Good morning.
- The perils of intimacy
Mikhail Kasyanov was prime minister of Russia from 2000 to 2004, or until he had a falling out with Vladimir Putin. He’s a Putin critic these days, which is a somewhat more perilous position than, say, being U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and badmouthing President Obama. One of Putin’s tools is government-run media and, now, a state TV documentary shows Kasyanov “having an adulterous sex romp with a party activist and exposed deep rifts with other top Kremlin opponents, raising pressure on the opposition ahead of key elections later this year.” Natalia Pelevine, who is allegedly shown “half naked” with Kasyanov, took to Facebook to blame the government and secret police for what she called a “criminal” act. (Bloomberg)Now if only Kasyanov could find a reason to claim the jurisdiction of a St. Petersburg, Florida court, as did former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, and get a solicitous jury willing to award him $140 million in an invasion of privacy lawsuit against the TV network. Come to think of it, Putin could reprise the courtroom role of Gawker Media boss Nick Denton in testifying on behalf of a media organization. And his financial health wouldn’t be threatened by a mere $140 million setback (read a few items down, folks).
As for Gawker these days, it seems “unbowed” as a visitor from a famous paper dropped by and wondered, “Has our culture reached its limit with the invasive and the tawdry?” (The New York Times) Don’t bet on it.
- Time for the press to stop its self-flagellation over Trump
The mainstream media has not only looked in the mirror where Donald Trump is concerned; it’s smashing its head through it. It’s sort of like Jack Nicholson crashing through that bathroom door in “The Shining” and scaring the daylights out of wife Shelley Duvall (and the audience). Nicholas Kristof’s recent New York Times column was a vivid manifestation, as he wrote, “But we should also acknowledge another force that empowered Trump: us. I polled a number of journalists and scholars, and there was a broad (though not universal) view that we in the media screwed up.”Writing in The Guardian, John Naughton asks us to desist from all that pained self-scrutiny. “Mainstream news is not to blame for Donald Trump’s ascendancy. After all, it’s largely ignored by his supporters.” Running through the Kristof apologia “is an assumption that mainstream media’s high priesthood have serious responsibilities because they are the gatekeepers of information — curators of the stories that a society tells about itself. Trump’s ascendancy demonstrates the extent to which that assumption no longer holds. It shows that mainstream media in the U.S. no longer have control over what is acceptable for a political candidate to say in public.” (The Guardian)
- The AP’s digital nomenclature is altered
Set your clocks and iPhone calendars. Sixth grade English teachers, prepare. Declining ranks of professional copy editors, be informed by The Associated Press: “We will lowercase internet effective June 1, when the 2016 Stylebook launches.” (Poynter) - Gay Talese’s modest female inspirations
“Speaking at a conference at Boston University on Saturday, the legendary journalist-turned-author struggled to answer a question about female writers who inspired him. He mentioned Nora Ephron and Mary McCarthy, followed by an awkward silence. Finally the 84-year-old writer blurted out: ‘None.’ Talese went on to explain that women writers of his generation did not like to talk to strangers and that prevented them from taking on tough subjects.” (The Boston Globe) As the hard-of-hearing Miss Emily Litella (Gilda Radner) would put it on “Saturday Night Live” many moons ago, “never mind.” - Putin’s offshore bonanza
Proof of the Russian kleptocracy headed by Putin is both head-turning and predictable. Well, what goes around comes around as he badmouths his former prime minister for having luxury holdings outside the country. A fascinating tale of theft of perhaps billions of dollars and the use of offshore accounts was broken Sunday as a result of leaks from the database of a major offshore law firm. “The Panama Papers” were procured by an anonymous source of Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with The Guardian and the BBC. (The Guardian)They constitute somewhere in the area of 11 million documents. They demonstrate how Putin buddies, including a musician who’s godfather to Putin’s oldest daughter, have become enormously wealthy. “Though the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern — his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage.” The musician, who has denied he’s a businessman, turns out to have significant stakes in a huge ad agency, a truck manufacturer and a bank that the U.S. imposed sanctions on after Russian’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, among other dealings. This effort also slams the Prime Minister of Iceland and will have him in a political pickle. (ICIJ) His wife, too. (BBC)
- Woodward and Trump
The Washington Post beckoned Bob Woodward for Donald Trump interview duty and, with colleague Robert Costa, he elicited the now Pavlovian Trump moaning about his awful press treatment. “My media coverage is not honest. It really isn’t. And I’m not saying that as a person with some kind of a complex. I’m just saying, I will be saying words that are written totally differently from what I’ve said. And I see it all — in all fairness, the editorial board of The Washington Post. I was killed on that. I left the room, I thought it was fine.” (The Washington Post)Blah, blah, blah. Having had my fill of the Final Four Saturday night, I segued from the end of the Syracuse-North Carolina game to checking out the front page of POLITICO. Shortly after 11 p.m., there were 29 stories. And guess who was the centerpiece of 11 of them? Yes, you got it, it wasn’t Mitch McConnell, President Obama or the amorous Alabama governor. No, it was Donald Trump. That’s 38 percent of their coverage. He’s still got little to grouse about.
- The evolving Trump common wisdom
So we’re back where we started: he can’t win. Of course, the initial conventional wisdom meant not taking him seriously. Then, he was a goner after those remarks about Mexicans, U.S. Sen. John McCain, etc. He’d be out by the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, so many of us thought. Now we are moving toward this consensus belief: Even if he gets the nomination, an epic landslide defeat beckons. (The New York Times). Let’s see. - Jorge Ramos, world leader
Puhleese. Univision host Jorge Ramos makes Fortune’s list of the top 50 world leaders. “For much of White America, Ramos became a household name only after Donald Trump kicked him out of a press conference in August. But Ramos, who has co-hosted Univision’s flagship Spanish-language news show for almost 30 years, might be the most influential journalist in the U.S. Ramos is part journalist, part advocate, a newsman who hammers candidates on immigration policy even as he urges Hispanic Americans to register to vote. Political analysts have found that Latinos are twice as likely to vote if they frequently watch Spanish-language news, a correlation they dubbed the ‘Jorge Ramos effect.’ Jeff Bezos and Angela Merkel top the list. (Fortune) - Conde Nast goes Hollywood
Conde Nast, the magazine giant, got tired of being essentially ripped off creatively by Hollywood with its stories developed into big flicks, like “Brokeback Mountain” and “Argo.” In 2011, it started its own entertainment group to crank out original film, TV and digital work. They’ve probably not made the Weinstein Brothers or other Tinseltown moguls shudder but now have “five alternative television series in production or on air, 10 TV pilots and projects sold to networks, 24 film projects set up at studios or with financiers, and two films to be released this year. The company also has a first-look deal for scripted television with 20th Century Fox, a streaming video service and a virtual reality project in the works.” (The New York Times) - Did Obama bring up Turkey’s awful press record?
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan slammed President Obama for “going behind his back” by bashing Turkey’s press freedom record. Obama said he’d brought up the subject when meeting Erdogan at a nuclear summit in Washington last week. Upon his return home, Erdogan said that’s not true. (Reuters) The White House declined to confirm when the subject has come up between the two leaders. - Charles Rose and Megyn Kelly
In a very solicitous profile and interview, the Fox News star is asked about whom she’s talking to each evening out in TV land. Despite the seemingly older males who dominate the cable audience, she tells Rose: “The viewer I picture in my mind when I do ‘The Kelly File’ is a woman who’s had a long day, either with the kids or at work, or both. She sits down, she gets her glass of chardonnay, she wants to consume the news effortlessly, enjoy it, and not have to work too hard for it.” (CBS News) - Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin
Andrew Sullivan is now a contributing editor at New York. Previously, he founded The Daily Dish. (Poynter) | Job of the day: U.S. News and World Report is looking for a social media editor. Get your resumes in! (Journalism Jobs) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.
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