July 4 balancing act
America’s big TV networks have had years, literally, to plan for this weekend’s semiquincentennial festivities. And they’re going to make it feel appropriately “big” with special events and broadcasts.
CNN is having Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen count down to July 4 from Times Square on Friday night. ABC is touting 24 hours of special programming with “coverage across all 50 states,” including the annual July 4 midnight parade in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. NBC is devoting six hours to Sail4th 250’s International Parade of Sail in New York Harbor. And the list goes on!
The coverage is nonpartisan in nature, and intentionally so. But President Trump’s plan to speak on the National Mall on Saturday night is… complicating matters. Will TV networks show Trump’s remarks live? Should they? What if he rambles into a political rant? What if he delays Washington’s iconic fireworks show?
I’ve been asking around, and my sense is that the networks are not turning Independence Day into The Trump Show, even if the president might want that. The night is primarily about patriotic performances and huge fireworks shows, so that’s what will take precedence.
News organizations have to assess how newsworthy Trump’s speech might not be. But that’s not really a factor for NBC and ABC, since Saturday night’s coverage on those networks belongs to the entertainment division, not news.
NBC has a long history of televising the Macy’s fireworks in New York, and ABC has a Ryan Seacrest special in Nashville planned for this year.
The CBS special on Saturday is being led by CBS News, with “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil and “Entertainment Tonight” co-host Nischelle Turner anchoring from 8 til 11 p.m. Eastern from a prominent perch on the National Mall.
A CBS press release promises “star-studded concerts and performances” from coast to coast, “culminating in what organizers are calling the largest fireworks show in history over the skies of Washington, D.C.”
A CBS executive source shot down a rumor that the network might take Trump’s speech live in full; the source said the network might show a brief portion of the president’s remarks, but the plan doesn’t call for anything more. Musical performances and fireworks are the CBS production priorities, with plans to show live events in NYC; L.A.; Philly; Montclair, New Jersey; Fayetteville, Georgia; and Gadsden, Alabama, among other locations.
The fireworks in DC will have to wait until the political speeches are over. Figures like Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio will be speaking on the Mall before Trump (and no, the broadcasters will not be airing those, either).
One of the suspected reasons for the late fireworks start in DC actually has to do with the TV coverage. “In past years, the show has started around 9:15 p.m.,” Washingtonian noted, but officials are anticipating a 10:30 p.m. start time this year, causing some families to decide to stay home.
Trump’s speech is slated to begin at 9:45 p.m., which seems influenced both by the number of other, earlier speakers and by the timing of fireworks shows in other cities, several network sources told me.
Waiting until almost 10 to speak means Trump won’t be competing with the New York fireworks telecast. Or Boston: CNN has a special pact to show the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular this year, so that will be a “signature” part of CNN’s coverage, though the press release also notes that the National Mall festivities will be a “focal point throughout the day.”
CNN anchors will be in four cities on Saturday night, with Dana Bash and Boris Sanchez on the National Mall, and a source says CNN plans to take at least a small part of Trump’s speech, though it’ll be a balancing act given all the other live events that will be happening across the country. I’m told NewsNation is also planning to air Trump live.
The calculus is different for a news network like CNN versus a broadcaster like CBS, since prime time on CBS is usually for entertainment. (CBS News will stream Trump’s speech in full, I’m told, and so will NBC News Now and other platforms.)
In general, some networks are centering their coverage around the DC event much more than others. For instance, Fox News is promoting five hours of DC coverage, with five top hosts — Bret Baier, Harris Faulkner, Sean Hannity, Brian Kilmeade and Dana Perino — all emanating “from the main stage at the event.”
Fox’s show will seemingly be subject to the president’s whims, and their audience likely won’t mind.
Surprisingly, the Fox broadcast network isn’t doing anything special to mark July 4, unless you count an MLB baseball game in prime time.
But others are pulling out all the stops. CNN’s “Independence Eve Live” show starts Friday at 8 p.m., and special coverage resumes Saturday at noon. ABC’s 24-hour event starts at 10 p.m. ABC says David Muir “will lead coverage, guiding viewers through all 50 states alongside a powerhouse team of talent across networks,” with ESPN, National Geographic and others involved. Here’s a complete rundown. The special will air on basically all of Disney’s channels.
Of course, if you want to watch the festivities without any interruptions, C-SPAN is planning to show dozens of celebrations in the coming days. Dasha Burns’ “Ceasefire” show will have a unique debate between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
I feel like I’m spoiling the America 250 party by lingering on the Trump of it all, but his ego is an inescapable part of this weekend. “On July 4th it’s going to be approximately 107 degrees out,” he said yesterday, “and I’m going to go and I’m going to make a really long speech just to show that I can do anything.”
CNN’s Adam Cancryn, Kristen Holmes and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn reported yesterday that Trump was “infuriated” by the “lackluster attendance for Trump’s speech on the mall last week.” That has “sparked fears of a similarly disappointing turnout” on Saturday. “He has teased the event as one of the most consequential moments of his presidency.”
Consequential, but chaotic behind the scenes, as evidenced by the confusion about the DC fireworks timing…
Outstanding July 4 content
Major newsrooms have produced some outstanding features and interactives for America’s 250th birthday. I’m sure I’m missing a bunch, but here are a few worth 👏👏👏:
– The “CBS News Sunday Morning” team produced “Sunday Morning’s Essential American Songbook,” a “multimedia look at the songs that make up the fabric of America,” complete with a Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure. The interactive feature takes advantage of the CBS archives and its access to incredible artists. Spend some time with it.
– TIME’s special semiquincentennial issue is media-centric, featuring “the TV moments that revealed the truth about America,” “the movies that make sense of America right now,” 25 books that capture this moment, and a work of poetry.
– CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf and Koko Nakajima annotated the Declaration of Independence “250 years later — during the Trump era,” and you should read all the way to the end. Plus, an amazing team of CNNers spoke with some descendants of Founding Fathers for a look at America through their eyes.
– Over at The New York Times, Albert Sun, Jeff Adelson and Larry Buchanan created a gorgeous interactive map, titled “An American Mosaic,” which details the kaleidoscopic ancestry and origins of Americans nationwide.
Hit reply and share more of your favorite America 250 features, and I’ll link to some on Monday.
“Today, the press that the founders regarded as crucial to American democracy is at its weakest point in the nation’s history,” NYT publisher A.G. Sulzberger writes in a new op-ed for The Dallas Morning News timed to the holiday weekend.
Going back in time, Sulzberger writes that the founders “knew that what’s in a nation’s best interest isn’t always perfect or popular — or, for that matter, personally comfortable. They fought bitterly with the newspapers of their era. Yet they understood the press to be as vital to the success of the American experiment as the three branches of government — a fourth estate.”
>> “To ensure our nation’s next quarter-millennium is as successful,” Sulzberger writes, “America needs to do more to shore up the press, particularly the local press, in its moment of vulnerability. That starts with leaders of all stripes pushing back more forcefully on escalating attacks on the press in the United States and around the world. It also means protecting original journalism by ensuring the currently robust protections for intellectual property are reinforced — not weakened — for the A.I. era.” Read the rest here…
“Today, the party begins. Or at least that is the speculation around the worst kept secret of the moment, the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce,” Kate Bolduan said on “CNN News Central” just now.
You can check out all of CNN’s live updates here. Journalists here, there and everywhere are jostling for scoops and staking out MSG to see who and what’s coming and going. MS NOW’s Julianne McShane remarked on X, “I’m not a Swiftie but I appreciate the shoe leather journalism going into uncovering this.” I’m seconding that!
Earlier this week Reuters, citing an unnamed FBI official, reported that federal investigators have determined “all three kidnapping-related messages” tied to Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance to be fake. There were lots of reasons to be skeptical of that report. And last night the FBI’s Phoenix office issued a statement rebutting it. The FBI confirmed that some of the notes “have been deemed to be extortion attempts without legitimacy,” but “other ransom demands may potentially be legitimate and are still being investigated as such.”
>> The Guthrie family has been contending with apparent extortionists for several months, adding more complication and pain to an already fraught situation, one of Savannah Guthrie’s confidants told me…
“I really want the launch to feel like a soft launch. We’re taking all our shots at Alex and that world this summer,” Ben Collins, The Onion’s chief executive, told Variety’s Jack Dunn of InfoWars’ relaunch before the big day — which is today. Following InfoWars’ soft launch, Collins says that this fall, “we can rebrand and not be banging the drum on the conspiracy world so much, and just opening it up to changing the meaning of the word InfoWars.”
The proverbial wrench in the plan, per Collins, is that “the one thing we don’t have, which is annoying to me, is InfoWars.com.” Collins notes that InfoWars “will launch on YouTube as InfoWars and be a sister company or a little brother to The Onion.” As of this morning, no new videos had been posted to the Google-owned video platform. But you can read what Collins has planned for the platform’s relaunch and more in Dunn’s interview here…
Trump “reported a $10.71 million licensing fee as income as part of his 2025 financial disclosure report for ‘Melania,’ the Amazon MGM Studios documentary about the First Lady,” Variety’s Todd Spangler reports.
>> Big picture: Jake Tapper presented this 10-minute report yesterday about how “Trump’s fortune has exploded since he returned to office.”
>> Correction: Yesterday I quoted a New York Times story about Comcast and credited Ben Mullin, but the actual author was Lauren Hirsch. My apologies. Here’s the story!
>> “A wealthy Maltese businessman accused of ordering the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia went on trial on Wednesday, nine years after the death of the journalist,” Christopher Scicluna reports. (Reuters)
>> Paula Reid, who is reportedly leaving CNN, “is expected to take up new duties at MS NOW,” Brian Steinberg reports. (Variety)
>> Slate’s “Culture Gabfest” podcast, “which helped spawn the chat-show genre, aired its last episode Wednesday.” (NYT)
Come 2028, Sony will discontinue physical game disc production for all new games on PlayStation consoles,” Matt Kamen writes, calling the move “a nail in physical media’s coffin” and saying it raises questions “over content ownership without a hard copy.”
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by David Goldman and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.