| Brian Stelter here, hitting send at 10:40pm ET on Monday, Sept. 20 with the latest on the UN, Peter Thiel, WaPo, the NY Daily News, Malika Andrews, alternate feeds, Emmys ratings, and much more....
Pandemic dissonance
Monday was a day full of pandemic dissonance. Tuesday probably will be, too.
On the same day we learned about a major step forward for public health -- Pfizer saying that its Covid-19 vaccine is safe for kids -- we also heard about a horrible mile marker of death. "Despite all the scientific and medical advances of the past 103 years," CNN's Holly Yan wrote, this pandemic "has now killed more Americans than the 1918 flu pandemic did."
Other news outlets published similar stories when the Johns Hopkins dashboard surpassed the 675,000-dead mark. Some sites illustrated the news with historical photos from 1918.
When the authorities say the US is averaging roughly 2,000 Covid deaths a day, yet the same sources affirm that fully vaccinated Americans are well protected from severe illness, we wind up in a daily state of pandemic dissonance. It's a peculiar sort of tension that exists when pictures of jam-packed stadiums appear in social media feeds next to accounts of overwhelmed hospitals. I see it on my feed when a breakthrough like the Pfizer news happens: People who have been "back to normal" for months can't believe others are still taking stringent precautions – and visa versa.
This tension is particularly acute when we don't have the proper context or data to evaluate the circumstances we're in. Try this: Look up your own community's Covid data dashboard. Try to find out how many recent hospitalizations and deaths are among vaccinated adults versus unvaxxed. I tried this for my neighborhood and failed.
From time to time, federal and state officials provide snapshots that show the vast majority of the suffering and dying is happening among the unvaxxed, i.e. adults who have chosen not to protect themselves. But the data is not available in a consistent, searchable way. It's piecemeal at best. So we're left assuming, left guessing, left making risk assessments without reliable data, and that leads to even more pandemic dissonance...
Follow the rules or change the rules
Double-standard-style behavior by Democratic politicians and vaguely defined members of "the elite" is a daily theme of right-wing media coverage. Here's an example from Monday's Daily Caller homepage: "Elites attend galas and award shows unmasked while servants have to cover their faces."
I understand all the context for these scenes, but the photos still make me squeamish. This should not just be a "right-wing media" issue. It's an "everybody with common sense" issue. CNN's Brianna Keilar, to her credit, called out an example of hypocrisy on Monday's "New Day." She showed the video of SF mayor London Breed partying, maskless, with a fully vaccinated crowd. "The mayor of a major American city isn't complying with her own health department's health guidance," Keilar said.
Breed, on defense, told reporters "we don't need the fun police" to "micromanage" mask wearing as long as the population is vaccinated. I happen to agree -- but that's not the city's position or the CDC's position. These politicians should follow the rules or change the rules. If they don't have the authority, they should pressure those who do. If it's too complicated, they should push to make it simpler. Restrictions, rules and recommendations in this phase of the pandemic shouldn't be one-size-fits-all. They should be customized to specific locales and positivity rates and tolerance levels. But they are not. As the "rules" make less and less sense, and they're not enforced equally or at all, they'll be followed less and less, if at all...  LA County says Emmys didn't violate mask mandate
Oliver Darcy writes: "There has been a lot of discussion over the past 24 hours over whether those who attended the Emmy Awards violated LA County's mask mandate, which requires everyone, regardless of vaccination status, to don a face covering. Well, the short answer is, no, it apparently did not. A spokesperson for the LA County of Public Health told me that 'exceptions are made for film, television, and music productions' since 'additional safety modifications' are made for such events. The department explained that everyone at the Emmys was considered a performer and that 'all persons appearing on or in the audience of the Emmy Award Show were fully vaccinated against COVID-19.' And the department added that the Emmys reached out 'in advance to share their safety protocols,' which they said 'exceeded the baseline requirements.' Read the full statement here..."
The right's narratives
There is, of course, an unhinged right-wing media that has no interest in context. Take this banner on Tucker Carlson's show on Monday: "CELEBRITIES ARE APPARENTLY EXEMPTED FROM ALL RULES." There's also this headline on the American Thinker website: "COVID has turned leftists into child-abusers" due to mask mandates for toddlers. Some of the commentary about vaccine mandates has been similarly kooky.
But there are more persuasive arguments being advanced in other corners. I noticed Washington Examiner editor Seth Mandel tweet about "watching 4 year old kids play soccer in masks," and I thought, well that makes no sense. My 4 year old went to soccer class on Saturday and there was not a mask in sight. The virus threat is roughly the same in both of our towns. So, who's making these differing decisions and why? It's easy to see how so much social trust has been lost throughout this ordeal. And if we ignore that reality, even more trust will be lost... FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE -- Two children who recently lost their 45-year-old father to Covid-19 spoke out on CNN's "New Day" and blamed Tucker Carlson for some of the vaccine misinfo he believed... (Mediaite)
-- Carlson's newest rant, sure to be absorbed throughout the GOP, is about the US military's get-vaxxed policy: "The point of mandatory vaccination is to identify the sincere Christians in the ranks, the freethinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anybody else who doesn't love Joe Biden and make them leave immediately. It's a takeover of the U.S. military!" (Twitter)
-- Shawn Boburg and Jon Swaine write about Thomas Renz, a "once little-known attorney" whose rise "shows how vaccine misinformation can fuel fundraising and far-right celebrity..." (WaPo)
-- Along the same lines, Kiera Butler reports on how "a wildly popular app for churches is now an anti-vax hotbed..." (Mother Jones)
-- Matt Gertz writes about how far-right Breitbart writer John Nolte is "trying to get his readers vaccinated" through a "wrong and crazy" argument... (MMFA)
-- "Anti-vax hypocrite Eric Clapton breaks own vow, plays venue with vaccine mandate..." (Rolling Stone) Six rules...
Katherine J. Wu, Ed Yong, and Sarah Zhang's newest story for The Atlantic is titled "Six rules that will define our second pandemic winter." One of the many standout quotes: "The more unvaccinated people are concentrated, the more easily the virus can find its next victim..." CNN's RTO update
Oliver Darcy writes: "No surprise here. CNN on Monday became the latest company to push its full return-to-office date back to 2022. Network boss Jeff Zucker announced the news to employees in a memo, saying execs had 'come to the conclusion that a full return to the office in October does not feel right.' Zucker, who mentioned the Delta variant's rise in Atlanta where CNN HQ is, said the new target date is January 10. But he encouraged employees to start coming into the office now, something that many staffers have already been doing. 'I think you'll find … it is actually pretty great,' Zucker said, adding, 'The transition does not begin in January. It begins now...'"
>> This piece in The Atlantic is an important reminder that "work from home" is not the norm: Only 13.4% of Americans "worked from home" in August... TUESDAY PLANNER The UN General Assembly swings into high gear. President Biden will speak at 10am ET with widespread TV coverage expected...
The Goldman Sachs Communacopia and TechCrunch Disrupt conferences kick off...
CNN data guru Harry Enten will debut a new podcast called "Margins of Error..." Tuesday's new releases are selling well
Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's "Peril" remains #1 on the Amazon best seller list. "Vanderbilt" by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe is #2. Dr. Scott Gottlieb's "Uncontrolled Spread" is #10. Lynette Rice's "Grey's Anatomy" tell-all "How to Save a Life" is also in the top 100...
Bombshells in "The Contrarian"
"The Contraran," Max Chafkin's new biography of Peter Thiel, is "entertaining and disturbing," Jeff Bercovici wrote in this LAT review. A passage about Facebook, where Thiel is a board member, gained a lot of attention on Monday: It said that Thiel "told a confidant" that, in 2019, Mark Zuckerberg "came to an understanding" with Jared Kushner that FB would "continue to avoid fact-checking political speech" and "the Trump administration would lay off on any heavy-handed regulations."
Chafkin added: "Zuckerberg denied that there had been any deal with Trump, calling the notion 'pretty ridiculous,' though Facebook's actions in the run-up to the election would make the denial seem not entirely credible." Here's the excerpt... America's #1 podcast episode right now...
...Is Sunday's breaking news episode of the "Crime Junkie" podcast about the Gabby Petito case. It is ranked #1 on Apple Podcasts' top episodes list. Another true crime pod, "Going West," also has a couple of Petito episodes in the top 20 right now. This proves the point in Katie Rosman's story for the NYT, which is that Petito's disappearance has "galvanized the internet," with countless "amateur detectives" getting involved. Read on... TUESDAY'S STORIES TO WATCH: -- Where is Petito's fiancé Brian Laundrie? Members of his family are scheduled to hold a presser at 1pm ET... (CNN)
-- Will US markets recover after Monday's huge selloff? What will happen next with Evergrande? (CNN Business)
-- Border agents attempted to regain control in Del Rio, Texas, and the resulting photos of agents on horseback pursuing migrants have provoked condemnation by Democratic lawmakers and a commitment to investigate by the Homeland Security Secretary... (WaPo)
-- At a pivotal stage in the Biden agenda, "open warfare" is breaking out between liberals and moderates, Clare Foran and Manu Raju report... (CNN)
-- The San Antonio doctor who wrote a Washington Post op-ed claiming that he had violated the six-week abortion ban in Texas is now being sued, setting up the first known challenges to the new law... (CNN) WaPo expansion plan includes 41 new editing roles
Kerry Flynn writes: "While some journalists are ditching their editors for Substack, one news organization wants to employ many, many more of them. The Washington Post announced Monday it will add 41 editing positions, including two new deputy managing editors. This follows and relates to the company's larger plan to expand more nationally and internationally. As exec editor Sally Buzbee told the NYT, 'A real benefit toward us in a situation like this is ensuring that this will also improve the diversity of our staff, provide career paths across the newsroom for a more diverse group of people, for people from a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets...'"
NOW COMPARE WAPO'S EXPANSION WITH THE NYDN'S CONTRACTION...
NY Daily News gets new 'as needed' top editor
Kerry Flynn writes: "Andrew Julien, the new interim and 'as needed' EIC of The New York Daily News, is not based in NY. He also happens to be the editor and publisher of The Hartford Courant. Staffers at both papers, which are part of Tribune and therefore owned by hedge fund Alden, were informed of this abrupt change in leadership Monday. Outgoing EIC Robert York declined NYT's request for comment and Tribune did not provide a reason for his departure..."
>> Alyssa Katz of The City pointed out that "news articles about the NY Daily News sometimes still include a photo of a sign outside the newsroom building on Water Street. Except there's no newsroom anymore, anywhere." FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO -- Longtime AP reporter Andrew Taylor: "The objective-journalism version of events can often obscure the reality of what's really going on." While covering his longtime beat, Congress, the both-sides approach "sanitizes things," he says. He's happy to be off the beat now... (WaPo)
-- What's needed is less "sanitized" coverage and more stories like this: "The Big Lie is metastasizing," David Siders and Zach Montellaro report, showing how Republicans are allowing phony election fraud conspiracies to "infect" midterms... (Politico)
-- "More than 1 million people watched the U.N. General Assembly online — when K-pop band BTS took to the podium..." (WaPo) What journalists can afford to just quit their jobs?
Kerry Flynn writes: "That question reverberated across Media Twitter Monday in response to a Digiday story, 'How the pandemic has pushed journalists to exit the industry.' The Athletic's Lindsey Adler tweeted, 'Nobody needs another damn story about journalists quitting their jobs to decompress from burnout. Very few people have the resources or ability to do so. 'Quit your job and go on vacation' is not a reality for like, the vast majority of Americans. Enough!' Others called out how the story only quoted men and that it did not acknowledge those affected by layoffs. I agree with those points, though I found the story to have several compelling quotes. Going forward, I think it would be valuable to report on solutions to burnout. What newsrooms are helping alleviate it -- not just by encouraging PTO but through other means? Interestingly, WaPo's announcement on 41 new editing roles said more assignment editors will 'strengthen coverage and reinforce colleagues who've been taxed by the unrelenting news cycle.' So, what else can we do?" FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE By Kerry Flynn:
-- Willard Jackson, the former CEO of Ebony, has been charged by the SEC with allegedly "raising money for marijuana businesses but illegally using the cash for other things -- including keeping the magazine afloat," Lukas Alpert reports... (MarketWatch)
-- Alan Murray says Fortune will donate profits from its NFT sale to four journalism organizations. The donations are currently valued at $165,000 per org... (Fortune)
-- Hearst TV is launching its OTT streaming channel "Very Local," which includes magazine content, across all of its 26 markets, Todd Spangler writes... (Variety)
-- BBC News has named its own longtime reporter Zoe Kleinman as its first tech editor. She will be part of the Technology & Innovation team in Glasgow when she returns from maternity leave... (Twitter)  Facebook on defense
CNBC's Salvador Rodriguez writes: Facebook "is playing defense" after last week's scathing WSJ stories about "just how far the company has gone to prioritize profits over the health and safety of its billions of users." He also makes the key point that this is a "familiar pattern to those who have followed the social-networking giant over the past few years." Is this time different at all?
Well, there's more pressure from Capitol Hill: "Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi is pressing Facebook for documents regarding what he calls the social media giants' apparent failure to protect user welfare based on recent reporting," The Hill's Rebecca Klar reports. We'll see... Senate Dems asks social giants for policies on violent content
"Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters has written Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, asking for information about their policies and practices to monitor and remove extremist violent content," CNN's Whitney Wild reports. "This is the first major public document request from the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection after it released its bipartisan review in early June into the security breakdowns leading to the Capitol riot..." FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR -- New polling from Pew Research Center: "As social media companies struggle with misinformation on their platforms, a sizable portion of Americans continue to turn to these sites for news..." (Pew)
-- Joshua Benton's take on the new Pew #'s: "As Facebook tries to knock the journalism off its platform, its users are doing the same. A healthy chunk of Facebook users say they don't get much news there any more — an outcome to be both expected and desired..." (NiemanLab)
-- "Twitter said it agreed to pay more than $800 million to settle a consolidated class-action securities lawsuit alleging the social-media company deliberately misled investors about user engagement in 2015," Colin Kellaher reports... (WSJ)
-- Ad Watch: "Amazon is piling ads into search results and top consumer brands are paying up for prominent placement," Annie Palmer writes... (CNBC)
-- Tom Llamas began hosting a nightly newscast for NBC News Now on Monday... (LAT)
-- Brian Steinberg has the lowdown on Fox Business moving away from talk shows in prime time. He interviewed the channel's prez, Lauren Petterson, who said "Fox News Channel is doing a great job of covering politics and news. We want to complement that, but not try to compete with that..." (Variety) Malika Andrews replaces Rachel Nichols
"As part of an ongoing effort to overhaul its NBA coverage, ESPN will launch a new daily NBA studio show this fall that will be hosted by Malika Andrews," WaPo's Ben Strauss scooped Monday. As Strauss explained, "The show will essentially replace Rachel Nichols's 'The Jump,' which was a staple of ESPN's daily NBA coverage since 2016 before it was canceled amid controversy last month. The 3pm show will premiere in October... "The dirty little secret of alternate feeds"
The NYT's Kevin Draper wrote about the Manning Bros. "alternate" telecast of "Monday Night Football" and the broader trend of multiple viewing options for sporting matches. Another example: Triller's "alternate commentary stream" with Donald Trump talking about a pay-per-view boxing card. It turns out that "the Trump alternate commentary was the least popular one of the night, behind the traditional English-language and Spanish-language commentaries."
That gets to one of Draper's main points: "The dirty little secret of alternate feeds" is "that nobody watches them. Not nobody, exactly, but nobody in television terms." Still, they can be a success, and here's why...  Fall TV kicks off (yes, still)
Brian Lowry writes: "Although the networks are relying on an alphabet soup of brand extensions (from 'NCIS: Hawaii' to 'FBI: International'), there are a few original concepts this fall, some exhibiting a fair amount of promise. 'The Big Leap' might be the best of those, though the Fox series -- about a fictional reality show within the show, and the hopes and dreams of those participating -- could face an uphill battle getting people to tune in to see how the sausage gets made. NBC, meanwhile, seems to be chasing the 'This is Us' audience with 'Ordinary Joe,' while Fox's 'Our Kind of People' plays like a pretty conventional soap, set in a wealthy Black community. Read all about the new shows here..." FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE -- One hell of a debut for "Tha God's Honest Truth" by Charlamagne Tha God: The show interrupted his own commentary on "why America needs a decrackerfication" with "Klu Kux News" rebuttals... (YouTube)
-- "IATSE is set to hold a strike authorization vote after the latest contract talks between the union and producers faltered..." (THR)
-- Chloe Melas and Alisyn Camerota are working on a CNN special about Britney Spears that will air this Sunday night... (Twitter)
-- Steven Mnuchin on the hunt for new opportunities in the entertainment biz? He "has raised $2.5 billion for his private equity fund, Liberty Strategic Capital, and will seek investments in the technology sector, financial services, as well as in 'new forms of content...'" (THR) The Emmys, 24 hours later
Lisa Respers France's story observes that the #EmmysSoWhite hashtag is gaining some traction, again, since Sunday's awards show featured many performers of color but awarded the statues largely to White actors. LA Times critic Lorraine Ali called this out in a front-page Times review on Monday titled "Too predictable, too white."
Go ahead and add "too concentrated" to that headline. "In a year with so much to watch, Emmy voters rather unfortunately limited honors to a handful of top shows, starting with 'The Crown's' sweep of the drama prizes," Brian Lowry writes. His story notes that the Emmy season was historic for Netflix -- tying the all-time record for wins by a network or service in a single year.
>> Streaming Wars Scoreboard: Netflix netted 44, mostly at the Creative Arts ceremonies; HBO won 19; Disney+ won 14; Apple TV+ won 11; "Amazon and Hulu were completely shut out in 2021, after both won Emmys in 2020," TechCrunch noted...
Emmys rebound from record ratings low
For broadcasters, some good news for once?
Brian Lowry writes: "There are a lot of moving parts around those Emmy ratings, but the bottom line is that the awards-show industrial complex should be breathing a sigh of relief after the steep declines registered earlier this year. Even beginning off the depressed base Frank mentioned, any gains for broadcasting in this day and age seem notable, and should offer hope to the awards to come (Oscars, Grammys, etc.) that while their former glory is surely out of reach, they can stop the bleeding after the 50-plus-percent drops suffered earlier this year. It won't hurt, either, to have the Golden Globes out of the mix, one less event to dilute the specialness of the others."
What even is TV anymore?
Brian Lowry adds: "While nobody is asking for more Emmy categories, some of the strange bedfellows in this year's nominations should inspire the Television Academy to take a hard look at how those awards are constructed, a process the organization goes through every year. Specifically, it's hard to see how 'SNL' guest hosts and stars in a filmed presentation of 'Hamilton' belong opposite actors from comedy series and limited series or movies, respectively..." LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
Pet of the day!
Retired editorial writer Cheryl Tucker of Lakewood, Washington, emails: "Sasha enjoys sitting with me while she reads Reliable Sources and the local newspaper (my employer for 38 years)..."  You are receiving this message because you subscribed to CNN's Reliable Sources newsletter.
® © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc.
Our mailing address is: | |||||||
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
Top Articles
-
Baird and NWSL general counsel Lisa Levine were ousted Friday in the wake of a rep...
-
Plus: The high costs of housing, school board politics and alien life abroad July 16, 2021 View in B...
Our Hindi Website
www.hindi.men
