What a decade the last 24 hours have been
Brace yourself for a terrible three months
Since yesterday’s newsletter, the following has happened:
Bloomberg reports that presidential advisor Hope Hicks tests positive for coronavirus;
Secret recording of Melania Trump saying she couldn’t care less about children being ripped from their families;
New Yorker story on Kimberly Guilfoyle’s departure from Fox News because of sexual harassment and assault;
September jobs report showing 7.9 percent unemployment, 12.6 million Americans out of work; "The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 781,000 to 2.4 million."
The president and first lady both test positive for coronavirus.
(Image via Reuters)
So...it’s been a day.
Two things to think about as we prepare ourselves for a dicey and volatile month or three:
First, without reporting we wouldn’t know that the president doesn’t pay federal taxes or that the president’s advisor, Hope Hicks, has coronavirus. These are things that should have been disclosed by the White House, but weren’t. It took journalists to inform us.
(Also worth noting: the president disclosed he tested positive for the coronavirus at 1 a.m ET via Twitter. The tweet, as of this writing, has 1.4 million likes.)
Second, we are headed towards several different but all terrifying scenarios of the president having the coronavirus and because of the last four years of constant lying, there is no credibility from the White House or other governmental agencies.
With so much uncertainty (e.g., what happens if he gets sick to the point of invoking the 25th amendment; what about the election; what about the campaign; what’s happening with foreign actors; so many questions) the groundwork laid by years of this administration crying ‘fake news’ means that Americans are going to be more confused than ever. We as media consumers need to be more cautious of what we acknowledge, but also what we spread. Rely on trusted outlets and reporters, not on your Facebook feed.
For example, USA Today has a running update of the wake of the president’s announcement, like Sen. Mike Lee who has tested positive and VP Joe Biden who’s tested negative.
One last thing: Think about the pretzel logic Fox News pumps out every day. And now they have to treat the president testing positive for the coronavirus as a very serious, super important story while for the last 6 months they have been telling their millions of viewers that the coronavirus is a nothing burger.
And when the White House Chief of Staff goes on national television to update Americans about the president’s health, he’s not wearing a mask. Which will be seen by people who will think, ‘well, if the president’s chief of staff doesn’t wear a mask after his boss gets the disease, why should I?’
Have a great weekend. Be safe. Be smart. Be healthy. See you on Monday.
Thank you for allowing me into your inbox, today and every day. If you have tips, thoughts on the newsletter, or are looking for a writer or editor or manager for your newsroom, drop me a line. Or you can follow me on Twitter.
Phish, “Glide”
Some interesting links:
For platforms:
A path forward for privacy and online advertising (Facebook)
Democratic Party leaders are “banging their head against the wall” after private meetings with Facebook on election misinformation (Recode)
House antitrust panel nears final steps in its investigation of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google (CNBC)
For media legal eagles:
Supreme Court to Tackle Media Ownership Case (Variety)
For I don’t even know:
Study Finds ‘Single Largest Driver’ of Coronavirus Misinformation: Trump (NYT)
For media criticism:
Google is giving $1 billion to news publishers — to help convince governments not to take a whole lot more than that (Nieman Lab)
For ad spend:
2020 political ad spend estimate rises to near $11 billion; presidential ad spend $5.2 billion (Mediapost)