Media news and perspective, from Steve Krakauer.
View this email in your browser

April 12, 2020

Dateline: The day we had social distancing Easter egg hunts

Watching this week...

White House reporters secretly working for Trump's campaign?
Greg Gutfeld on the media's failures
Bill Maher's must-watch China "rule"
Quibi early verdict - not great
Blocked by Hillary Clinton's friend's news verification website

[Share Fourth Watch with someone who'd enjoy it!]

If you like Fourth Watch, the best thing you can do is tell someone else you think would enjoy it to subscribe - here's a link to send them... and disagree with something you read? Email me: FourthWatch@TheFirstTV.com

Acosta and Alcindor are helping Trump get re-elected

I don't think CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta is a bad guy. I worked with him at CNN, and he was a solid, competent reporter. If Acosta's goal was to be a great White House reporter, he could probably do it.

But that's not Jim Acosta's goal. Jim Acosta wants to be famous. I've written before, three years ago, that Acosta clearly aspires to use this opportunity to spar with President Trump, #Resistance Signal on Twitter and generally build his brand to move on to bigger things - a prime time show maybe, or at least a few late night TV appearances.

To get an idea of Jim Acosta's priorities, here was his Twitter profile background last year, during his book tour:

Jim Acosta loves nothing more than Jim Acosta.

But I've also half-joked that if we found out, years from now, that Acosta was actually a plant and was secretly working for the Trump re-election campaign, I wouldn't be shocked.

Take this moment from Friday's marathon coronavirus briefing. Watch how Acosta plays the role of absurd, antagonistic journalist, and tees up Trump to deliver what could essentially be a campaign message. "We hear from a lot of people who see these briefings as sort of 'happy talk' briefings," said Acosta. "Do we have enough masks? No. Do we have enough tests? No. Do we have enough PPE? No."

Then Trump jumps in, and counters every point. "There's nothing happy about it, Jim. This is 'sad talk,'" said Trump. "These are the saddest news conference that I've ever had. I don't like doing them. You know why? Because I'm talking about death...There's no 'happy talk' Jim. This is the real deal."

Trump couldn't ask for a better foe than Jim Acosta. And the reporters who are trying to do good work, get answers to very real questions, know this.

One of those reporters who has shifted from fairly solid New York Times journalist to #Resistance Signaler has been PBS's Yamiche Alcindor. During that same briefing, Alcindor took an answer from Surgeon General Jerome Adams, in which the African American administration member used terms like "abuela" and "Big Mama" to talk to Hispanic and Black communities, and noted on Twitter, during the briefing, "many found this language highly offensive."

So Alcindor took the opportunity later in the briefing to ask him about this 'offensive' commentary. "There are some people online that are already offended," she said... during the coronavirus briefing.

Adams' answer was nuanced and thoughtful. He described conversations he's had recently with the NAACP on how they'd like him to target outreach to the Black community. Forget the double standard - like when President Obama said "Get Uncle Joe, get Pookie, Get Javier to vote" - the lack of seriousness by some in the media is juxtaposed the seriousness of Trump and his administration during these briefings. As I've noted, Trump does veer away from that seriousness on Twitter.

But exchanges like the ones with Acosta and Alcindor Friday during coronavirus briefings are actively helping Trump get re-elected - and they make all in the press look bad.

On coronavirus media failaures and more: BCC Interview with Fox News' Greg Gutfeld

I was a fan of the 3am Fox News show "Red Eye" from back when it launched in 2007 shortly after I graduated college - it was weird and hilarious, and the idea that it was on Fox News was almost incomprehensible. Red Eye is gone, but its host, Greg Gutfeld, has become a star at the network, co-hosting "The Five" and hosting "The Greg Gutfeld Show" on the weekends.

I've interviewed Greg several times over the years, and we've had the occasional drink or five. This week, as part of my BCC Interview series, Gutfeld and I emailed on coronavirus and a variety of other topics - and I've published the full email exchange here.

We talked media coverage ("The media is more addicted to their repetitive model of gotcha questioning. Someone above them tells them to obsess over language, instead of information. It might be the only industry that is really letting us down. Every one is stepping up! But them!"), Red Eye ("It was a one of a kind show. Nothing like it. Basically a weirdo magazine brought to life"), New York City bars and restaurants ("I worry about the bar and restaurant world. These are businesses built on razor thin margins. Another lie built by the media: business owners are rich. Hell no."), Scott Adams ("His Periscopes in the morning are indispensable. And most of the people who know anything about the world watch them.") and more. Read the full BCC Interview here.

A quibi reaction to Quibi - not great so far

Quibi (which derives from the phrase "quick bites" and features a variety of shows all less than 10 minutes) launched earlier this week. Now that I've seen a few of the shows, here's an early verdict - the massively-funded media app has a long way to go with its short-form programming.

News programs - I'm interested in seeing the 60 Minutes show "60 In 6" (featuring two great journalists, Laurie Segall and Wesley Lowery), but that hasn't been released yet. The news shows so far are actively bad - "The Report" by NBC News is boring and poorly shot, and "The Replay" by ESPN is not effectively different from regular-ESPN.

Not enough kids programming - Why not focus on something a kid would like? My three-year-old and I watched what looked like a nature show "Fierce Queens," which was shot well but was ultimately a pretty PG-13 feminist-themed show loosely about female animals.

Chrissy's Court - I love "Judge Judy" and really enjoy Chrissy Teigen on Twitter, so I was hoping "Chrissy's Court" was better. The show felt almost scripted - featuring way too much John Legend and laughter, and not enough "court."

SUBSCRIBE HERE

What happened on Twitter this week: 'Blame Europe' Edition
(Twitter is bad, but also, sort of good. Here's what you missed if you didn't spend your time on the cesspool of a social platform like the rest of the media.)

To give one example of the way a faulty but decent news story can be the catalyst for a narrative-changing push on Twitter, here's this story from the New York Times, with the headline "Most New York coronavirus cases came from Europe, genomes show." The story is based on a "study awaiting peer review" - but let's give it the benefit of the doubt that it's true. Take a guess how the pundits and journalists on Twitter spun this...

1. Former MSNBC host Toure:

Right - let's blame Europe for the coronavirus, not China. That makes sense.

2. Regular cable news pundit Neera Tanden:

Ah you see, it's actually an anti-Trump angle, because the China ban didn't stop coronavirus from coming to America. Can you imagine the outcry if Trump banned travel from Europe in January?!

3. BuzzFeed reporter Anne Helen Peterson:

This was great, because Peterson realized her first completely ridiculous tweet was going viral (5,600+ RTs now) so she had to clarify that actually China shouldn't be let off the hook, and... that tweet got 47 RTs. Welcome to Twitter.

Blocked: Stories of Ridiculous Media Twitter

(Every Sunday, as a way to get to know me better, I'll tell you the story of someone in the media who has blocked me on Twitter.)

10. Verrit

For my final "Blocked" story of this series (until more people block me, I guess) let me dive into a really weird, short-lived website called "Verrit."

Verrit launched in September 2017 as a way to verify news stories by giving pieces of information verification numbers. It was founded by Peter Daou, a former political consultant and giant Hillary Clinton fan. Hillary gave it a shout-out on day 1! Politico said it "Looks Like North Korean Agitprop."

A few months later, I noticed the site was taken down, the reason given was to essentially blame people for not taking it seriously enough. I noted this on Twitter... and the site blocked me.

Blocked: February 12, 2018
Status: Still blocked (even though the @Verrit account is suspended.)

Previously:
- Keith Olbermann
- Mike Barbaro
- Alec Baldwin
- Matthew Dowd
- Tommy Vietor
- Jeff Jarvis
- Andrew Kaczynski
- Philippe Reines
- Shaun King

QUICK HITS

- Bill Maher occasionally is one of the most perceptive voices in the media. His "new rule" on China Friday night is a must-watch "It's not racist to point out that eating bats is batshit crazy," he said. "This has nothing to do with Asian Americans. And it has everything to do with China. We can't afford the luxury anymore of non-judginess."

- Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl was fired after 23 years at the magazine, and now he's involved in a pretty nasty coronavirus-themed war of words with the new owners of the brand, Maven.

- Like many industries during coronavirus, the media is being hit hard - 28,000 jobs lost so far, according to the New York Times.

👀WATCH THIS WEEK👀

👀 The Joe Biden-Tara Reade sexual assault story has taken a new turn - will the media start to cover it?

👀 How do we begin to balance America staying safe with America getting back to work? Tucker Carlson's segment Friday dealt with it. It's going to become the major story of this coming week.

👀 What does Bernie Sanders do now? Will he disappear into the background, or stay at the forefront of the conversation? It'll be interesting to see the media choices he makes in the coming weeks.