We start today with a piece by Variety’s Andrew Wallenstein and Gavin Bridge: “21% of Fox News Viewers Trust Network Less After Texts Revealed in Dominion Lawsuit: Survey.”
That’s quite the headline, although the same survey shows only 9% say they are watching the network less these days. The research was provided exclusively to Variety Intelligence Platform by consumer insights specialists Maru Group. In the piece, a Fox News representative said advertising and viewership levels had not been impacted.
One more interesting note from the survey. Following Rupert Murdoch’s testimony and private messages being made public, 13% of Fox Viewers said they no longer felt the 2020 election was stolen. Meanwhile, 50% still believe it was, while 37% said it had no impact and they still believe the election was fairly held. Check out the Variety story for more details.
Now onto more tidbits, news and links …
- The Washington Post’s Sarah Ellison and Amy Gardner with “At center of Fox News lawsuit, Sidney Powell and a ‘wackadoodle’ email.”
- And, speaking of that “wackadoodle” email, MinnPost’s Ana Radelat with “The Bourne conspiracy: How a Minnesotan’s email became key evidence in Fox News-Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit.”
- The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum with “The New Prime Time for TV News: Afternoons.” Grynbaum writes, “The reasons are myriad. Without the visceral urgency of a dangerous virus — or a sitting president who tweets erratically late into the night — America’s news obsessives may simply feel more comfortable changing the channel in the evenings rather than waiting on tenterhooks for the latest development.”
- Esquire senior staff writer Jack Holmes interviewed CNN’s Jake Tapper about the 10th anniversary of Tapper’s show “The Lead” in “Jake Tapper Knows There’s No Such Thing As Purely Objective News.” Tapper told Holmes, “I think it’s always an interesting debate because obviously no human being is purely objective. We all carry with us the biases of our lives and our experiences. But that said, my show is not about my views. My show is about the news. I have a staff that is diverse in all sorts of ways. They’re all super smart and talented, but they come from different walks of life and they all have different things that they’re looking at and stories that they think are important. And I think it’s important to reflect all of that. And when we have a panel, we want to make sure that there are conservatives, we want to make sure that there are progressives. We want to have a debate.”
- For Reuters, Filipp Lebedev and Felix Light with “Wagner’s convicts tell of horrors of Ukraine war and loyalty to their leader.”
- In an op-ed for Teen Vogue, NBC News’ Savannah Sellers with “Teens Know Why Mental Health Is Worsening, Now It’s Time to Listen.”
- Jen Psaki’s new MSNBC show will debut Sunday at noon Eastern time. The show is called “Inside with Jen Psaki.” I wrote about Psaki’s new show last month. The former White House press secretary for Joe Biden also was profiled by the Los Angeles Times’ Stephen Battaglio. Psaki told Battaglio, “I’ve worked for Democratic politicians, including two Democratic presidents, for 20 years. I’m not going to pretend that I have not worked on those campaigns and not sat in the situation room or on the campaign bus. That wouldn’t be very useful to viewers. I’m also not going to pretend that I think that I haven’t long supported a woman’s right to choose, or the ability of people to marry who they want, or be who they want, because that wouldn’t be authentic. But I also think we have at times gone away from what I would consider healthy discussions and debates about a range of issues. And I will certainly invite a range of Republicans on the show to have discussions with them. If they say something that’s false or inaccurate, I will call that out. But also I think my experience in government is about having those discussions as a healthy part of the debate.”
- The New York Times’ Jeré Longman is one of my favorite sportswriters. Here’s his latest about the first breakout star among female Native American basketball players: “Once an Inspiration to People at Home, a Former Star Now Faces Trial.”
- From Derek Thompson’s “Plain English” podcast, Thompson talks with Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson, cohosts of the “Animal Spirits” podcast, for “The SVB Debacle: The Biggest Myths, the Out-of-Control Blame Game, and the Worst Takes.”
- For Poynter, Naomi Tacuyan Underwood with “Two years after the Atlanta shootings, equitable coverage of the AAPI community remains elusive.”
- The Los Angeles Times’ Teresa Watanabe with “No, my Japanese American parents were not ‘interned’ during WWII. They were incarcerated.”
- Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand reports that longtime CBS sports announcer Greg Gumbel has signed an extension with the network, but will no longer call the NFL, which he has done for more than three decades. He hosted studio shows for NFL coverage at both CBS and NBC and has been calling games at CBS since 1998 (except for a brief spell working in the studio). He also was the TV play-by-play announcer for the Super Bowl in 2001 and 2004, making him still the only African American to do so. He will continue to host CBS’s college basketball studio show. This month, he’s hosting CBS’s March Madness studio show for the 25th consecutive year.
- Media Matters’ Justin Horowitz with “Beyond Andrew Tate: Meet the misogynistic ‘manosphere’ influencers proliferating across social media.”
- Los Angeles Times deputy managing editor Julia Turner has been promoted to senior vice president for content business strategy. The Times’ release said, “Turner will work within the newsroom and with leaders across the company to drive editorial content strategy and expand on business opportunities associated with The Times’ journalism.” Turner joined the Times as a deputy managing editor in 2018. Before that, she was editor-in-chief at Slate.
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