Good morning.
- For cable TV, the horserace trumps Obama
President Obama made a strong case for at least considering his Supreme Court nominee during a thoughtful, long appearance at the University of Chicago Law School where he once taught. He was sharp, funny and a bit long-winded. It was a home game for him, even with a student’s sharp, final question about the debatable moral and legal bases of his drone program. But, for cable TV, the choice between thoughtful public policy — even on a matter as critical as the court vacancy – and frantic redundancy was no contest.
So CNN and MSNBC offered an opening snippet, then returned to the presidential campaign. Indeed, they returned to the same storylines over and over and over. The Sanders-Clinton sniping over qualifications for the White House. The Cruz-Trump spitball fight over “New York values.” “TENSIONS ESCALATING BETWEEN HILLARY CLINTON AND BERNIE SANDERS” was a Fox headline, along with “BITTER BATTLE.”
Obama’s lame duckdom and penchant for the more cerebral doomed him on this day. But in drowning him out, the cable folks looked rather small, which seemed fitting in a campaign where size seems to matter.
- In search of ‘reinvention’
It’s a pretty simple construct: If some moneybags gave you a ton of dough to start a local news organization, what would you do? How would you structure it? What beats would you cover? The Boston Globe will now undergo what it hopes to be productive self-scrutiny. (Dan Kennedy) It will beckon some outside advisers to help. (Poynter) In the end, no matter how the deck chairs are moved around, there will be the challenge of getting people to pay decent money for online content in a world addicted to free information.
- The ad blocking wars escalate
The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post are among those who signed on to a letter threatening legal action against Brave Software, which “not only blocks ads but offers to pay users in bitcoin if they view alternative ads. (It also says it will give more than half the revenue generated by the substitute ads back to the original web publisher).” The Newspaper Association of America sent a cease-and-desist letter yesterday, with its chief later saying, “we are never going to be OK with someone blocking our ads and sticking others in.” (Poynter) Legally, “the publishers say Brave’s advertising plan amounts to copyright infringement, a violation of the publishers’ terms of use, unfair competition, unauthorised access to their sites and a breach of contract.” (Ad News)
- Jayson Blair returns to school
He returned to the University of Maryland’s journalism school for the first time since his 2003 plagiarism debacle at The New York Times. “It kills me personally that (my plagiarism and fabrication) damaged the profession. The part that really kills me are the people that I hurt in my personal and professional life who had done absolutely nothing wrong. I’m definitely sorry about it.” (Capital News Service) And, in spite of his failed journalism career and ethical violations, Blair said he’s got no problem finding clients in his current work as a life coach.
- Putin’s predictability
Did we not figure that Vladimir Putin would call the stunning Panama Papers, which hammered him and his buddies for hiding billions offshore, an American plot? He did that and defended cellist Sergei Roldugin, a very close chum, who’s right in the middle of hiding tons of money from Russian state banks. “Sergei Parkhomenko, a journalist, wrote on Facebook that at $6 million each, the $2 billion reported to have been stashed offshore was enough to buy more than 300 of the rare violins, cellos and other stringed instruments made in the 17th and 18th centuries by Antonio Stradivari.” (The New York Times) - Yahoo worse off than believed?
Figure this for me: There may well be a healthy bidding war next week for Yahoo among the likes of Google, Time Inc. and Verizon despite the fact it’s in ever-worsening shape. Tech reporter Kara Swisher got hold of confidential disclosure documents given to prospective buyers. “In one slide showing expected results from 2016, Yahoo is estimating that revenue is dropping close to 15 percent and earnings by over 20 percent. Those revenues, backing out traffic acquisition costs (TAC), are expected to decline from $4.4 billion in 2014 and $4.1 billion in 2015 — already down from previous years — to $3.5 billion in 2016; meanwhile, earnings before depreciation, taxes and amortization are moving from $1.4 billion in 2014 and just below $1 billion in 2015 to $750 million in 2016. (Re/code) - Breaking TV news!
For those of us for whom “Gilmore Girls” was an obsession, there was joy to learn in January that Netflix will reprise it for a four-part continuation. But there was chagrin that Melissa McCarthy, who played a wacky chef at an inn run by Lauren Graham, would not return. Now mainstream TV journalists are beaten to the punch with word McCarthy will return. “After months of will-she or won’t-she speculation, Melissa McCarthy has agreed to reprise her role as Sookie in Netflix’s forthcoming Gilmore Girls revival, I’ve learned exclusively,” announced reporter Michael Ausiello. (TV Line) Ok, it’s short of a Pulitzer for beat reporting but it’s very welcome news, I can assure. - Another CBS News stalwart passes away
On the heels of Eric Engberg’s death, longtime documentary producer and executive editor of “60 Minutes” Phil Scheffler passed away at age 85. He was hired as a copy boy in 1951 and soon became “the network’s very first street reporter. His first field assignment was to ask people whether they thought Gen. Dwight Eisenhower should enter politics and run for the Republican presidential nomination.” (Adweek) - Media self-flagellation
“PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS TAKE NEW YORK BY STORM,” you were informed on CNN’s “New Day” this morning. “By storm,” no less! Over at MSNBC, it was bash Bernie Sanders time. “The media has been very soft on him,” said Donny Deutsch. “They want him in the race. There’s no story without him.” Mika Brzezinski concurred about the press “missing” the Sanders movement. “I feel guilty about it. We completely missed the story,” she said. Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post hopped the media culpa bandwagon. “Frankly,” he intoned, “it it is somewhat embarrassing that he hasn’t been grilled in the way the New York Daily News did.” On Fox News, they were going after Hillary Clinton for trying to showing she’s a “real person” but then fumbling in getting through a New York subway turnstile with her fare card. Well, knock on wood, the press didn’t miss this development. Have a good weekend.
- Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin
John Walcott is now foreign affairs editor for Reuters. Previously, he was a team leader for national security and foreign affairs at Bloomberg. (Email) | Margaret Talev is now a senior White House reporter at Bloomberg. Previously, she was a White House correspondent there. (Fishbowl DC) | Job of the day: The Houston Chronicle is looking for a theater critic. Get your resumes in! (Poynter Media Jobs Connection) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.
Corrections? Tips? Please email me: jwarren@poynter.org. Would you like to get this roundup emailed to you every morning? Sign up here.
