This weekend's shows and stories; Gov. Cuomo's exit interview; Snopes co-founder exposed; the importance of 'Coda;' dreamy ratings for Fox

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Brian Stelter here at 10:20pm ET on Friday, August 13 with the latest on Andrew Cuomo, "Coda," Snopes, Reed Hastings, "Free Guy," Emma Stone, and more...

Weekend reads and tunes

Starting with some recommended reads:

-- Ed Yong's latest is No. 1 on The Atlantic's most-read list for several very good reasons. "The current pandemic surge and the inevitability of endemicity feel like defeats," Yong writes. "They could, instead, be opportunities to rethink our attitudes about the viruses we allow ourselves to inhale..."

-- Molly Ball's TIME cover story about Capitol riot hero Mike Fanone: "It is a story about what we agree to remember and what we choose to forget, about how history is not lived but manufactured after the fact..."

-- Judges presiding over riot suspects have stepped up "as the conscience of democracy while lawmakers squabble," CNN's Tierney Sneed writes...

-- For a synthesis of climate news, you can't go wrong listening to Henry Fountain on "The Daily" podcast. He says this week's IPCC report is the "be all and end all of these kinds of reports..."

-- Andrew McCormick, writing for CJR, suggests two "subplots" to climate storytelling "that demand special, ongoing journalistic focus: climate justice and climate solutions..."

-- Grief and conspiracy 20 years after 9/11: If you haven't read Jennifer Senior's September cover story for The Atlantic, click here...

-- How do autocratic leaders create alternate realities? Hear Anne Applebaum's explanation on this edition of "The Axe Files" pod...

"Coda" is exquisite

Brian Lowry writes: "Touching, funny and stirring, it would be the kind of movie you'd urge a friend to run out and see, except they'll only need to stay home and ante up to stream it on Apple TV+. The tech giant's streaming service stepped up to buy the film for what Deadline reported to be a record sum coming out of Sundance, and at a moment when a lot of money's being thrown around for such acquisitions -- chasing awards prestige, attention or a little of both -- this one actually looks well spent."

"Coda" debuted on Friday. The title refers to an acronym for child of deaf adults -- in this case, Ruby, a high-school senior who has served as the translator for her parents and older brother, who is also deaf. It is a groundbreaking production: "Not only is it the first major Hollywood release to feature multiple deaf leads, but its hearing director, Siân Heder, endeavored to make the set as accessible as possible," the LAT's Amy Kaufman reports. Read more about the making of the film here...

On TV this weekend...

-- It's the opening weekend of ESPN's LaLiga partnership...

-- Clive Davis will be on "CBS Sunday Morning" previewing next Saturday's "We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert..."

-- The season 11 premiere of "The Walking Dead" starts streaming Sunday on AMC+. It will air on TV next week...

-- The season finale of "The White Lotus" drops at 9pm on HBO... On CBS, the finale of "Love Island" airs at the same time...

This Sunday on "Reliable"

I'll be joined by Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, plus CNN's Clarissa Ward in Kabul; Dominion attorney Stephen Shackelford; The Daily Beast's Lachlan Cartwright; The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum; and David Leavy, a top executive at Discovery, who will answer questions about this Poland-US media row. See you Sunday at 11am ET on CNN...

Some more great reads

-- The front of the NYT's Thursday Styles section was a photo of Rachel Uchitel and five of her words: "I've had it with NDAs." Katie Rosman's profile is about Uchitel, Tiger Woods, Gloria Allred, "celebrity, sex and the media..."

-- This week Rosman also penned a highly quotable profile of "Malibu Rising" author Taylor Jenkins Reid, who has become "a publishing juggernaut and a go-to creator in Hollywood..."

-- "What's bad for the world is good for our writers room:" Yvonne Villarreal has a profile of "The Good Fight" showrunners Robert and Michelle King in Sunday's LA Times...

-- Roger Stone, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Ben Shapiro are all characters in Joe Hagan's VF story about "Donald Trump's Florida..."

-- WaPo opinion writer Paul Waldman's bleak assessment of this week's new Census data: "Prepare for a long period of political rage" because "the increasing diversification of the United States will give both sides reason to be angry..."

-- Rachel Feintzeig called this "the most wild story I've ever reported," and it's easy to see why. It's in the weekend edition of the WSJ under the title "My Secret Life: Working Remotely — At Two Jobs..."

-- CNN's Allison Morrow argued that Sony got the "Jeopardy!" host decision "so, so wrong..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Mehdi Hasan mocked the Trump conspiracists' "Reinstatement Day" fantasy on MSNBC Friday night: "Well, it is past 8pm Eastern on the 13th of August, and you will be shocked to hear that Joe Biden is still the president..." (MSNBC)

All eyes on Kabul

The banner headline on Saturday's front page of the Washington Post says "Sweeping Taliban closing in on Kabul." While staffers at the US Embassy shred sensitive materials, and Afghans who assisted the war effort plead for help, President Biden remained silent about the chaos on Friday.

On Friday Clarissa Ward filed an exclusive report from the remnants of Combat Outpost Andar in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, which is now in the hands of the Taliban. She said the group was "keen to show off the spoils of war."

"Walking through what's left of these American bases," Ward said, "you have to ask yourself, what was it all for?"

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Pakistan's interior minister announced that "authorities are relaxing visa requirements for journalists working for foreign outlets in neighboring Afghanistan..." (AP)

-- Meanwhile: "The European Federation of Journalists is calling on European governments "to expand their refugee visa programs for Afghan journalists and media workers..." (EFJ)

-- The Open Society Foundation is spreading the word about a $10 million "emergency fund" for Afghan journalists, activists and others... (Twitter)

-- Ruchi Kumar writes about how a "collective of female journalists are battling to make women's voices heard as the Islamist militants tighten their grip" on Afghanistan... (Guardian)

Tampa Bay Times explores DeSantis' relationship with Fox

Oliver Darcy writes: "Through a public records request, The Tampa Bay Times obtained four months of emails between Fox News producers and Ron DeSantis' office -- and as reporter Steve Contorno put it, the exchanges 'lay bare how DeSantis has wielded the country's largest conservative megaphone and show a striking effort by Fox to inflate the Republican's profile.' Indeed, as Contorno reported, DeSantis has been in high demand at Fox. 'From the week of the 2020 election through February, the network asked DeSantis to appear on its airwaves 113 times, or nearly once a day,' he wrote. Read the full story here..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Eliza Relman and John Haltiwanger "approached nearly a dozen Republican senators this week to ask them whether they endorse Fox host Tucker Carlson's promotion of Hungary's right-wing populist leader" Viktor Orbán. "Their answers — and non-answers — underscore the ongoing erosion of support for democracy on the American right..." (Insider)

-- Emergency crews were called to Fox News HQ on Friday when a staffer opened an envelope containing "a white powdery substance." Thankfully the substance was found to be "non-hazardous," the company said... (WPIX)

-- Michael Avenatti's defamation suit against Fox News was dismissed Friday "when a federal judge in Delaware found that the report was substantially true..." (Bloomberg)

-- "The BBC on Friday accused Russia of 'a direct assault on media freedom' after effectively expelling one of its Moscow correspondents by not renewing her visa..." (AFP)

-- The Boston metro area's pioneering media criticism program "Beat the Press" has been discontinued by GBH... (Globe)

Surgeon general on Covid-19's "invisible impact"

In this early clip from my interview, Dr. Vivek Murthy says he is "deeply concerned about the mental health impact" of the pandemic. "It's not like a hurricane or a tornado" with a "clear beginning point and end point," he points out. "This has gone on for 18 months." But he expresses hope that the pandemic is an opening for a rethink. "We need to think about mental health differently, not as a weakness, not as evidence that we're broken, but is part and parcel of our overall health." Watch...

Such an uneven surge

This summer's Covid surge is uneven in at least two ways: In terms of vaccination and in terms of geography. Sickness and death is predominately among the unvaccinated. And it is primarily occurring in southern states. CNN's Travis Caldwell wrote about the eight states here...

A sign of influence

Washingtonian's Anne Tate says "Dude With Sign" at the White House "is the best influencer appearance yet." The pro-vaccination sign is simple:

The "Dude" with 7.5 million Instagram followers "often goes viral for — as his name suggests — holding up a cardboard sign with different things written on it," Tate writes...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- K. Bell asks: "Why is Facebook so bad at countering vaccine misinfo?" (Engadget) Counterpoint: "Facebook and YouTube execs say removing Covid-19 misinfo isn't enough," Katie Palmer reports... (STAT News)

-- "The good news from Lollapalooza:" There's no sign that it was a superspreader event... (Slate)

-- Live Nation, the massive concert firm, will require "artists and fans at its venues and festivals to be fully vaccinated against Covid or show a negative test..." (NBC)

-- The creators of "South Park" are "buying Casa Bonita, a quirky restaurant in suburban Denver that was featured on the show..." (AP)

-- "Chelsea Clinton will expand 'She Persisted' series to include 10 more chapter books in 2022..." (People)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's exit interview

"I feel like I did the right thing. I did the right thing for the state," NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo told NYMag in his first interview since tendering his resignation. The interview with Laura Nahmias was for a cover story written by Andrew Rice and Nahmias. They said Cuomo "wanted to talk about his legacy, to solicit a reporter's opinions. How would his accomplishments compare to those of past governors? How would he be remembered? Implicitly, he was asking, would what he was accused of overshadow the things that got done?"

This paragraph from the story also stood out: "Managing the press was as critical to Cuomo's government as managing the government." There was lots of yelling. "Aides would threaten to go over an editor's head to the publisher, or to pressure advertisers to pull their dollars from news websites. Cuomo and his people felt no compunction about weaponizing details of critics and journalists' lives." At the state capitol, "one prominent journalist talked about raising funds to hire surveillance experts to sweep the press room for bugging devices." Here's the cover:

Chris Cuomo's reentry

"Fresh off celebrating his 51st birthday, Chris Cuomo is scheduled to return from a week-long vacation and host his prime-time CNN show on Monday night, just as he has for the past three years," WaPo's Jeremy Barr wrote Friday. "But Cuomo's world has changed since he went on vacation," since his brother announced his resignation on Tuesday. Barr ends the piece with an accurate assessment of the complicated situation, courtesy Robert Yoon, a CNN veteran who now teaches journalism and politics at University of Michigan. "If people like Chris Cuomo's approach to the news and his take on things," Yoon said, "they'll continue to find a way to support him."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- YouTube has become "so adept at selling ad space through automated auctions that it is now massively underpricing those publishers that sell ad spots directly on their YouTube programs." Sahil Patel says "this trend is particularly hurting midsize media firms, such as Vice Media or BuzzFeed..." (The Information)

-- Google has filed to "dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Ohio attorney general seeking to declare the search giant a public utility..." (The Hill)

-- Ben Woods has a look at how Spotify and other music-streamers "coming under fire from regulators and upstarts..." (The Telegraph)

Snopes co-founder exposed for plagiarism

Snopes was left reeling on Friday after a BuzzFeed News investigation found that co-founder David Mikkelson had "wrote and published dozens of articles containing material plagiarized from news outlets such as the Guardian and the LA Times." After reporter Dean Sterling Jones contacted Snopes, the fact-checking site "conducted an internal review and confirmed that under a pseudonym, the Snopes byline, and his own name, Mikkelson wrote and published 54 articles with plagiarized material." Snopes said it will retract the stories and append an editor's note to them. Meanwhile Mikkelson, who owns half the company, has been suspended and rebuked by the staff. For his part, Mikkelson said, "There is no excuse for my serious lapses in judgement. I'm sorry..."

Researchers shut down project, saying Facebook issued threat

Oliver Darcy writes: "German research group AlgorithmWatch said in a blog post Friday that it had stopped a project examining Instagram's algorithm after Facebook issued a 'thinly veiled threat' during a meeting. The threat, AlgorithmWatch said, came after Facebook said the group had broken its terms of service and violated GDPR. AlgorithmWatch said it "decided to come public with this story after Facebook shut down the accounts of researchers working on the Ad Observatory at New York University." A Facebook spox confirmed to The Verge's Russell Brandom that the company met with the researchers, but denied it had threatened to sue the group..."

"Disney wins this round"

CNBC's Alex Sherman and Samantha Subin summarized this quarter's earnings season on Friday in a single sentence: "This round, Disney beat Netflix." The continued growth of Disney+ was "juxtaposed with a disappointing quarter for Netflix..."

Dreamy ratings for Fox

"The 'Field of Dreams Game' had a dream ending for Chicago White Sox fans, and its Nielsen ratings were a dream for Fox," TheWrap's Tony Maglio and Jennifer Maas wrote. "The walk-off win over the New York Yankees was the most-watched regular season baseball game on any network in 16 years," with an average of 5.9 million viewers...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

-- Jared Diamond points out that "in Iowa, where baseball staged a high-profile promotion Thursday, viewers can't watch six teams from surrounding states on MLB.tv because of blackouts..." (WSJ)

-- Ben Strauss writes about how La Liga's arrival to ESPN "comes at a tricky moment..." (WaPo)

-- The California recall is giving Netflix's Reed Hastings "a chance to mend fences" with Gavin Newsom. Here's how and why... (LAT)

-- Amazon is shifting "Lord of the Rings" production to UK from New Zealand... (CNN)

-- "Carol Leonnig's 'Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service' is getting the TV treatment..." (THR)

First look at Eichner's Drudge

Oliver Darcy writes: "I'm slightly late to this, but the first trailer of FX's 'Impeachment: American Crime Story' dropped, and the Drudge Report (unsurprisingly) makes an appearance. The trailer also gives us our first glimpse at Billy Eichner's Matt Drudge, a screen grab of which you can see above..."

"Now playing ONLY in theaters!"

That's how 20th Century Studios is promoting this weekend's premiere of "Free Guy." So "can that help ticket sales?" Variety's Rebecca Rubin asked that question in this story. "Free Guy" is "the first Disney film in about a year to have a traditional theatrical rollout," she noted. Right now the film is on track "to debut to $15 million and $18 million from 4,100 North American theaters, with some projections showing ticket sales could reach $20 million. A debut below $20 million would be disappointing, since the Disney and 20th Century Studio's movie cost more than $100 million to produce. Internationally, "Free Guy" is premiering this weekend in most major overseas markets, excluding China, where it doesn't have a release date yet. The release of "Free Guy" is significant because it's

A weird brew of empty calories

Brian Lowry writes: "On Friday Netflix premiered 'Brand New Cherry Flavor,' a bizarre story of Hollywood in the '90s, the supernatural and kittens, in roughly that order, which increasingly feels as if its creepy and gruesome images are the point of the story, not a means of telling it." Read on...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN

By Lisa Respers France:

-- Paris Hilton, Cher and others reacted to the latest Britney Spears news...

-- Elton John teamed up with Dua Lipa for a "Cold Heart" remix...

-- Paulina Porizkova shared a tearful selfie...

The significance of Emma Stone's new deal

"There was a lot of hasty speculation in the news following 'Black Widow' star Scarlett Johansson's lawsuit against Disney that other stars from the studio's theatrical-day-and-date titles would also pursue legal action surrounding the studio's window experimentation. To date, that hasn't happened," Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro points out.

On Friday he broke the news that Emma Stone "has closed a deal to star in the sequel to Cruella." Endeavor exec chairman Patrick Whitesell, whose agency repped Stone, said "this agreement demonstrates that there can be an equitable path forward that protects artists and aligns studios' interests with talent..."

So many American stories

Brian Lowry writes: "FX announced two more limited series from Ryan Murphy under his 'American' banner – 'American Sports Story' and 'American Love Story' – reflecting how active the producer remains as a supplier to the Disney-controlled network, despite his megabucks deal with Netflix. (Friday's announcements prompted Matt Belloni to question the 'exclusivity' label.) Murphy's next 'American Horror Story' premieres later this month, and 'Impeachment: American Crime Story' on September 7..."

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...

Pet of the day!

CNN publicist Sophie Tran writes: "This is Kiwi. He's a smart and mischievous Yorkie mix I adopted last September (thank you Hearts and Bones Rescue in NYC!). Sometimes reading the news makes him want to run and hide under a blanket, but he'll always peek his head back out for Reliable Sources."