Women's NCAA championship sets a ratings record, The LAT names Terry Tang as its next executive editor, news outlets suggest Donald Trump offered more specificity on abortion than he actually did, lawmakers propose sweeping data privacy bill, Jonathan Majors gets sentenced, and so much more. But first, the A1. |
|
|
Total Eclipse of Coverage |
CNN Photo Illustration/CNN |
Millions of viewers on Monday tuned into special news broadcasts to watch the once-in-a-generation total solar eclipse as it cast a shadow across North America. National news networks deployed anchors and crews along the path of totality from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Indianapolis to Vermont, capturing the awe-inspiring and quasi-religious experience millions felt with live cameras. But while the pros behind the scenes might have made the coverage look easy, putting on a seamless broadcast was not without challenges. We spoke with the leaders of CNN's celestial coverage, who offered insights into how the network deployed teams and resources to track the eclipse as it swept across the U.S. Below is a Q&A, lightly edited for length and clarity. |
How many people were involved in covering this celestial event? Lyndsey Read, senior producer for content strategy: Experts from across the company representing all of our platforms jumped in to create and optimize our content for audiences everywhere including producers, shooters, writers, reporters, editors, andhors, programmers, art designers, podcast producers, photographers, researchers and many more. It was a true collaboration. What was the biggest challenge in organizing coverage around the eclipse? Vivian Kuo, senior director of coverage for national newsgathering: We wanted to make sure we were touching on narratives within the path of totality that would offer unique perspectives. From the majesty of Niagara Falls, to a mass wedding in Arkansas with more than 300 couples, to hanging with giraffes – we wanted each location to give viewers special perspectives in case they couldn't be there in person. Did you have to make any last minute adjustments due to the changing forecasts? How down to the wire were those changes made? Kuo: We did have a robust plan to be in Texas up until near the end of last week, but with the cloud cover forecast being a little too ominous for comfort, we audibled to the biggest watch party in the Midwest, in Indianapolis. The field teams did a heroic job of being nimble and scrambling despite the last-minute changes. How does this compare to planning coverage around a severe weather event or a political event like a debate? Kuo: Very similar – except since this is really such a feel-good story we had a lot of staff reaching out from all over the network asking to play! It was nice to do something that was fun and such a collective cultural moment. Read: Compared to other big news events on our calendar, it's so refreshing to build a plan around a positive news story — especially one that impacts so many people across North America. From kids and adults of all ages, to scientists, zookeepers, eclipse-chasers — it's been fascinating and delighting to get swept up in the excitement around this. What lessons did you learn from the 2017 eclipse that helped this time around? Read: 2017 seems like such a long time ago. When we reviewed the 2017 coverage and insights, we were reminded that the audience has an incredible appetite for such a visceral and visual story. And CNN is one of the few outlets that really has the resources to own this. Next up – 2044 eclipse! In what ways did CNN aim to educate its audience about the science and significance of a total eclipse? Read: CNN published one of the first eclipse stories nearly a year ago so this is about so much more than one day of coverage. There has been a steady drumbeat – led by our Science and Video teams – of informative, entertaining and educational features, interactive products, newsletters and much more. Our daily news show for students, CNN10, dedicated an entire episode to the eclipse. During live coverage, what was one element that took you off guard or surprised you? Kuo: It's fair to say Brianna Keilar and Boris Sanchez in their sun and moon getup was simultaneously surprising and amazing. I also loved Ed Lavandera feeding the giraffe and the ostrich egg laying moment. And of course, you can't forget Kristin Fisher's incredible interaction with her astronaut parents and unbelievably precocious daughter. Read: I was bouncing between several different video offerings and the live story, and I was surprised to get caught up in the suspense of it all! Thankfully I also had a pair of eclipse glasses so I could join in the fun. In your opinion, which CNN personality looked best rocking the solar shades? Kuo: That's so hard. Rosa Flores owned the whimsical ones, Brianna's pink ones were probably the most stylish – but I might give it to Derek Van Dam, whose aviator-goggle style looked all too comfortable on him. |
|
|
- The Reliable Sources team snuck out of the office on Monday afternoon to take in the eclipse from the Edge in New York City's Hudson Yards. I snapped some pics from the sky deck — one of which you can see above and the rest which you can see here. (No, I was not using an iPhone.)
- News outlets jumped into overdrive to cover the celestial event, Mark Mwachiro reported, outlining how newsrooms brought viewers the latest as the eclipse traveled through America. (AdWeek)
- Sophie Culpepper looked at how "local news outlets in the eclipse's path" covered the event. (NiemanLab)
- Over on MSNBC, Katy Tur harnessed the powers of virtual reality to explain the science behind an eclipse. (YouTube)
- Fox News found a way to reference the southern border during coverage, Isabela Dias noted. (Mother Jones)
- Meanwhile, on "The View," co-host Sunny Hostin "inexplicably tried connecting solar eclipses, earthquakes and the periodic emergence of cicadas to climate change, prompting the show's co-hosts to openly call her out," Justin Baragona reported. (Daily Beast)
- In the far-right fever swamps, where outfits like InfoWars and The Gateway Pundit pushed nonsense ahead of the eclipse, the websites resorted to mundane coverage. So much for all the conspiracies!
|
|
|
CNN Photo Illustration/Gregory Shamus/Getty Images |
Women for the Win: Women's college basketball is attracting historic audiences. The women's NCAA tournament has set record after record for viewership this year — and Sunday's title game between South Carolina and the Iowa Hawkeyes did it yet again. The game averaged a staggering 18.7 million viewers, peaking at 24 million people, according to preliminary numbers from Nielsen. To put those numbers into perspective, ESPN said that the game was the second most-watched non-Olympics women's sporting event ever — just after the 2015 Women's World Cup between the U.S. and Japan. Further, it was the most-watched basketball game since 2019, averaging more viewers than any NBA game since. "With a record-setting audience of 18.7 million viewers, Sunday's Iowa-South Carolina title game was a fitting finale to the most-viewed ever NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament," ESPN boss Jimmy Pitaro commented. CNN's Jordan Valinsky has more here. ► The question moving forward: Will record ratings change the way women's sports are treated by media bigwigs who have often dismissed the leagues as incapable of resonating with mass audiences? |
|
|
CNN Photo Illustration/Kirby Lee/AP |
Tang Takes the Torch: The Los Angeles Times, after a period of significant turmoil, named Terry Tang as its permanent executive editor. Tang, the first woman to lead The LAT, will take over a newsroom rattled by the sudden exit of former top editor Kevin Merida earlier this year, a round of brutal layoffs, and several other high-profile resignations. Billionaire owners Dr. Patrick and Michele Soon-Shiong, however, expressed confidence in Tang's ability to get the newspaper back on track. "She understands our mission to be a thriving pillar of democracy and the critical role that the L.A. Times' voice plays ... in bringing attention to issues that matter most, especially for those whose voices are often unheard," they said. Tang said it is an "honor" to lead the outlet. The LAT's Meg James has more here. |
|
|
- Matrix Asset Advisors, a Paramount Global shareholder, urged the company to reject a "sub-optimal" bid from David Ellison's Skydance, saying such a deal would prioritize "the interests of one shareholder [Shari Redstone] over the broader shareholder base." (The Wrap)
- Monday marked the second anniversary of the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger that formed Warner Bros. Discovery — which means that the company can now, if it chooses, buy and sell assets without tax penalties. Peter Kafka notes, however, that "buyers may be hard to find" in this current climate. (Business Insider)
- But, never say never? WBD said Monday it "is selling the podcast business associated with its Rooster Teeth brand to Night, the talent-management firm behind popular online creators like MrBeast and Kai Cenat," Ashley Carman reports. (Bloomberg)
- Endeavor and TKO will buy $311 million more of Vince McMahon's stock, per an SEC filing. (Deadline)
|
|
|
- Unionized Gannett reporters at the Austin American-Statesman and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle walked out during the solar eclipse, protesting stalled contract negotiations. (Poynter)
- MSNBC continues to lean into live events, with Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, and Al Sharpton sitting down at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem over the weekend before an audience of 1,000 for a conversation touching on democracy.
- Some news outlets, including Forbes and the FT, are infusing their websites with A.I. to give their search functions an upgrade. (Digiday)
- Several former Business Insider executives have founded MoneyIn2, a personal finance brand, on Substack. (Press Gazette)
- Former CNN correspondent Arwa Damon spoke to Jake Tapper about how she is helping children in Gaza. (CNN)
- Don Lemon and Tim Malone tied the knot in a weekend wedding attended by top members of the media. (People)
|
|
|
- 🎮 Disney hired Ray Gresko as vice president for product and development to work with Epic Games and promoted Jay Ong to oversee its global games licensing. (Variety)
- CBS named Wendy Fisher to lead its newly minted national weather-news operation. (Paramount)
- The WSJ announced Yumiko Ono will take on full leadership of its APAC foreign language teams; promoted Mauro Orru to real-time editor, EMEA in Barcelona; promoted Ben Otto to senior editor for breaking news, APAC; and promoted Emily Schwartzberg to deputy director of newsroom SEO. (TBN)
- The WSJ also hired Tammy Audi as economics editor. (TBN)
- The WaPo hired Chastity Pratt as national education editor. (WaPo)
- The Telegraph hired Kamal Ahmed as audio director. (Press Gazette)
- Bloomberg Law hired Quinn Wilson as a reporter. (TBN)
- The NYT promoted Liz Pierson assistant editor for social visuals. (NYT)
|
|
|
CNN Photo Illustration/Truth Social |
Trump's Abortion Ambiguity: Did Donald Trump actually take a position on abortion? A number of headlines from major news outlets on Monday suggested that the GOP frontrunner had said in his anticipated Truth Social video that the issue "should" be left up to the states. But a closer examination of his actual remarks isn't so clear. Trump, in fact, said the issue "will" be left to the states. Which, as Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann noted on X, is just a refinement of "what the law is." Kaitlan Collins agreed, noting at the start of her program "The Source" that Trump "basically just stated where things currently stand on the matter." As Collins put it, "Trump did what he promised he would do. He said something about abortion. What he didn't do was tell anyone what he would do about it if he was president again." Which is really what matters. Does Trump support a federal election ban? He didn't say. And shouldn't that be the headline?
► It's also worth noting that Trump released his abortion policy video, which has angered some on the right given he did not endorse an outright national ban, just ahead of the solar eclipse. And he did so without any reporters present to press him for more specificity. It wan't quite a Friday afternoon news dump. But if one was trying to hide a major piece of news, dropping it right ahead of the once-in-a-generation celestial event is not a bad way to do it. |
|
|
- Disney will pause its federal lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Disney World appointees' governing district for two months after they reached a settlement in a separate court. (AP)
- Elon Musk is battling the Brazilian legal system after defying a court order related to banning some far-right accounts on X. (CNN)
- Musk, who has complied with government censorship pressure before, is in this case vowing to fight: "As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit." (WSJ)
- George Soros has "become an increasingly key player" in radio, Max Tani reports. (Semafor)
- Ben Shapiro blasted José Andrés as a "political radical." (MMFA)
- Meanwhile, Geraldo Rivera launched a bizarre and ugly attack on Larry David, calling the comedian a "self-righteous, snobby, self-loathing narcissistic ass." (Mediaite)
- ICYMI: ESPN's Norby Williamson — the 40-year veteran who was recently the subject of Pat McAfee's on-air ire — departed the network on Friday. (CNN)
|
|
|
CNN Photo Illustration/Maskot/Getty Images |
Protecting Online Privacy: A sweeping new bipartisan data privacy bill is aiming to curb Big Tech's power. In fact, "if it succeeds, the proposal could establish the U.S. equivalent of the European Union's landmark privacy law known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)," CNN's Brian Fung noted. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, one of the lawmakers involved in crafting the legislation, explained that it would rein in companies like Google and Meta by "prohibiting them from tracking, predicting, and manipulating people's behaviors for profit without their knowledge and consent." Fung has more here. 🔍 Zooming in: "The draft legislation breaks a yearslong deadlock between Republicans and Democrats over the scope of any national privacy bill," Fung pointed out. "The two parties had long disagreed over two key issues: Whether a federal privacy law should override existing state privacy laws that may provide tougher protections, and whether private citizens should be able to bring their own lawsuits against companies accused of violating their privacy." |
|
|
- Too perfect: Several House Democrats continue to use TikTok despite voting against the platform, Rebecca Kern points out. (POLITICO)
- At the state level, governors continue to use TikTok as their legislatures mull banning the ByteDance-owned app from state-owned devices, Brooke Schultz notes. (AP)
- TikTok's forthcoming rival app to Instagram could be named TikTok Notes. (TechCrunch)
- Instagram accounted for almost 30% of Meta's revenue in early 2022, according to data from recent court filings. (Bloomberg)
- Nico Grant reports Google executives are "making big changes to turn down the temperature" on an internal message board amid posts about the war in Gaza. (NYT)
- "A single trillion-dollar company controls Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp. That concentration of digital ownership can create real-world harm, as a recent censorship dispute with Meta lays bare," Allison Morrow writes. (NightCap)
- Threads wants developers to sign up for API accesss. (TechCrunch)
- Spotify launched a beta version of its A.I. playlist tool. (TechCrunch)
|
|
|
CNN Photo Illustration/John Nacion/Getty Images |
Majors' Sentence Mandate: Jonathan Majors won't be going to jail. The one-time Marvel actor was sentenced Monday to attend a 52-week mandatory in-person domestic violence prevention program after being convicted in December of the assault and harassment of an ex-girlfriend. While the judge allowed Majors to avoid jail time, the judge ruled that if he violates the rules of his sentence, such a punishment could be back on the table. Majors, the judge ruled, will also have to provide his DNA to the state of New York. CNN's Jeff Winter and Kristina Sgueglia have more here. |
|
|
- Netflix's film arm, now under Dan Lin, is undergoing a re-organization and will be split up by genre. (THR)
- The restructuring will include 15 layoffs. (Deadline)
- "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has come to an end, and the Larry David-led series' conclusion has viewers divided. (THR)
- Robert Downey Jr. back as Iron Man in the MCU? The now Oscar-winning actor told Ryan D'Agostino he would do it: "Happily. It's too integral a part of my DNA. That role chose me. And look, I always say, Never, ever bet against Kevin Feige. It is a losing bet." (Esquire)
- "Dune: Part Two" is getting its IMAX run extended. (Deadline)
- Beyoncé's latest album, "Cowboy Carter," opened with the biggest sales of any album this year. (NYT)
- Meanwhile, Taylor Swift teased new songs off her upcoming album, "The Tortured Poets Department." (The Wrap)
- And Billie Eilish announced a new album, titled "Hit Me Hard and Soft," out May 17. (Rolling Stone)
- The first installment of Kevin Costner's epic western, "Horizon: Chapter 1," which is being billed as "An American Saga," will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. (The Wrap)
- Apple TV+ released the trailer for "Fly Me To The Moon." (YouTube)
- John Mulaney is teaming up with Netflix for a six-night live comedy event. (THR)
- The second season of Amazon Prime's "Fallout" will relocate to California, which issued the studio a $25 million tax credit. (Variety)
|
|
|
Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino and produced with the assistance of Liam Reilly. Have feedback? Send us an email. You can follow us on Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow. |
|
|
| ® © 2024 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
