The press dinner do-over
TGIF! Here’s the latest on The New York Times, “The Morning Show,” Forbes, Wasserman, HuffPost, Patreon, and more…
Tonight’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner will be smaller and a bit more sober than the gala that was marred by gun violence in April.
It will be held at a different hotel at a different time of the year. But the same rifts between Trump and the press will be fully on display.
President Trump, aka America’s chief media critic, will speak to a room full of journalists, many of whom have been swept up in his government-wide pressure campaign against the independent press.
White House correspondents will also take to the podium and affirm the importance of the First Amendment — a unique opportunity given that Trump will be there to hear it.
“The dinner” (as it’s colloquially known in DC) has many critics who say media execs, editors and correspondents shouldn’t be mingling with administration officials who treat the press as the enemy. Moreover, some April attendees had no appetite for a July redo.
But the correspondents’ association felt it was important to finish what they started in April; hand out the group’s annual awards; and make a statement about the enduring power of the free press.
“America has spent the past year talking about the fabric of our democracy as we celebrate its 250th anniversary,” organizer Weijia Jiang told me. “Of all years, this was not the one to allow our annual celebration of the First Amendment be ripped away. More than ever, we have to recognize the freedoms that make us who we are.”
Here’s my curtain-raiser story for CNN.com…
CNN’s special TV coverage of the dinner will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern. It will be anchored by John Berman and Laura Coates, the same pair who were on the air when the shooting upended everything.
The president is slated to speak at 8:55 p.m., according to his official White House schedule. Karoline Leavitt says the speech “will be a combination of unifying yet vicious, and serious yet hilarious, all at the same time, if you can imagine that. One thing I can assure you, it will be entertaining.”
Entertaining for whom? 🤔
The unfunny reality is that Trump’s efforts to weaken the news media are a daily threat. Those efforts have continued since April’s scrapped dinner: Trump has repeated his calls for certain networks to be punished by the government; his FCC has challenged ABC’s station licenses; the State Department has announced strict new limits on foreign journalist visas; and Trump has repeatedly likened acts of journalism to “treason.”
That’s some of the mood music for tonight’s get-together. A veteran White House reporter, speaking anonymously, told NYMag’s Michael Calderone that “it’s a further embarrassment” to hold the dinner “after we learned that New York Times reporters were served subpoenas for doing their jobs, some of which were delivered at their homes in a deliberate effort to intimidate.”
Citing Trump’s attacks on the press, the reporter said “we should not be on the same stage as him in honoring the First Amendment. It’s incoherent.”
I, for one, want to see how Trump reacts during the pro-media speeches and the journalism award presentations. If you watch tonight, let me know what you think; I’ll be back with a weekend edition tomorrow.
>> At the new venue, the Waldorf Astoria, “the access points are more limited,” CNN’s Holmes Lybrand reported in this piece about the enhanced security.
>> Jiang spoke with People magazine about the do-over, and this quote stuck out to me: “I don’t want images of my colleagues hiding under a table to be the last images from this year, of all years.”
>> The association will present awards to Secret Service police officer Victor Gonzales, who was struck in his protective vest by the gunman, and to the staff of the Washington Hilton.
This is coincidental but feels perfect: Across town in DC tonight, the American Civil Liberties Union will be holding an awards gala celebrating First Amendment freedoms.
Among the awardees: Bruce Springsteen and Colin Kaepernick, who will accept the ACLU Ralph Ellison Award for Defenders of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Arts, Business, Science, and Sports. Another awardee, Elizabeth Foster, “gained national recognition” for fighting against book bans, per the group’s press release.
That’s the headline on Page One of today’s New York Times. Michael Grynbaum and Jonah E. Bromwich’s story has excellent detail about Judge Arun Subramanian grilling the prosecutors during yesterday’s hearing, “his demeanor at times resembling a teacher scolding his pupils.”
CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said the judge “made it absolutely clear” that if the government did not yank the subpoenas, “he was going to quash them, so I see the withdrawal of the subpoenas, really, as more of a matter of limiting their losses.”
Afterward, when CNN asked the DOJ if the subpoenas to the NYT may be reissued in the future, a spokesperson responded by bashing the judge in the case and saying, “This investigation remains ongoing.”
Indeed, while those particular subpoenas are being withdrawn, there’s every reason to believe that newsrooms will continue to face this type of legal pressure from the Trump administration.
At least for the time being, the withdrawal was welcome news for the NYT and for First Amendment advocates.
“Targeting reporters to appease the White House has reached a dead end once again in the federal courts,” Reporters Committee president Bruce D. Brown said. “Judge Subramanian saw DOJ’s effort clearly for what it was: a brazen and careless government overreach.”
And the NYT’s top newsroom lawyer, David McCraw, reiterated that “The Times and our journalists will continue to report and seek the truth without fear or favor. We will not be deterred in the face of tactics like these.” Read our full story on yesterday’s courtroom reversal here…
If the state attorneys general had not sued, Paramount might have taken control of Warner Bros. Discovery (including CNN) this week. But now the deal is in limbo until at least August 17. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín extended the temporary restraining order yesterday, saying more time is needed to resolve preliminary injunction requests.
Martínez-Olguín also ordered the parties to confer on a possible schedule for a multi-day evidentiary hearing. That’s what Paramount is seeking — a mini-trial the week of August 17 or 24. The judge said Paramount would have to agree to keep the merger on hold in the meantime.
A separate lawsuit brought by the Writers Guild of America has been paired up with the states’ case. Both preliminary-injunction hearings are scheduled for August 3, though that date could move if the parties agree on a later, multi-day hearing…
Forbes editor-in-chief Randall Lane abruptly left the outlet yesterday after 15 years atop the publication. In what NYT’s Ben Mullin described as a “very terse statement,” Forbes said, “We can confirm Randall Lane is no longer with Forbes,” adding that Kerry Lauerman, the executive editor, will “oversee the editorial operations in the interim.”
“It’s time to live the spirit of the brand and try something new,” Lane said in a statement to Mullin…
Casey Wasserman is finalizing a deal to sell his sports/talent agency six months after a Jeffrey Epstein-adjacent email scandal, Matt Belloni reported exclusively in his Puck newsletter overnight. The buyer is Providence Equity Partners, which already owned 60 percent of Wasserman’s firm, now known as The Team. “Wasserman’s sale, though forced upon him, may have been particularly well-timed,” Belloni wrote…
Mark Zuckerberg is launching an AI optimism campaign, leaving many to wonder whether he’s really the best messenger for this message.
“Some people will have you believe AI will make us less connected, that it’s going to leave us behind. We couldn’t disagree more,” Zuck says in one ad. Axios’ Sara Fischer has details here…
The newsroom drama that helped launch Apple’s streaming service, “The Morning Show,” is coming to an end next year.
Yesterday’s announcement about the fifth and final season was bittersweet for me because I’ve been a consulting producer on the project since before it even had a name.
I thought Reese Witherspoon said it best yesterday: “This was always more than a show about a newsroom — it was a show about why the newsroom matters. About freedom of the press, and the journalists who protect the fourth estate, often at great cost.”
I can’t say much about season five yet, but I hope it lives up to your expectations. It will come out sometime next year…
>> Cecilia Vega “broke her silence” about her CBS News exit during an on-stage interview at a journalism conference yesterday and “detailed three instances in which she said management attempted to interfere with her stories,” Oliver Darcy reports. (Status)
>> Byron Allen “has begun his first round of layoffs since acquiring the BuzzFeed properties, with HuffPost staffers being notified of 15 editorial cuts,” Natalie Korach reports. (Status)
>> Patreon is laying off 20% of its workforce as part of a “painful” restructuring in response to “profound” changes in the creator economy, Corbin Bolies writes. (Variety)
>> “Outlets like Wired, NJ.com, and The Wall Street Journal are setting renewal prices just for you” — via algorithms — “and being forced to disclose it,” Hanaa’ Tameez reports. (NiemanLab)
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.