To:
Jackson, Ryan[jackson.ryan@epa.gov]
From: Joe Pompeo - POLITICO Media
Sent: Tue 6/6/2017 9:41:44 AM
Subject: Morning Media: Beginning of the Trump-era leak wars -- HuffPost hiring spree -- NYT copy
desk crusade
By Joe Pompeo | 06/06/2017 05:39 AM EDT
With Cristiano Lima and Alex Weprin
SORRY WE DISAPPEARED ON YOU YESTERDAY WITHOUT NOTICE -1 had a bit of a toddler emergency over the weekend but everything's fine now. That said, I'm still playing catch up, so bear with me as I get back up to speed.
MOVE OVER, EDWARD SNOWDEN - Let's begin this one by emphasizing that the Obama administration was notorious for its aggressive leak prosecutions, and despite what the Trump crowd will tell you about the lovey-dovey relationship between journalists and the 44th president, there was actually a lot of animosity and ill-will as a result of this issue. But it's also no secret that Trump and his lieutenants are out for blood when it comes to leakers, which is why I wouldn't want to be Reality Leigh Winner right now.
From the DOJ's announcement last night: "A criminal complaint was filed in the Southern District of Georgia today charging Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a federal contractor from Augusta, Georgia, with removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet... Winner was arrested by the FBI at her home on Saturday, June 3, and appeared in federal court in Augusta this afternoon. ... On or about May 9, Winner printed and improperly removed classified intelligence reporting, which contained classified national defense information from an intelligence community agency, and unlawfully retained it. Approximately a few days later, Winner unlawfully transmitted by mail the intelligence reporting to an online news outlet." Press release.
The "online news outlet" is The Intercept, which published the following story about an hour
before the DOJ went public with its prosecution: "TOP-SECRET NSA REPC
L
RUSSIAN HACKING EFFORT DAYS BEFORE 2
ACTION." Key detail: "The top
secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept
and independently authenticated...."
What led the feds to their prey: "The U.S. Government Agency examined the document shared by the News Outlet and determined the pages of the intelligence reporting appeared to be folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space. The U.S. Government Agency conducted an internal audit to determine who accessed the intelligence reporting since its publication. The U.S. Government Agency determined that six individuals printed this reporting. WINNER was one of these six individuals. A further audit of the six individuals' desk computers revealed that WINNER had e-mail contact with the News Outlet. The audit did not reveal that any of the other individuals had e-mail contact with the News Outlet." That's from the criminal complaint affidavit, which you can read in full here. This is going to get ugly.
Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906
ED_001523_00002644-00001
TIPS AND COMMENTS: jpompeo@politico.com / @joepompeo. Morning Media is edited by Alex Weprin (@alexweprin / aweprin@politico.com) and produced with writing/reporting help from Cristiano Lima (clima@politico.com / @ludacristiano ). lives. Subscribe.
MUST READS:
-- "Losing Gloria: After their mother was deported to Mexico, the Marin siblings faced an impossible choice: Stay or go." [The California Sunday Magazine]
-- "Border Bodies: The grim mysteries of Southern California" [The Desert Sun]
-- "The Mysterious Kidnapping of an American Ambassador Still Haunts the State Department" [Washingtonian]
-- "Inside the Cut-Throat World of Toddler Bike Racing" [Outside] **Ed. Note: No relation to the above-mentioned toddler emergency.
MEGYN KELLY MUST BE PRETTY HAPPY WITH HER NBC DEBUT RATINGS - 6 1 million viewers overall and 1.2 million in the important 25-54 demographic tuned in for June 4 maiden voyage of "Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly." NBC was crowing that the Putinequipped premiere nearly beat CBS in total viewers -- "60 Minutes" counter-programmed with a re-air of its 2015 Putin interview with Charlie Rose -- and that Kelly's numbers "were a huge jump compared to how the network typically performs in the slot." Now the pressure will be on for the former Fox News star to keep it up, particular once she is up against a new edition of "60 Minutes," and not a rerun.
A NUMBER MSNBC HASN'T SEEN IN AWHILE - Michael Grynbaum in today's New York Times : "The last time that MSNBC was No. 1 in prime-time cable news, Bill Clinton was president, Madonna led the Billboard charts and "Friends" still ran new episodes on TV. Seventeen years and a few rebrandings later, the network is back on top -- buoyed by a surge of interest in news and the channel's stable of reliably liberal anchors, like Rachel Maddow, who have found their groove amid a time of intense anxiety for the political left. The MSNBC resurgence -- in May, it beat its rivals for the highest prime-time viewership on weeknights in the critical 25-to-54 age demographic, up an astounding 118 percent from a year earlier -- is part of a newly shifting landscape in television news, and within the channel itself."
REVOLVING DOOR: NOTABLE NEW HUFFPOST HIRES - Congrats to Morning Media pal Hillary Frey on being named director of editorial strategy, a "newly-created role" in which she will oversee strategic and special projects," according to a memo yesterday from EIC Lydia Polgreen. Hillary -- who taught me a thing or two about good writing and reporting when she was one of my editors at The New York Observer years ago -- has already been working with HuffPost in a consulting capacity for the past few months, so expect her to be a key figure in Polgreen's ongoing revamp of the 12-year-old web-news behemoth. Also, Jennifer Kho is joining as managing editor from Guardian US; Shelley Venus is joining from Mic as head of newsroom video; and Kate Rodemann has left her post as Texas Monthly's editorial director to become an
Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906
ED_001523_00002644-00002
editor for Highline, HuffPost's destination for long-form storytelling.
Elsewhere...
-- Eric Bolling has re-upped at Fox News, where he will remain co-host of "The Fox News Specialists" at 5 p.m. on weekdays and the host of "Cashin' In" on Saturday mornings. He also will continue to host the network's annual New Year's Eve programming.
-- Two notable AP departures: Venezuela correspondent Hannah Dreier is leaving to cover immigration for ProPublica, and Washington-based reporter Eileen Sullivan is leaving to join The '.New York Times, where she will reunite with her Pulitzer Prize co-recipients Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman.
-- Also at The New York Times: Nellie Bowles, a prominent tech reporter currently with HBO's "Vice New Tonight," is joining Bizday to cover tech and digital culture out of San Francisco. And on the business side, "Guy Griggs will join the company as head of revenue for the social influencer marketing agency HelloSociety and the experiential design agency Fake Love, both acquired by The Times Company in 2016."
-- Here's who took buyouts in McClatchy's D.C. bureau, according to our Playbook colleagues.
CRUSADE TO SAVE THE NYT COPY DESK - The union that represents Times journalists isn't staying quiet about the Times Company's decision to target copy editors in its latest buyout offering. In a very au courant op-ed issued yesterday, Grant Glickson, president of the News Guild of New York and a Times veteran himself, made the case for keeping the Times' long standing copy desk intact as opposed to a planned restructuring: "[W]hen readers hear the inevitable cries of'fake news,' how do they know what to believe? It comes down to accuracy, to a news organization's track record of getting even the smallest details right. When typos and misspellings jump off a page, readers are more likely to wonder what else is wrong. So why would the New York Times want to join the sorry parade of other American newsrooms that have cut out the last, best line of defense against errors?"
The Times' position is that it will still have a more rigorous editing apparatus than most other global news organizations even after eliminating dozens of copy editors and so-called "backfield" editors, some of the most behind-the-scenes jobs in the 1,300-person newsroom. It also says the cost-savings will enable the Times to hire an additional 100 journalists.
On that note, the following email went out internally yesterday: "As we revamp the way we edit our report and transition to the 'strong desk' model, the newsroom is seeking editors in four areas: news and feature desks around the newsroom, the Express Team, and the News Print and Features Print Hubs. On news and feature desks and on the Express Team, editors will need a broad range of skills that will enable them to own a story from beginning to end - to conceptualize a story and story form, edit through all necessary drafts, copy edit all the elements to digital publication readiness and ensure the widest possible audience." One Times source sniffed to Morning Media: "The requirements for the editors are now, 'be an editor and a copy
Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906
ED_001523_00002644-00003
editor too.' Will they get paid more?"
SOUND BITES:
-- "Guy with 'Infowars dot com- CNN is ISIS!' sign asked why the Paris deal was bad: 'I personally haven't looked into it. I just trust Trump'" [Tom Namako]
-- "Good reporting needs to be able to distinguish between Trump's Bannonist base (20-25% of the country) and all Trump voters (46%)." [Nate Silver]
-- "Breitbart is a hard gig. You can be fired for both being too racist and not racist enough. The Goldilocks level of racism is hard to hit." [Jeet Heer]
-- "Last question, where is Sean?" [April Ryan]
ALL EYES ON COMEY - Thursday may just bring new meaning to the phrase "must-watch TV." Per Variety : "ABC and CBS will break into their daytime programming on Thursday to cover James Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee. ABC's George Stephanopoulos will anchor the network's coverage, while 'CBS This Morning' co-hosts Norah O'Donnell, Gayle King and Charlie Rose will anchor coverage for that network. Rose, King and O'Donnell will be joined in New York by 'Face the Nation' anchor and chief Washington correspondent John Dickerson and chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford. The former FBI Director's testimony is set to begin at 10 a.m. ET. NBC News has yet to confirm whether or not they will carry the hearing live."
Fox News/Fox Broadcast also announced their live coverage plans yesterday: "Co-anchored by FNC's Bill Hemmer and Shannon Bream, coverage will begin at 9AM/ET and contributions will be made by a panel including FNC's chief political anchor Bret Baier, FOX News Sunday's Chris Wallace and The Five co-host Dana Perino. Additionally, FNC will be commercial-free when the hearing begins at 10AM/ET. FNC's Shepard Smith will anchor coverage for FOX Broadcast." No official word yet from CNN, but if their Comey countdown clock is any indication, we'd say there's a 100 percent chance you'll be able to watch the testimony live there as well.
SOUNDTRACK: Ciccone Youth, "Into the Groove(y)"
EXTRAS:
-- Breitbart writer Katie McHugh was fired after a series of incendiary tweets about the London terror attacks. [CNN]
-- Sen. Al Franken has cancelled on Bill Maher over the host's n-word controversy. [HuffPost]
-- Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate locked in a battle for Georgia's 6th District House seat, has declined to participate in a debate on CNN. [AJC]
Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906
ED_001523_00002644-00004
-- Hearst's latest newspaper acquisition. [Market Watch] To view online'.
To change your alert settings, please go to httpsh/secrire.Dolilico.coni/setrings
This email was sent tojackson.ryan@epa.gov by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA Please click here and follow the steps to unsubscribe.
Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906
ED_001523_00002644-00005