Sneak peek at this Sunday's show
By Sara Fischer, CNN
NPR's media correspondent David Folkenflik returns to Reliable Sources as our guest host this week.
With the government shutdown finally coming to an end, David Gura, reporter for Marketplace and Edward Luce, Washington Bureau Chief for the Financial Times will join Folkenflik to discuss the overage of the economic impact of the shutdown, including confusion over the concept of the debt ceiling.
Next, we’ll speak with former NSA official and whistleblower Thomas Drake about the difference between “whistleblowers” and “leakers,” and how the Obama administration has pursued leakers. We'll also ask Drake about his meeting this week with ex-NSA employee Edward Snowden in Moscow.
Later, the discussion on whistleblowers will continue with Lucy Dalglish, Dean of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and Joel Brenner, Former Inspector General and Senior Counsel for the National Security Agency.
We will also look at lessons to be learned from several reporting mistakes this week. Andrew Lih, author of The Wikipedia Revolution and Maggie Haberman, senior political reporter for POLITICO will join us to discuss the danger of using new media platforms like Twitter when reporting.
Finally, the film “Fifth Estate” opens this weekend, facing controversy about how it portrays Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. We’ll talk with the film’s screenwriter Josh Singer.
Tune in this Sunday 11am ET.
What we're reading this week...
By Sara Fischer, CNN
We've got a packed show this week on Reliable Sources with guest host Frank Sesno, Director of The George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs. As a former CNN Washington bureau chief, Sesno will bring a unique perspective to this week’s media headlines. We’ll discuss the continuing media coverage of the government shutdown, political fact-checking and more, but in the meantime; here are some other stories that caught our attention this week.
Liu Hu, Chinese Journalist, Arrested In Crackdown A Chinese reporter was arrested on Friday and accused of defamation after reporting about corruption by the Chinese Government. This is the latest in a string of arrests in China for journalists speaking out against the government. The crackdown of speech on news websites and online blogs is seen by many as an attempt by the Chinese government to silence criticism against the ruling Communist Party.
Fox host apologizes for reporting fake news Whoops! Fox News host Anna Kooiman accidentally reported a satirical story about President Obama offering to finance a museum of Muslim culture. The story was posted on the satirical website National Report in response to the Republican National Committee volunteering to pay to keep the World War II memorial open. Kooiman later tweeted out an apology.
Iran’s foreign minister in hospital with stress after newspaper misquote Iran’s foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on his Facebook that criticisms of Iran’s outreach to the US have become so intense that they are causing him back pain and spasms. The main cause of the stress he said came from a headline of Kayhan which Zarif says misquoted him.
What we're reading this week...
By Sara Fischer, CNN
YouTube Plans a Music Awards Show Live From New York
The first-ever live-streamed music award show is coming to your computer this November. YouTube will be live-streaming the show featuring household names such as Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire and Eminem, as well as up and coming artists who have risen to fame via online videos. The winners of the awards from the show will be selected by a popular vote by YouTube globally.
Elizabeth Smart to Reveal Story of Captivity to Meredith Viera
NBC's Meredith Viera has landed a one hour exclusive interview with Elizabeth Smart this Friday night at 10 ET. Despite her year-long contract with ABC, Smart has not spoken about the incident. NBC says that the interview will air twice on Friday, as well as the following Monday, and that it will not be part of a larger series. Smart was held in captivity for nine months after she was kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City in 2002.
Al Jazeera America bans newsroom f-bombs
In a move that's sure to have news producers across the world writhing with laughter, the Middle Eastern network has declared that using the "f-word" is no longer appropriate language for employees. But as any producer will tell you - under the crush of breaking news, curse words bounce off the control room walls faster than an Olympic ping pong match. Good luck to our AJAM friends - and let us know how it goes.
What we're reading this week...
By Sara Fischer, CNN
We’ve got an exciting show this week featuring coverage of the potential government shutdown, 'Breaking Bad' and the Food Network with returning guest host Brian Stelter, media and TV reporter for the New York Times, but until then; here’s a look at what we’ve been reading this week.
Pinterest sees growing number of journalists using the site, makes related changes
The pin-board style photo-sharing website, Pinterest, is making changes to its’ digital platform in response to a surge in journalist users. As of Tuesday, Pinterest users can now pin articles, just as they would pin items of clothing, bath towels, or craft projects. Pinterest’s ability to drive high traffic is appealing to journalists and news organizations that want to expand their brand and engage their audiences more heavily.
Why we're shutting off our comments
Popularscience.com is shutting off their comments feature to readers because “comments can be bad for science.” Acknowledging that it wasn’t an easy decision to make, the website argues that posting comments are bad for the website and science alike, because certain comments can polarize readers and make them feel more negatively about the science being reported.
Comedian arrested after punching Journalist Josh Rogin at D.C.'s Funniest Celebrity Competition
Egos weren’t the only things that were bruised at this year’s D.C.’s Funniest Celebrity contest. The event headliner Dan Nainan got into a tiff with Newsweek’s front-man Josh Rogin this Saturday over tweets Rogin was sending in the middle of Nainan’s performance. Nainan couldn’t take the joke. He allegedly walked up to Rogin after the show and punched him in the face.
World's oldest newspaper to end print edition, go digital only
The future of print just got a little dimmer. Lloyd’s List, the world’s oldest newspaper announced this week that it would move to a digital-only platform. The publication, which was first printed in 279 years ago, is now cancelling its print circulation, citing a declining interest in the hard copy as the reason.
Could transparency bolster publishers efforts to adopt new revenue models?
WeatherFX, a weather website, has created a new data model that they believe other digital publishers should follow. While most digital publishers use traffic and engagement numbers to cater their products to their own audience, WeatherFX takes these same numbers and correlates them to consumer patterns of other products on the web. WeatherFX’s general Manager Vikram Somaya argues that small publishers that have a niche audience need to build a story around that audience, so that their data can reflect their audiences’ interests and needs.
Sneak peek at this Sunday's show
By Sara Fischer, CNN
We've got a packed show this week on Reliable Sources with guest host Frank Sesno, Director of The George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs. As a former CNN Washington bureau chief, Sesno will bring a unique perspective to this week’s media headlines.
We’ll kick off the show with CNN's Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon, who will provide an update on the crisis in Syria, reporting live from Beirut. Conversation about the conflict will then continue with Tara Sonenshine, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and Shibley Telhami, Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, College Park.
CNN’s own digital political reporter, Peter Hamby, released a case study describing Twitter’s impact on the coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign. Hamby will speak with us live to discuss his research and experience and will be joined on a panel by Christina Bellantoni, politics editor for The PBS NewsHour and former senior Romney campaign advisor and CNN political commentator Kevin Madden
Then, we’ll sit down with former executive editor of The Washington Post, Len Downie, to get his take on Jeffrey Bezos’ purchase of Washington Post, a new study with the Committee to Protect Journalists on leaks from the Obama administration and stories this week about Edward Snowden
Finally, we’ll hear from POLITICO’s Susan Glasser about the impact and survival of long-form journalism.
Tune in Sunday morning at 11am ET.
What we're reading this week...
By Sara Fischer, CNN
We’ve got a busy show planned for Sunday with our ‘Reliable Sources’ guest host, Brian Stelter, television and digital media reporter for the new York Times and author of New York Times best seller, Top of the Morning. We’ll discuss the coverage and reaction following the new developments in the purchase by Jeffrey Bezos, CEO of Amazon, of the iconic Washington Post enterprise as well as the recent controversy stirring between the Republican Party and NBC and CNN over new Hillary Clinton entertainment programming, but until then; here are some other stories that caught our eye this week.
Richard Cohen's Huma Abedin Column Is Quite Something
The Huffington Post puts the spotlight on the bizarre way in which Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen’s writes about Huma Abedin's decision to defend her husband. The Post describes Cohen’s unconventional strategy to relate his personal life to that of Huma Abedin’s as awkward and uncomfortable. The Huffington Post article also notes that this is not the first piece of Cohen’s to spark controversy, recalling a piece he wrote in July about Trayvon Martin, which was condemned by many journalists as being slightly racist.
For Twitter, Free Speech Is a High-Wire Act
The Wall Street Journal’s Shira Ovide argues that Twitter’s continued success makes it difficult for the corporation to uphold the rights of free speech. Citing examples of anti-Semitic dialogue being propagated via Twitter, Odive argues that many of the billions of tweets sent worldwide clash with free speech standards globally, creating a growing dilemma for Twitter executives.
Will Amazon and Washington Post Work Together? Who Knows?!
Jeffrey Bezos’ recent purchase of the Washington Post for $250 million dollars, begs the obvious revenue question: Will Bezos’ online retail empire, Amazon, join forces with his recent media purchase? AdWeek’s David Taintor reached out to a few analysts to learn more about the recent purchase and what it means for the digital future of the Washington Post. While some analysts argue that it is too early to say if Amazon’s digital strategy will be integrated into The Washington Post’s, others argue that in the future Bezos will likely ask the Post team to focus on and experiment with the digital side of the business.
What we're reading this week
By Sara Fischer, CNN
The New York Times debuts its first “Times Documentary”
In April 2012, the New York Times published a five-part series of articles written by New York Times published reporter John Branch, illustrating the reality of the cultural pressures surrounding a girls' basketball team, Carroll Academy, a juvenile court-run school in Huntingdon, Tennessee. The sports editor of the New York Times received an overwhelming amount of public support for them team following the series being published. In response to the reaction, Branch revisited the team, the “Lady Jaguars,” to write two more articles, highlighting the community struggling with “high unemployment, teen pregnancy and rampant methamphetamine and prescription drug abuse.” The New York Times decided to turn Branch’s stories into a 17-minute documentary, the first “Times documentary”-branded video that the traditionally print-based publication has ever produced. The Huffington Post discusses the role of documentaries in telling a traditional print-story and how it changes the consumption of the story for its’ viewers.
Buzzfeed discovers the "Smartest Ever Ad Campaign to use National Flags"
Grande Reportagem, a Portuguese news magazine, hired a Lisbon-based ad agency called DraftFCB to create a simple yet effective print ad campaign that is geared to represent humanitarian struggles worldwide through the imagery of various country’s flags. For example, an image of the United States represents American’s knowledge (or lack there of) of the Iraq War. The blue space represents the number of Americans who do not know what the Iraq War is, in comparison the red space which represents those in favor of the War, and the white space, those opposed. While the statistical representations are not completely accurate, due to the rough-to-scale proportions of the flags images, they do a great job of informing the viewer of the general disparities in human conditions worldwide.
New York officials are investigating Bloomberg reporters' access to to consumers information
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office is investigating how much access Bloomberg LP news reporters may have had to the company’s customers. “The probe follows inquiries made in May by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury into Bloomberg customer data access,” The Wall Street Journal reports. The article also discusses the issue of reporters' knowledge about client activities in a wider context describing how the issue first came about in 2012 when “officials complained to Bloomberg about reporters' access to bankers and traders' whereabouts and log in data, which the firm felt was a violation of its employees' privacy."
About "Reliable Sources"
Now more than ever, the press is a part of every story it covers. And CNN's "Reliable Sources" is one of television's only regular programs to examine how journalists do their jobs and how the media affect the stories they cover.
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About the host
Brian Stelter is the host of "Reliable Sources" and the senior media correspondent for CNN Worldwide. Before he joined CNN in November 2013, Stelter was a media reporter for The New York Times. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller "Top of the Morning."
Here's his biography. You can read his stories on this blog and at CNNMoney.com/Media/.
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