Good morning.
- The ignominy of Dennis Hastert
Dennis Hastert, once the Speaker of the House of Representatives, was sentenced to 15 months in prison yesterday “for paying $1.7 million in hush money to cover up sexual abuse from decades ago.” (The Chicago Tribune) Unable to get to the courthouse in Chicago, I sat at home watching local reporters’ tweets. Remember, there was no live broadcasting, so one was relegated to the digital version of hovering over a teletype machine of yesteryear as news trickled in. In particular there were the tweets surrounding the dramatic appearance of Scott Cross, 53, the brother of a close Hastert political ally, big shot Illinois Republican Tom Cross. He said he was molested decades ago by Hastert, his then high school wrestling coach, after a practice. I know the Cross’ dad, a Methodist minister and truly wonderful man. Scott had apparently kept the secret from the world until Hastert’s indictment and has been referenced in court filings as an unidentified “Individual D.” Imagine the family agony.“Just blown away by the disclosure in today’s Hastert sentencing that Individual D, Scott Cross, is brother of the former House GOP leader,” tweeted Dave McKinney, a longtime political writer and former State House bureau chief of The Chicago Sun Times. (@davemckinney) Then he wrote, “That Hastert could be Tom Cross’ political mentor after abusing Cross’ brother is breathtaking. Such bravery to finally get the truth.” (@davemckinney) “Steve Cross one of the bravest people I ever saw in a courtroom,” tweeted Mark Brown, a veteran reporter-columnist for The Sun-Times who has covered many trials. (@MarkBrownCST)
It kept going, the shock so instant and genuine. Natasha Korecki, a former courthouse reporter now with POLITICO, tweeted, “Judge directly asks #Hastert if he sexually abused victims. At Stephen Reinbolt, Hastert pauses: ‘yes’ Jolene Burdge breaks into sobs,” referring to the Billings, Montana sister of Stephen Reinbolt, a Hastert abuse victim who died in 1995. (@natashakorecki) Jason Meisner, the federal building reporter for The Chicago Tribune tweeted, “Hastert reading from written statement, adjusting glasses, wearing dark gray suit and talking in a calm but raspy voice.” (@jmetr22b) Shortly after, Korecki tweeted, “Judge Thomas Durkin just called Hastert a ‘serial child molester.’ and called the conduct the direct motive for his current crimes.” (@natashakorecki)
When it was over, and people had more than 140 characters to depict what they’d seen, longtime political writer Greg Hinz of Crain’s Chicago Business quickly put it this way: “I’ve sat through more sentencing hearings for more crooked pols than I care to remember in my career. Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan. Scott Fawell and Dan Rostenkowski,” referencing two former Illinois governors, a former governor’s chief of staff and onetime Capitol Hill giant. “Once high and mighty folks who couldn’t keep their own greed for power and money within the rules. But I don’t think I’ve ever sat through an uglier episode than today’s. Not only messing with kids, but trying to put one victim in jail after he dared to confront a person in power, a person Durkin described as a ‘serial child molester.'” (Crain’s) Yes, it was a day of pretty awful truth.
- Zuckerberg “steals a trick” from Google
When Mark Zuckerberg said he’d give away all his Facebook shares, a few wondered how he could do that and keep control “Now we know!” (Re/code) “Stealing a trick from Google Inc., the biggest social network operator, Facebook Inc., disclosed a plan Wednesday to create a new class of shares to go along with its existing two. When enacted, the action will amount to a 3-for-1 split that will send about 5.7 billion new Facebook shares into the world, stripped of voting rights.” (Bloomberg) “Such strategies are becoming more popular at companies with multiple class arrangements as a way of insulating founders from dilution. With a new category of non-voting stock at his disposal, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg can use the new shares for things like acquisitions and compensation without fear of reducing his influence.” - Further groping by Bill Cosby
A federal judge in New York told the comedian to take a hike in trying to force New York magazine to give up notes and others materials used in its stunning cover story on 35 women’s assault claims against him. He said the subpoena request “bordered on the frivolous” and was “wildly inconsistent” with the state’s press shield law. (Reuters) - Bloomberg’s further automation
Under the category of “Uninspiring but Inevitable” comes word that “Bloomberg has become the latest news organization to place bets on automation as a measure to cover so-called ‘commodity news’ and free up time for enterprise journalism.” (Poynter) It has enough bodies that it can unleash 10 of them (yes, 10) “to determine how automation can be used throughout the company’s portfolio of editorial products.” Good luck, portfolio! - Rising market for social media video
There’s “something new that major social companies are now starting to reckon with: Very few people, relatively speaking, are capable of regularly creating compelling videos that others want to watch. And as social platforms look to saturate their feeds with video — live or otherwise — rather than just pictures and text, they’re essentially competing for the same limited set of good videos. So those who create the ​quality​ stuff can demand payment. In recent weeks, those payments have begun flowing. Twitter and Facebook both started handing out multimillion-dollar wads of cash to bring quality video content to their platforms.” (BuzzFeed) - A newspaper-TV-radio combine in Ohio
A group of 20 Ohio newspapers, TV and radio stations “have banded together to flip the conversation between presidential candidates and voters—allowing voters to get their concerns addressed by the candidates.” (Toledo Blade) This involves joint polling and assessing the impact of negative ads on campaign and actual voting patterns. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation gave $174,990 grant to the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics to pull this off. - The media and guess who?
POLITICO’s annual magazine on the media is out and, yes, there is ample Trump. There’s “The Cry-Bully: The sad mind and evil genius behind @realDonaldTrump,” “Sad! Failed! Winner! A graphic analysis of Trump’s Twitter history” and “How the Twitter Candidate Trumped the Teleprompter President.” Then we’ve got “Did the Media Create Trump?” the latest in what the title suggests might be one of the 1,286 recent tales of self-flagellation. But this leavens the masochism with accurate acknowledgment that we in the press give Trump himself insufficient credit for his fate so far. (POLITICO) - The smartest NFL teams on draft day
The NFL draft of college players begins tonight in Chicago and, thanks to The Washington Post, one has a fascinating take on how teams have fared the past 20 years. It employs a metric “called draft value, created by the math gurus at ProFootballReference.com. It weighs factors such as games started, individual stats, team performance and all-pro honors.” It thus rates the Pittsburgh Steelers the smartest guys and the Cleveland Browns the dumbest. Pittsburgh is followed by Indianapolis, Green Bay, Baltimore and New England. Most picks prove to be total washouts. The two best picks are considered quarterback Tom Brady in 2000 and linebacker Ray Lewis in 1996. The biggest bust was quarterback Ryan Leaf in 1998. (The Washington Post) - Trump’s foreign policy speech with a teleprompter
Newt Gingrich liked it, so did Sen. Bob Corker, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Even snooty right-wingers like former UN Ambassador John Bolton gave it passing grades. Joe Scarborough on MSNBC this morning liked it and likened Trump to Ronald Reagan (“he tapped into the angst of all Americans”). Amid Trump’s Obama bashing and call for greater American strength, “There were paradoxes throughout Mr. Trump’s speech. He called for a return to the coherence of America’s foreign policy during the Cold War. Yet he was openly suspicious of the institutions that undergirded that era. He promised to eradicate the Islamic State, but said the campaign against extremism—or as he called it, ‘radical Islam’—was as much a philosophical struggle as a military one.” (The New York Times) Others were more pointed and called it long on vision, short on details and generally “incoherent.” (The Atlantic) - Gannett-Tribune stalemate
Industry analyst Ken Doctor zeroes in on Michael Ferro, the idiosyncratic tech mini-mogul now in charge of Tribune Publishing and fending off a takeover from Gannett. “Over the past month, Ferro has talked to numerous peers in the newspaper industry. Actually, according to several high-placed media executives who briefed me on their conversations with Ferro, the better construction is ‘talked at.’ All those to whom I spoke confidentially describe their hour-plus long sessions as nothing short of bizarre. The common format: Michael Ferro talks for 90% or more of the time, shooting a ‘firehose’ of ideas, largely unpunctuated by questions, opportunities for feedback or responses, or any evidence of self-reflection.” He’s declined to talk to Doctor. (Capital New York) - One path to cushy J-school job
Mark Hass, until recently the president and CEO of the U.S. operations of the world’s largest independent public relations firm, Edelman, is joining Arizona State University with a joint appointment in the business and journalism-mass communications schools. “Despite media and blog reports that Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman’s global operations, had fired Hass, Edelman issued a letter—which was provided to ASU’s Cronkite school—stating that Edelman’s quoted comments were inaccurate and that Hass’ departure was a mutual decision. Hass said he couldn’t comment on the matter except to say the issue was handled privately.” Ah, OK, got it, it was mutual. But maybe there’s a seminar next fall on “How to Spin Being Canned from Your Media Job.” (Phoenix Business Journal) - Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin Ben Mullin is on vacation. Job moves will resume next week.
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.
