta, surpassed industry expectations despite fears the delta variant would keep people from going to the movies."

>> Since the film only cost $25 million to produce, it "appears on track to become one of the rare pandemic-era releases to become profitable during its theatrical run..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- "After a delay and multiple listening events in recent weeks, Kanye West released his new studio album 'Donda' on Sunday." Megan Thomas has all the details... (CNN)

-- Mike Fleming Jr's Sunday scoop: "Apple Studios has set a high profile project that will reteam Marvel stalwarts Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans in Ghosted, a romantic action adventure that will be directed by Dexter Fletcher..." (Deadline)

-- "Matthew Modine vs. Fran Drescher: Union Election Splits Hollywood," Joe Flint reports, in a story destined for Monday's front page... (WSJ)

Giving "Manifest" a real ending

Brian Lowry writes: "Netflix continues to opportunistically give new life -- and more significantly, an actual ending -- to programs that perform well on the service, ordering a fourth and final season of the NBC drama 'Manifest.' USA Today's Elise Brisco noted that 'the streaming platform has similarly rescued shows like You, which originally aired on Lifetime and Lucifer, which first aired on Fox...'"

This week's TV OT column:

Brian Lowry writes: "Sandra Gonzalez looked at what to watch (and not to) before going to bed in this week's TV OT column, where I also assessed the parade of upcoming Sept. 11 specials over the next two weeks, and talked about Apple TV+'s push of high-profile premieres in September. Yes, there's a lot of content out there, but if you thought (not unreasonably) that Apple was dabbling in this whole TV thing, the takeaway is that they're not..."