All eyes on Reflecting Pool
Monica Hesse says “the best show on television or any other screen right now is Reflecting Pool.”
Yes, Reflecting Pool, the rolling news reporting and social-media posting about President Trump’s renovations at the National Mall and all the spectacle that’s ensued since.
“Reflecting Pool has everything,” Hesse writes in her latest Washington Post column. “It’s a drama. It’s a farce. It’s a whodunit. It’s a murder mystery. The victims are ducks.”
This “show” is “entertainingly low stakes because it is not, for example, a war,” she observes. And there’s a long history of such distractions soaking up public attention during the summertime.
That said, this algae-tinged drama “is also high stakes,” Hesse writes, “because it definitively proves something, but what it definitively proves apparently depends on your political persuasion.”
She nails it here: “To watch Reflecting Pool is to bear witness to both the behaviors of your government and of your fellow citizens. To see what they are willing to believe. Who they are willing to blame.”
>> Michael Calderone interviews Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about “Regime Change.” Haberman says “this book really almost killed both of us physically and mentally, and it was well worth it.” (NYMag)
>> The Washington Post editorial board follows up on this week’s news that the Justice Department has withdrawn its subpoenas to Post and WSJ reporters: “Why reporters don’t belong in front of grand juries.” (WaPo)
>> Clint Smith goes deep on Trump-related tumult at the Smithsonian and asks: “How long can the museum system’s leader, Lonnie Bunch, survive?” (The Atlantic)
>> Callie Holtermann writes about “the glitchy, gloppy look of now,” and quotes Gael Aitor saying something that I keep thinking about: “The worse it looks, the better it performs.” (NYT)
>> Katie Notopoulos argues that “AI slop is coming for your kids.” (Business Insider)
>> John Herrman asks: “Is AI having another DeepSeek moment?” (NYMag)
>> Lex McMenamin breaks down “how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison.” (The Guardian)
>> Sophie Culpepper showcases how an independent bookstore in Cambridge, recognizing that newspaper-style book reviews are an “endangered species,” started publishing its own book review section. (NiemanLab)
Writing for Sports Media Watch, Jon Lewis says “World Cup viewership remains on a roll” as the group stage nears the end.
Fox analytics chief Michael Mulvihill shared these new stats today: “84.3 million Americans have watched” (at least a little bit of) “the World Cup on FOX and FS1 through leg two of the group stage.”
>> Janko Roettgers details “how the World Cup became a US streaming success story.” (The Verge)
>> Steven Zeitchik and Alex Weprin calculate that Fox is making hundreds of millions of dollars off the ads during the “hydration breaks.” (THR)
>> Alex Kirshner says @FreddyLA7, the German soccer fan who’s gone viral this month, has “exposed how desperate Americans are for proof that their country is great.” (Slate)
>> Michael McCarthy says this week’s NYT story about Dianna Russini “only raises more questions,” including about “the relationship between The New York Times and The Athletic.” (Front Office Sports)
>> The aforementioned Alex Weprin says “Hollywood and Big Tech are preparing for war.” (THR)
>> Lillian Rizzo says “broadcasters are taking note” as TikTok and YouTube are “reinventing sports viewership.” CNBC)
>> Kayla Cobb finds that at the Cannes Lions festival, “advertising is still figuring out that creator takeover.” (TheWrap)
>> Lara O’Reilly reports that Walmart’s acquisition of Vibe.co this week was the talk of Cannes because it symbolized “Walmart’s intent to become an ad giant rivaling Meta, Google, and Amazon.” (Business Insider)
>> Brooks Barnes shows how online creators have (maybe belatedly) taken “center stage” at CAA. (NYT)
>> Jonathan Abrams looks at just how mainstream “microdramas” are becoming. (NYT)
>> Speaking of the short flicks, Tess Patton describes how TheWrap made an “Off Campus” microdrama “for $150 using AI.” (TheWrap)
>> Sony Pictures boss Tom Rothman says YouTuber hit movies are “a reminder that all of the arts go through periodic creative replenishment.” (NYT)
All about the past and present turmoil at the news division:
>> Former “60 Minutes” boss Bill Owens is shopping a memoir that takes aim at Paramount, Lachlan Cartwright reports. (Breaker)
>> Scott Pelley “has found new representation,” signing with CAA. (Deadline)
>> Bari Weiss has been contemplating giving an interview to “The Daily” host Michael Barbaro, though “she has been advised against a blockbuster sit-down and an interview is not expected to imminently happen,” Oliver Darcy reports. (Status)
“Jacqueline Smith, the ombudsman for military newspaper Stars and Stripes who was fired in April by the Pentagon, sued the agency on Thursday, alleging that her dismissal was retaliatory and violated her First Amendment rights,” WaPo’s Liam Scott and Scott Nover scooped…
Andrew Kirell writes: Former Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge has “suffered another courtroom setback,” the NY Post’s Ariel Zilber reports, after the DC Circuit “refused to pause enforcement of a contempt order” while she seeks a Supreme Court review. The order “could leave her paying $800 a day for refusing to identify confidential sources” tied to her 2017 Fox reporting on Yanping Chen, a Chinese-American scientist who was investigated by the FBI but never charged.
Fox News said in a statement that the ruling is “deeply troubling” and that “forcing a journalist to expose a confidential source strikes at the very heart of the First Amendment and sends a chilling message to newsrooms in their ability to hold the powerful accountable.”
Liam Reilly writes: The FCC’s Trump-aligned chair, Brendan Carr, maintains that “Disney is running a campaign of misinformation.” That comment came during Carr’s Thursday press conference, regarding ABC’s ads urging viewers to support the network in its proceedings with the government.
Carr specifically objected to the ad about “The View,” asserting that “the FCC wants to control who is allowed to appear on the show.” He repeated his claim that the FCC is simply “enforcing the provisions of the Communications Act that Congress has passed,” i.e., the “equal-time rule,” even though, as Karl Bode wrote for Techdirt here, “The View was already exempt from this rule, for more than two decades. Even if it wasn’t, the rule hasn’t been enforced in 26 years because it’s a relic that doesn’t matter.”
As ever, Anna Gomez, the commission’s lone Democrat, carried a different note. Gomez noted that the majority of the public comment submissions have been pro-ABC, but said, “Let’s not pretend that the public’s opinion will have an impact on the outcome.”
“I suspect this FCC will cherry-pick the submissions of partisan organizations to support its goal of silencing critics,” she said.
Another bit of news from the FCC presser yesterday: “Carr said he’s waiting for a joint federal committee called ‘Team Telecom’ to weigh in on Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. before his agency makes its own decision on the deal’s financing,” Bloomberg’s Kelcee Griffis wrote. Griffis explained that “Team Telecom is a joint committee that includes the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security” and gets input from other agencies.
At issue: Paramount’s transaction “includes $24 billion from three Middle East sovereign wealth funds which will own close to 40% of the equity in the company. Although Paramount has said the funds will own non-voting, non-governing stock, the foreign investment in US broadcast assets is something the commission must approve.”
Carr certainly didn’t sound worried about the Middle Eastern money. But Gomez, when asked separately about it, said, “I think that should concern all of us.”
>> Starting this Sunday, MS NOW will feature only taped video podcasts after 6 p.m. on weekends, Brian Steinberg reports. Weekend afternoon anchor Alex Witt “will depart later in the year.” (Variety)
>> In the UK, The Sun “has agreed to pay ‘substantial’ libel damages to actor Qasim Akhtar after falsely linking him to Islamic extremism.” (Press Gazette)
>> Lifestyle publisher Apartment Therapy Media has “launched its first paid membership offering.” (A Media Operator)
>> NBC News chief digital officer Chris Berend is departing after seven years with the company. (TheWrap)
One of the WSJ’s most-read stories this morning: Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Facebook policy executive who’s “been barred for more than a year from speaking about her scathing memoir detailing her time at the company,” is “suing Meta in federal court, alleging that the arbitration enforcement action that the company brought to prevent her from promoting the book, and the underlying contract it is enforcing, are invalid,” Keach Hagey and Meghan Bobrowsky report.
>> A Meta rep said “this former employee is trying to use the legal process to sell books, which an arbitrator already ruled broke the agreement she signed with the company when she accepted a large financial settlement years ago.”
>> “The White House has requested OpenAI limit the release of its upcoming GPT 5.6 model to a small number of government-approved partners because of its advanced capabilities,” Hadas Gold reports. (CNN)
>> The New York Times “amended its lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft on Thursday, modifying one claim against Microsoft and dropping another against OpenAI.” (NYT)
>> DuckDuckGo’s AI search feature “is telling users that Trump died of rabies earlier this month.” (Futurism)
>> “YouTube is rolling out a series of changes to Shorts, including a new method that lets users shrink the duration of short-form videos.” (TechCrunch)
>> “More than 80% of under-16s in Australia said they were still using social media three months after legislation banning them from it came into force.” (The Guardian)
>> The VP’s book tour continues: JD Vance will appear on “Real Time with Bill Maher” tonight. (LateNighter)
>> Hasbro, the company behind “Peppa Pig,” is “asking child actors on the animated series to sign over their voices to artificial intelligence under new contract terms.” (Deadline)
>> “Peacock’s ‘The Paper’ is making headlines as Season 2 has set its premiere date for Wednesday, September 9.” (Deadline)
>> Love this story: Amy Adams said on the “SmartLess” podcast that “she once saved a stabbing victim’s life — and credited her role on a short-lived CBS medical drama with preparing her for the emergency.” (NBC)
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.