A trial made for the algorithm
These trials tend to come in the summertime, like a grim sort of blockbuster season.
“There was Boston’s Karen Read in 2024, Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s battle over who abused who worse a few years before that, and now, there’s the case of Lindsay Clancy,” Suzy Weiss recently wrote for The Free Press.
Closing arguments in the Clancy trial are underway now, live on CNN and in dozens of other places.
“People started lining up outside the courthouse in Plymouth, Massachusetts, around 2 a.m.,” CNN’s team there reports. Some women were wearing pink to show support for Clancy, a woman who admits to killing her children. (Her defense attorneys say Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis and thus should not be held criminally responsible.)
Sympathy for Clancy has spawned think piece after think piece. The New Yorker’s Jessica Winter summed it up this way: “Mistrust about the case stems from understandable anger and sorrow at the ways women in extremis aren’t heard.”
“It was inevitable, owing to our present political and sociocultural moment, and to the bottomless horror of the facts of this case, that the Clancy trial would inspire outlandish counternarratives,” Winter wrote. “The American public distrusts its legal institutions and media outlets, creating a vacuum in which wild conjecture can bloom. True-crime brain is a national epidemic.”
Much of the “wild conjecture” is about Clancy’s ex-husband Patrick. In this piece about the “online groundswell” blaming Patrick for the crime, CNN’s Rebekah Riess wrote that distrust in institutions often leads people “to form alternative theories that are rewarded with increased engagement on social media.”
It’s gotten so bad that Patrick’s attorney has warned against the “false, defamatory statements” being made about his client.
I’m hesitant to blame it all on the algorithms, since some of this is about human nature, but… the algos have a lot to do with it.
Boston University professor Kathryn Coduto told The Guardian that “something like a conspiracy video is going to get a lot more legs than it would have in a different media environment. In a case like this, where there’s been some interest relatively organically, now those algorithms are learning. Like, ‘Okay, if we keep showing this, people are going to stay engaged.’”
Coduto “also said that for many social media users, the Clancy trial allows them to participate in a dialogue as the case unfolds, fostering a sense of purpose and community,” Sara Braun wrote.
Earlier this week, Vanity Fair cut ties with a freelance writer “after she flashed a big smile during the livestreamed proceedings” of the trial, the Boston Globe’s Tonya Alanez reports.
The freelancer, Brittany Romano, grew up with Clancy. A video snippet of her “unsettling” smile and wink went viral, and Romano defended herself, saying, “I smile through anxiety. I smile when I’m uncomfortable.” Anyway, the publication cited “clear conflicts with our editorial standards and processes” and “informed the court that she is no longer credentialed by Vanity Fair.”
After yesterday’s historic Meta settlement with the states, Platformer’s Casey Newton is wondering the same thing I am: “Will significant changes to Facebook and Instagram be enough to beat back a global wave of bans?”
TIME’s Naomi Nix lists a few more outstanding questions: “Will Meta’s new youth time limits work?” “How will other tech companies respond?” “What happens to similar cases focused on youth safety?”
>> CNN’s Clare Duffy is out with a brand new look at the settlement, the changes, and the impacts to Meta’s bottom line.
>> California AG Rob Bonta said it was “telling” that “Meta settled midway through Instagram President Adam Mosseri‘s testimony and before CEO Mark Zuckerberg could take the stand.”
>> FIRE’s Nico Perrino warned that the settlement is “effectively a backdoor effort by the government to mandate age verification.”
Puck “is in advanced talks for an investment from RedBird Capital Partners, in a move which will help fund the growth of the newsletter startup,” Reuters’ Echo Wang, David French and Edmund Lee scooped yesterday.
The deal “will value Puck at around $250 million and involve the company’s existing institutional investors selling to RedBird,” the trio wrote.
RedBird is a big part of the Paramount-WBD deal. But a Puck spokesperson said that its “journalist-centric model, commitment to premium I.P., direct audience relationships, and journalistic independence are at the core of its business model and that will not change.”
Liam Reilly writes: Yesterday, Variety reporter Matt Donnelly published “Inside UTA’s Bummer Summer,” a detailed look at challenges the agency is facing, including the recent departures of Nikki Glaser and Alex Cooper. Donnelly also chronicled the agency’s failed “attempt to scale up” by merging with The Team in July.
Hours after the story hit, UTA boss David Kramer accused Variety of “clear bias against our business” in an email to agency staffers. In the unusual memo, Kramer said Donnelly “has declared in an email that UTA is a ‘flagrant and hostile enemy’” and “stated to UTA employees his intent to damage UTA’s business.” He also alleged that Donnelly “recently subjected women at UTA to hostile and unprofessional behavior.”
As for the framing of Donnelly’s story, Kramer contended that it “distorts recent events, is agenda-driven and does not reflect the strength or momentum of UTA.”
Variety pushed back on Kramer’s claims. A rep told CNN that the outlet stands by Donnelly and his Wednesday story. The rep said the conduct referenced by Kramer “date from last May when a UTA exec initiated a heated back and forth, regarding an on the record Q and A published by Variety, which Donnelly regrets being drawn into.” TheWrap’s A.J. Katz has details about that here…
Brendan Carr’s FCC “queried major broadcast station groups ahead of President Donald Trump’s prime-time speech last month, asking about the companies’ plans to cover the event,” Bloomberg’s Kelcee Griffis scooped earlier this week.
The messages “sought details about whether and how they would air the speech, according to a person familiar with the matter.” My guess: Carr wanted to know about the plans before he went on NewsNation and encouraged widespread coverage of the speech…
Jeff Hughes, a Louisiana Supreme Court justice, filed a defamation lawsuit over a 2019 editorial in The Advocate, the state’s largest paper. It was “a rare defamation trial involving an elected public official,” Edward Helmore reports for The Guardian.
Hughes sought $10 million “for what he described as injury to his reputation and emotional distress.” In the end, a jury sided with him, but awarded him only $300,000. Helmore has more here…
>> Republican AGs in Iowa and Montana have asked the Supreme Court to stop the Paramount–WBD antitrust lawsuit brought by 12 Democratic state AGs. Todd Spangler spoke with experts who say the appeal “is unlikely to go anywhere.” (Variety)
>> Just spitballing… Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that Paramount “could get roughly $8 billion and some legal relief if it agreed to sell WBD’s Turner networks as a path toward settling.” (Bloomberg)
>> “Annapurna, the indie media company founded by Megan Ellison, has enacted a significant round of layoffs representing over 15% of its workforce.” (Variety)
>> Former NBA star Blake Griffin “is launching a weekly late-night show on Prime Video and YouTube.” (THR)
Rockstar Games “has released its first official statement following days of sustained leaks of footage from ‘Grand Theft Auto VI,’ calling the period ‘heartbreaking for our team,’” The Verge’s Dominic Preston reports.
>> Netflix will debut a sneak peek at the game at 3 p.m. Eastern today. “Yes, it’s a little strange for a new trailer to debut on a streaming service, but GTA is such a juggernaut it can play by its own rules,” Rory Mellon writes over at Tom’s Guide.
The outpouring of love for Dolly Parton is measurable in many ways this week. Spotify streams of her songs have “skyrocketed over 1,260% globally” after her death, THR’s Ethan Millman reports. Seven of her songs jumped to Spotify’s US daily top songs chart, Millman notes, with “Jolene” and “9 to 5” jumping to the No. 2 and 3 slots, respectively.
ABC’s prime time Dolly tribute on Tuesday night averaged 4 million viewers, more than doubling its lead in. The CBS special averaged 2.2 million. (Michael Socolow wrote about “the return of network TV’s instant special” here.)
And Trip Gabriel noted that “this obituary of Dolly Parton by Bill Friskics-Warren is on track to become the New York Times’s most read obit of all time.”
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.