Well, that didn’t last long.

CNN’s idea to put Gayle King and Charles Barkley together for a once-a-week, Wednesday 10 p.m. Eastern show seemed like a good idea. Wait, check that. I meant to say, who thought this was a good idea?

King is a TV pro. Barkley is typically must-see TV. But this show — called “King Charles,” in which King and Barkley talked about a variety of topics, including politics, TV, music, pop culture and important issues — never seemed to click with viewers, maybe in large part because it just seemed like it was thrown on at an odd time.

All along, CNN said it was a limited series, but Monday, it reached the end. The show lasted six months and 14 episodes.

This comes as no surprise. According to the New York Post’s Ariel Zilber,
“King Charles” averaged less than 460,000 viewers. Meanwhile, its cable news competitors — Fox News and MSNBC — are drawing above 1.5 million viewers each in the same time slot.

The odd Wednesday time was mostly due to Barkley’s schedule, much of which is tied up working on TNT’s popular NBA studio show, “Inside the NBA.” Then there’s King and her early morning hours as co-host of “CBS Mornings.” I had originally written in this post that CNN had “pulled the plug” on the show.

A CNN spokesperson told me Tuesday, “‘King Charles’ has come to the end of its limited run, as we announced when it launched last fall that it would run through spring. The show was a great addition to CNN’s lineup, with the youngest, most affluent, and most diverse P2+ audience in its cable news time period and brought new audiences to CNN. It’s inaccurate to report that the show was canceled as it went through its full run and duration of the limited series. We hope to work with both of these incredible talents in the future as they balance their very busy schedules.”

I asked earlier who thought this was a good idea. The show was the brainchild of then-CNN boss Chris Licht, who was looking to shake up prime time in hopes of helping CNN catch up in the ratings with Fox News and MSNBC.

But with Licht long gone (CNN parted ways with him last June), and Mark Thompson now in charge, the show didn’t stand a chance with such dismal viewership numbers.

Turning up no answers

In January, Daniel Boguslaw and Ryan Grim — reporters from the nonprofit news outlet The Intercept — wrote that The New York Times shelved an episode of its popular “The Daily” podcast “amid a furious internal debate about the strength of the paper’s original reporting” about sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas last Oct. 7.

The Times then launched an investigation to try and learn who leaked that information to The Intercept. The results of that investigation were announced Monday. And the answer? The Times doesn’t know.

Times executive editor Joe Kahn told staff in a note Monday, “We did not reach a definitive conclusion about how this significant breach occurred. We did identify gaps in the way proprietary journalistic material is handled, and we have taken steps to address these issues.”

Kahn added, “I want to reiterate the central concern in this case, which is that we need to be able to rely on our colleagues to maintain confidentiality during the reporting and editing process. Reporters, editors and producers need to be able to have candid exchanges and disagreements about the best way to tackle a difficult piece of journalism with the understanding that those exchanges will strengthen the story, not become the story.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Alexandra Bruell wrote, “Charlotte Behrendt, director of policy and internal investigations at the Times, oversaw the probe, interviewing close to 20 people over the course of many weeks. The investigation became contentious at times, with the union filing a grievance alleging that the company was targeting a group of staffers of Arab and Middle Eastern descent. Times leaders said the allegations are false.”

The memo, obtained here by The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, concluded with Kahn saying, “The breach that occurred should upset anyone who wants to have transparency in our editorial processes and to encourage candid exchanges about stories as they evolve. We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule.”

Four years ago

Veteran media writer Brian Stelter has a new piece out. This one is in Vanity Fair: “Here’s What Donald Trump’s America Was Actually Like Four Years Ago.”

It centers on Trump’s question, which is so often asked by those trying to unseat the current president: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Well, exactly four years ago we were in the still-early stages of what turned out to be the COVID-19 pandemic. And it was around this time four years ago that Trump, who was president then, was seemingly dismissing the seriousness of COVID-19 and wanting life to carry on as normal — that is, not wanting to shut everything down.

This is where the media comes in, pointing out exactly what was happening four years ago. In other words, answering the question asked by Trump and many of his supporters.

Stelter wrote, “In an emergency, leaders can either help or hurt. They can rise to the occasion or fail to lead at all. Trump’s record speaks for itself. But Politico deputy managing editor for politics Sam Stein recently observed that, according to polling data, many voters give Trump a pass for the COVID year of his presidency. Or, at least, don’t really hold him responsible for it. I get it. I don’t want to revisit the COVID year of Trump’s presidency either. But it’s crucial to remember.”

Civil War on film

I haven’t seen Alex Garland’s new film “Civil War,” but Los Angeles Times culture columnist and critic Mary McNamara has and she writes, “In trying to hedge its politics, ‘Civil War’ betrays its characters — and the audience.”

That’s the headline. In her review, McNamara writes, “It is a powerful film, which Garland has said he made to underscore the importance of journalism: to remind us that much of what we know about the world is a direct result of journalists telling and showing us what is going on at any given moment. Even if their lives and/or mental health are at stake.”

Later, McNamara writes, “By attempting to keep his film ‘above’ the current political fray, Garland comes close to the both sides-ism that too many journalists are expected (or have chosen) to embrace in an attempt to prove lack of bias. But the arbitrary demand for ‘balance’ should never be confused with objectivity, which requires, among many qualities, an understanding that not all things are equal in importance, relevance or, if it comes to that, blame.”

And here’s The Guardian’s Adrian Horton with “From Scoop to Civil War: why is it so hard to portray journalism on screen?”

Remember his attack

Author Salman Rushdie is out with a new book today called “Knife,” which revolves around the August 2022 incident in which he was attacked by a man with a knife during a lecture appearance at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.

Rushdie, 76, was stabbed in the face, neck, chest, abdomen, thigh and hand. He lost his right eye in the attack. He told Anderson Cooper on Sunday’s “60 Minutes” that he didn’t want to write a book about what happened, but felt he had no choice.

Rushdie said, “I need to focus on, you know, to use the cliché, the elephant in the room. And the moment I thought that, kinda something changed in my head. And it then became a book I really very much wanted to write.”

Rushdie told Cooper that he had a premonition two days before the incident on stage. He nearly canceled his appearance but decided to go through with it.

Rushdie writes in his book that he remembers being on stage and, “Then, in the corner of my right eye — the last thing my right eye would ever see — I saw the man in black running towards me down the right-hand side of the seating area.”

He added, “I confess, I had sometimes imagined my assassin rising up in some public forum or other, and coming for me in just this way. So my first thought when I saw this murderous shape rushing towards me was, ‘So it’s you. Here you are.’”

The attack lasted 27 seconds. Rushdie survived, but said there were no revelations from his near-death experience, telling Cooper, “there’s no revelation to be had.”

For more on Rushdie and his new book, check out The New York Times’ Sarah Lyall with “He Was Blinded in One Eye, but Salman Rushdie’s Vision Is Undiminished.”

Sing us a song, you’re the …

Singer-songwriter Billy Joel, shown here in 2018. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

Billy Joel fans are losing their marbles because CBS cut short a taped concert that aired Sunday night. The concert, originally recorded on March 28, celebrated Joel’s 100th show of his long-running residency at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden.

The airing on CBS started a bit late because The Masters golf tournament ran a little long earlier in the evening. So the Joel special was cut short in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, right in the middle of his classic song, “Piano Man.” (Here’s what it looked like.)

That’s when Joel’s fans blew up social media, and CBS, with their complaints.

Look, I’m fine with Billy Joel, but are we really complaining about not hearing a full version of “Piano Man” for the 10 billionth time?

CBS put out an apology on Monday, saying, “A network programming timing error ended last night’s Billy Joel special approximately two minutes early in the Eastern and Central Time Zones. We apologize to Mr. Joel, his fans, our affiliated stations, and our audience whose viewing experience was interrupted during the last song.”

To make up for it, CBS announced it will broadcast the concert in its entirety on Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Media tidbits

• The New York Times’ Matthew Goldstein and Joe Rennison with “Trump Media Stock Plunges, Extending Recent Losses.”
• And speaking of that, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell with “Small-time investors in Trump’s Truth Social reckon with stock collapse.”
• Mediaite’s Diana Falzone with “Daily Beast Shakeup: Barry Diller Taps Two Media Vets To Turn Site Around.”
• The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch writes about the CBS broadcaster who covered his 40th and final Masters this past weekend: “In Verne Lundquist’s final Masters moment, the hour belonged to him.”
• The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand writes that longtime New York Yankees radio voice John Sterling is retiring. And Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina talked with the radio legend.

Hot type

• For Harper’s Magazine, Daniel Bessner with “The Life and Death of Hollywood. Film and television writers face an existential threat.”

More resources for journalists

• Delve more deeply into your editing skills with Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing.
• Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative is a fellowship for public media journalists. Apply by April 22.
• Hiring? Post jobs on The Media Job Board — Powered by Poynter, Editor & Publisher and America’s Newspapers.
• Get an AI ethics framework for your newsroom. Start here.

Update: The lead item was updated to include CNN’s response that the network had always intended for the “King Charles” show to end in the spring of 2024, and that it would be inaccurate to say the network “pulled the plug” on the show.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

The Poynter Report is our daily media newsletter. To have it delivered to your inbox Monday-Friday, sign up here.