Out of Jeopardy; Sony's next move; weekend events; when misinfo is literally poison; Dr. Sanjay Gupta's advice; give 'Gossip' a chance

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Brian Stelter here at 10:20pm ET on Friday, August 20. Join me in wishing my newsletter co-pilot Oliver Darcy a very happy birthday. Here's the latest on Sony, Clarissa Ward, The Hill, The Homecoming Concert, "Gossip," BTS, and much more...

Wrong answer

The smartest game show on TV made a rookie mistake. And now Sony needs a new "Jeopardy!" host, again.

I spent the day talking with this year's guest hosts, wannabe hosts, agents, TV executives, and others close to the Mike Richards mess. The sources have the same questions I have:

-- Who will take over?

-- Why did Sony botch this so badly?

-- Did Richards rig the guest host search in his favor?

-- Will Richards remain the show's executive producer?

To address that last question, my impression is that the answer is no, he won't be there much longer. As NPR's Linda Holmes put it: "How do you make someone the boss who didn't meet the character requirements to be the host?" But Richards still has the job for the time being, and any exit from the exec producer role will likely require a negotiation between his agents and Sony.

The NYT's story notes that Richards "must contend with a dispirited 'Jeopardy!' staff whose frustrations erupted in an emotional meeting on Thursday, where crew members told Mr. Richards his past behavior had imperiled the show's reputation."

Sony execs allowed the producer-turned-host to say he "stepped down," citing the controversy over "past incidents and comments." But this was a corporate save-the-ship move. It was all due to Claire McNear, a reporter at The Ringer who is incredibly well-sourced in "Jeopardy!" land thanks to her 2020 book about the show, which is now moving up the Amazon chart. With the help of Ringer colleagues, she exposed a litany of offensive comments in Richards' past -- comments that Sony should have uncovered before Richards was hired as EP. Sony said Friday that "we were surprised this week to learn of Mike's 2013/2014 podcast and the offensive language he used in the past." So in other words, the company didn't do basic vetting of its EP and host.

"The public response" to the story "convinced Sony that it would be impossible for Mr. Richards to continue as host," the WSJ's John Jurgensen reported. So production was halted on Friday morning. But the five episodes Richards led on Thursday will still air. And production will resume on Monday with guest hosts. What an embarrassment for Sony. What a frustrating sideshow for the local TV stations that depend on the competition's high ratings. And what a disappointment for the contestants who are supposed to be the stars of the show. Here's my full report for Friday evening's "EBOF..."

Was the tryout process rigged?

I don't mean rigged in a literal sense, of course. But "Mike wanted the job from the very beginning," a source with knowledge of the tryout process said Friday. "And I think he manipulated in such a way so that he was the right choice." This is the consensus view among the sources I spoke with. They want to know: Were the other guest hosts really set up to succeed? Were their best episodes shown to focus groups? What about the people who wanted to try out and were turned down -- were qualified people with past game show experience turned away on purpose?

On Friday I picked up on a lot of sourness not just toward Richards, but toward Sony execs like Tony Vinciquerra as well. "Tony has to own this screwup," one of the guest hosts said. Vinciquerra was at Thursday's tapings with Richards, but was silent about this matter on Friday...

Who will take over now?

Most of my sources said Ken Jennings is the hands-down favorite for the host job now. "They have to give it to him now, don't they?" one TV agent said. Jennings was said to be a finalist the first time around, and he has said all the right things in the press this month. He has stayed with the show as a consulting producer, as well. The other name that keeps coming up is LeVar Burton. He tweeted "Happy Friday, y'all!" right after Richards stepped aside; that tweet has racked up more than 100K likes.

And don't forget, "Mayim Bialik was hired to host a series of prime time 'Jeopardy!' specials and spinoffs," so she is "likely now a serious contender for the full-time job," the LA Times noted.

I'm wondering if Sony will try out some new names -- folks like CNN senior legal analyst Laura Coates who were snubbed the first time around. The company has some quick decisions to make since production of the new season is underway. "They're really missing a grand opportunity here to keep playing the Final Jeopardy music on a loop until they make a decision," CNN producer Kristin Wilson quipped...

Lowry's take

Brian Lowry writes: "While it's easy to write question-formed headlines about what a debacle the 'Jeopardy!' host story has been for Sony, let's not spare the media, which got swept up in the romantic, populist-sounding ideal that by publicly auditioning all of these candidates, the viewers would be allowed to dictate the final decision. When Richards was anointed, people seemed to come late to a realization that seemed likely from the start: While the rotating hosts garnered attention and bought time, choosing a replacement was going to boil down to executives/producers, not public opinion. The whole exercise brought to mind a recent NYT oped by Annalee Newitz, under the overreaching headline, 'From Loki to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Fans Are Calling the Shots." Fans surely have more input now in creative decisions – and more direct ways of expressing it – in the current environment, but there are limits to what Newitz called 'the age of fan service,' and perhaps some naivete about how decisions and deals get made."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- The biz angle: "While ratings rose and fell during the various guest-host stints, 'Jeopardy!' remains among the top-ranked syndicated programs and a valuable asset for Sony," Lynn Elber wrote... (AP)

-- "I hate that something pure like that has to be sullied by backstage drama," Jennings told the NYT on Friday... (NYT)

-- "It's hard not to feel a concerning sense that those in control of 'Jeopardy' don't understand what they have," Daniel D'Addario wrote... (Variety)

-- Someone leaked Richards' audition tape for "The Price is Right" by uploading it to YouTube... (TheWrap)

-- "And so, ultimately, the Jeopardy host search failed because the questions came after the answer," Andrew Samson wrote... (Twitter)

^{A BUSY WEEKEND IN THE BIG APPLE...}

WE LOVE NYC

CNN has the exclusive rights to "WE LOVE NYC: The Homecoming Concert," Saturday's big party in Central Park organized by NYC in partnership with Clive Davis and Live Nation. Mayor Bill de Blasio said it will be a "historic, monumental moment for all New Yorkers and all Americans." Proof of vaccination is required for attendance. Anderson Cooper will anchor CNN's coverage starting at 4pm ET, and the concert will kick off at 5. Cooper will be joined by Don Lemon and Erica Hill, Athena Jones and Chloe Melas. You can watch it on CNN's TV networks, or on CNN.com via a cable log-in...

Music's biggest names

Chloe Melas writes: "Some of music's biggest names will descend on the Great Lawn, including Andrea Bocelli, Kane Brown, LL Cool J, Earth, Wind & Fire, Jennifer Hudson, Patti Smith, Rob Thomas, Carlos Santana, The Killers, Julia Michaels and JP Saxe, Barry Manilow, Jon Batiste, and Elvis Costello. As someone who has desperately missed going to live concerts, this is going to be epic. I'm most excited for Maluma, the New York Philharmonic, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon. There will be some surprise names taking the stage too. Make sure to tune in because you don't want to have FOMO on Sunday!"

Hurricane Warnings in New York

Reporters are setting up along the coasts of Long Island, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts for an expected Sunday landfall of Hurricane Henri. While it's still a tropical storm right now, it is expected to strengthen over the weekend. "The last time a hurricane made landfall in this region was Hurricane Bob in 1991," CNN's report notes...

This Sunday on "Reliable"

I'll be joined by the aforementioned Claire McNear, plus Clarissa Ward; TOLOnews boss Saad Mohseni; LA Times opinion columnist Jean Guerrero; birthday boy Oliver Darcy; and maybe a surprise or two. Join us Sunday at 11am ET on CNN...

WEEKEND PLANNER

President Biden will, as of now, head to Wilmington on Saturday afternoon...

Donald Trump will hold a rally in Alabama Saturday evening...

Look up! The next blue (or Sturgeon) moon will first appear Saturday night...

NFL preseason games continue on Sunday...

Takeoff

CNN's Clarissa Ward shared this photo on Twitter before taking off from Kabul with her crew. She had reported all day long from the airport and described the disorganized conditions by phone. As she walked outside to a waiting aircraft and spoke with Jake Tapper on "The Lead," Tapper spoke on behalf of every CNN employee and viewer when he said, "Your reporting has been brave and amazing and with empathy and with courage. We are so lucky to have you as a colleague. Thank you for what you have done."

"With fewer people left to report directly from Afghanistan, American news orgs are relying, in part, on contacts with local residents and on social media posts from inside the country," WaPo's Paul Farhi reported Friday.

Hawkish coverage?

For the first time since Kabul fell, Biden took questions on Friday, and afterwards, correspondents from CNN to ABC to Fox reality-checked his claims, as Mediaite noted here. I'm continuing to see debates about the media's role:

-- HuffPost's lead story on Friday night was titled "Biden allies incensed: Afghanistan news coverage hawkish as hell!"

-- CNN's Brianna Keilar said the piece pushes a "false narrative -- that pointing out that the logistical implementation of this withdrawal has objectively been a shitshow is the same as arguing for a forever war. It isn't."

-- Separately, Hunter Walker commented on Twitter: "Reporters and outlets are suddenly paying attention to human rights issues in Afghanistan now that they're used as an argument for more war. For years those same outlets have largely ignored a long list of crises including Yemen, Syria, Haiti, Congo, and, oh yeah, Afghanistan."

-- Olivier Knox pointed out: "On cable, Afghanistan dominates. In local newspapers, it's the pandemic."

Weekend reads

By Katie Pellico:

-- Hear Ayesha Tanzeem, the Afghanistan and Pakistan bureau chief for VOA, discuss her experience in Afghanistan; the blind spots and "black holes" in coverage; and the "future of journalism under Taliban rule..." (PRI's The World)

-- Janine di Giovanni writes about the "tragic fate of Afghanistan's journalists..." (Foreign Policy)

-- Jane Ferguson of PBS and The New Yorker on the ground in Kabul: "There's a unique media landscape here that if lost would undo a generation of journalists and broadcasters and writers." (CPJ)

-- Columbus Dispatch exec editor Alan D. Miller writes about how "journalists in Afghanistan put lives on the line to bring you the news..." (Columbus Dispatch)

-- Jon Allsop deconstructs "the Taliban spin machine..." (CJR)

-- Don't miss David Gilbert's dispatch from QAnon territory, where the Taliban takeover story is being framed as a hoax... (Vice)

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- NBC News says it will release new polling on "Meet the Press" Sunday morning....

-- Julian Zelizer commented: "We should have the same kind of intense news coverage, as we do with Afghanistan, of how red state politicians have precipitously withdrawn from public health policies that can contain Covid-19—as well as the deadly fallout from those decisions." (Twitter)

Friday's Covid headlines

>> The NYT's Friday afternoon scoop was quickly matched by other outlets: "The FDA is aiming to give full approval to Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine on Monday..."

>> Another positive bullet point: "More Americans have recently made the decision to get vaccinated than in the last six weeks," CNN Health reports...

>> Dr. Sanjay Gupta is out with an important new column about learning how to "dance" with this virus -- i.e. a safe co-existence -- "without constantly stepping on each other's toes..."

When misinfo is literally poison

"At least one individual has been hospitalized in Mississippi after ingesting a drug intended for treating worms in livestock, the Mississippi State Department of Health revealed today," Ashton Pittman of the MS Free Press reports. The drug, ivermectin, is not a Covid cure, but it has been hyped by misinfo artists for months. The Mississippi Poison Control Center says it has received "an increasing number of calls from individuals with potential ivermectin exposure taken to treat or prevent COVID-19 infection." Awful...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Recall how, earlier this week, Facebook released its first quarterly report about the most viewed posts in the US? Turns out it wasn't really the first report. The NYT's Davey Alba and Ryan Mac got ahold of an earlier one, which showed that the most-viewed link in Q1 2021 "was a news article with a headline suggesting that the coronavirus vaccine was at fault for the death of a Florida doctor." In other words, pathetic Covid misinfo... (NYT)

-- Signature Theater "is postponing its planned October production of 'Infinite Life,' a new play by Annie Baker, as the Delta variant leads to a rise in coronavirus cases," Michael Paulson reports... (NYT)

-- "VidCon has been canceled again due to concerns over Covid-19 and the Delta variant," Tanya Chen reports... (BuzzFeed)

-- The BTS world tour has been canceled due to the ongoing pandemic, Lisa Respers France reports. And speaking of canceled tours, here's a running list of some of the concerts and festivals the pandemic has halted... (CNN)

-- The AP "called on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Friday to end 'harassing behavior' by one of his press aides against an AP reporter who has received threats and other online abuse," David Bauder reports. The aide was unrepentant... (AP)

InfoWars host charged in Capitol insurrection

CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz, Oliver Darcy and Marshall Cohen write: "The Justice Department on Friday unsealed charges against prominent InfoWars host and right-wing conspiracy theorist Owen Shroyer who the breached US Capitol grounds on January 6. Prosecutors say Shroyer has a history of disrupting Congress, and was prohibited from protesting near the Capitol as part of a deferred prosecution deal that he signed after his 2019 arrest for interrupting Trump's impeachment proceedings in the House. He violated the terms of that deal on January 6, prosecutors claimed, leading to the criminal charges. An email to InfoWars seeking comment wasn't immediately answered. During his Infowars show Friday, Shroyer said he 'planned on declaring innocence on these charges...'"

A chilling reminder of threat of US unrest

Donie O'Sullivan writes: " 'It took 11 days for them to take over Afghanistan… How many days would it take the patriots to take over this country?' That's what a man outside Marjorie Taylor Greene's event in Des Moines asked me last night. He said he was in DC on January 6, though he said he didn't enter the Capitol building. This is the second time in just a few months that I've heard a Trump supporter point to a foreign government overthrow as almost a source of inspiration for it to happen here — a few months ago some were cheering on the coup in Myanmar. Here's the clip... And for what it's worth, my question to him was about COVID restrictions..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Aaron Rupar says Fox News virtually ignored Thursday's DC bomb threat "inspired by right-wing conspiracy theory culture..." (Vox)

-- "Rupert Murdoch has largely lost a year-long dispute with the BBC after he objected to a documentary series that 'implied he posed a threat to liberal democracy...'" (Guardian)

-- Jake Tapper wrote: "Before he died earlier this week, former Rep. Paul Mitchell talked to me from hospice care about politics and life." The interview will air on "SOTU" Sunday morning... (Twitter)

-- Ace VOA reporter Steve Herman is leaving the WH beat for a "120-day assignment as an editor in News Standards and Best Practices unit." Patsy Widakuswara "will replace him as WH bureau chief. Anita Powell will become a WH correspondent..." (Twitter)

Nexstar buys The Hill for $130 million

Oliver Darcy writes: "Nexstar is adding a political media website to its portfolio. The company, which owns nearly 200 local TV stations across the country, announced Friday that it had purchased The Hill for $130 million, saying that it hopes to 'expand' the site's 'reach and revenue channels.' In a note to staff, The Hill's current owner, James Finkelstein, said he had sold the site 'with mixed feelings.' Finkelstein — who through his site played a key role in Trump's Ukraine scandal — said that he realized 'with a heavy hart that it is time' for him to 'move on to new ventures' that will be announced 'in the next several months.' Finkelstein added that he believed Nexstar 'will be a great home' for The Hill and said there will be a company-wide meeting soon..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

By Kerry Flynn:

-- Sara Guaglione looked at how publishers, including Quartz, The Information and LA Times, have used newsletters to grow their subscription businesses... (Digiday)

-- Perhaps my new favorite station? SiriusXM launched "TikTok Radio," featuring trending songs on the app... (Adweek)

-- Marc Bain is joining Business of Fashion as a tech correspondent. He worked at Quartz for more than six years... (Twitter)

Joe Bernstein on this week's Reliable podcast

BuzzFeed reporter and Nieman fellow Joe Bernstein joined me on this week's "Reliable Sources" podcast to talk about his Harper's cover story on "Big Disinfo," the rise of a new industry dedicated to combating disinformation. Check out the conversation via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app...

Give "Gossip" a chance

Brian Lowry writes: "'Gossip,' premiering Sunday on Showtime, takes a four-part look at the gossip mavens of the 1990s, and how those columns 'escaped from their cages' onto front pages and eventually home pages. Yet this series also documents key figures like Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Kim Kardashian – and the role gossip played in their stories – while spending considerable time on Rupert Murdoch's ownership of the New York Post; how the mogul used gossip as a tool; and his championing of what NYT reporter Jim Rutenberg calls a 'faster, meaner and dirtier' kind of journalism, which might be the mogul's most enduring legacy."

>> Lowry adds: "The real revelation in the series is Cindy Adams. At 91, she's actually threatening the filmmaker she'll hunt her down if it doesn't turn out to her liking." Read on...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

-- "Carrie Ann Inaba's leave of absence from The Talk has turned into a permanent exit from the CBS daytime talk show. Inaba won't return to the chatfest..." (TVLine)

-- Lisa Respers France writes: The late singer Aaliyah's music hit streaming services on Friday. Fans have been waiting for years for it to happen... (CNN)

-- One more from Lisa: Brett Butler of "Grace Under Fire" has explained why she's broke after earning $250,000 per episode on her former sitcom... (CNN)

Lowry reviews "The Protégé"

Brian Lowry writes: "Add 'The Protégé' to the list of movies that will exclusively hit theaters but probably won't stay there for long. This one features Maggie Q as an assassin hellbent on revenge. The film is a sporadically stylish, mildly unpredictable and thoroughly violent thriller where the principals seemingly endure at least as much punishment as they dish out..."

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...

Pet of the day

Reader Cressida Browne emails: "This is Rosa, my grand-daughter's teacup chihuahua. She urges everyone to follow the evidence from reliable medical sources and GET VACCINATED!"