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  • “The Sulzbergers Must Hate This”: Scenes From The New York Times Picket Line

    “The Sulzbergers Must Hate This”: Scenes From The New York Times Picket Line

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    A sea of red shirts filled the half block outside The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan, spilling out onto the street; Scabby, the 12-foot inflatable rat with bloodshot eyes and a festering underbelly sat next to a cardboard box of extra signs: “NEW YORK TIMES WALKS OUT.” On Thursday, after months of building newsroom frustrations over stalled contract negotiations, the Times Guild walked off the job, a historic act of protest not seen at the paper in more than 40 years. Workers in the union told their readers to keep off the Times website, forgo the crossword, and break their Wordle streaks. Reporters clarified that any articles published today with their names on it were written in advance. Outside the office, photographers and cameramen hung from the scaffolding with eyes over the crowd; union members shouted for a $65,000 salary floor and improved health care benefits, erupting into cheers any time a truck honked in solidarity. Taking in the scene, a reporter from another magazine muttered, “The Sulzbergers must hate this.” 

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    The union, which represents about 1,450 employees, threatened a work stoppage last week if they could not come to a contract agreement with management before December 8. The Guild said some progress was made during a 12-hour session Tuesday: Management agreed to keep pensions (a key concession to the union after executives attempted to move members to the company’s 401(k) plan) and to expand fertility benefits, but “there was negligible movement” on wages, said finance reporter and bargaining committee member Stacy Cowley, “the issue every single one of our members considers a priority.” On Wednesday, management agreed to meet for a sidebar, a less formal session without observers, but failed to come to an agreement. Their next scheduled session is this coming Tuesday. “We stand ready to bargain sooner if they will,” said Cowley.

    “Hey, AG, I’ve got a hunch, give us raises, not a lunch box” ralliers chanted Thursday, referencing the branded lunch boxes the Times gave out in an attempt to get people back to the office. “Hey, Gray Lady, time to pay me.” It’s a “bittersweet day,” Bill Baker, unit chair of the Times guild, told the crowd. “We are not happy to be here, but we are here. We are here nonetheless in solidarity—that is the sweet of the bittersweet.” Guild members said more than 1,100 staffers had signed the pledge to withhold labor for 24 hours. “We organized a small town,” said sports reporter Jenny Vrentas. 

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    As I reported earlier this week, the company’s top brass began executing a contingency plan for the walkout after receiving the Guild’s threatened action; managers had asked writers to file stories early, and looked into how to pull more stories off the wires to fill in anticipated gaps in coverage. “We will produce a robust report on Thursday. But it will be harder than usual,” executive editor Joe Kahn wrote in an email Wednesday evening, as the walkout became official. To an outside observer, the Times’ digital product may have appeared to be humming along on Thursday. But there were some signs of disruption; stories were authored “By The New York Times”—including the paper’s own story about its one-day strike. The liveblog posts were primarily written by international staffers, who are not part of the Guild. Though two prominent journalists in the paper’s DC bureau, chief White House reporter Peter Baker and White House correspondent Michael Shear, refused to participate in the one-day work stoppage, as Semafor reported, and contributed to Thursday’s report.

    During Thursday’s rally, several speakers talked about the financial health of the Times, while remembering sacrifices that staffers made in the past for the company, like furloughs and pay cuts during the financial crisis, to help the Times get through. “When this paper struggled, all of us had to share in its austerity. So when the paper is doing well, the people who work here everywhere to make this place a global phenomenon deserve to share in its success,” said 1619 Project founder Nikole Hannah-Jones. “If you compare the cost of our proposal to the $150 million approved for stock buybacks this year, then we know that we have the money to do this for our lowest paid employees.” The company has also increased compensation for some top officers and increased its dividend payout to shareholders this year. “We don’t begrudge them that—at least I don’t,” said longtime staff editor Tom Coffey. “We are just asking the company merely to give us what we deserve and what we have earned over the years.”

    Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said in a statement to Vanity Fair that the Guild’s proposal “would add more than $100 million in additional costs over the life of the contract” and “make it difficult to sustain our investment in journalism.” Cowley said the company “spent $3.4 million increasing the total compensation of four top executives” in 2021, money that “would cover 2% raises for a year—for our entire membership. Our chief executive’s 2021 raise alone would fully cover the cost of the $65,000 salary floor we are seeking.”

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  • EXPLAINER: What do we know about the Colorado bomb threat?

    EXPLAINER: What do we know about the Colorado bomb threat?

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    DENVER — More than a year before police say Anderson Lee Aldrich killed five people and wounded 17 others at a gay night club in Colorado Springs, Aldrich was arrested on allegations of making a bomb threat that led to the evacuation of about 10 homes.

    Aldrich, who uses the pronoun they and is nonbinary according to their attorneys, threatened to harm their own family with a homemade bomb, ammunition and multiple weapons, authorities said at the time. They were booked into jail on suspicion of felony menacing and kidnapping, but the case was later sealed and it’s unclear what became of the charges. There are no public indications that the case led to a conviction.

    Officials refuse to speak about what happened, citing the sealing law, which was passed three years ago to help prevent people from having their lives ruined if cases are dismissed and never prosecuted. It was passed as part of a nationwide movement aimed at addressing the “collateral consequences” from people’s run-ins with law enforcement that often make it difficult for them to get jobs or housing.

    Amid a flurry of questions about the incident after Aldrich was identified as the suspect in the Nov. 19 shooting at Club Q, District Attorney Michael Allen said during a Nov. 21 news conference that he “hoped at some point in the near future” to share more about the incident, raising expectations that he wanted the information to be made public.

    But 11 days later, Allen still hasn’t shed light on the incident and the documents remain sealed despite a petition to make them public submitted by a coalition of media organizations including The Associated Press.

    Here is a closer look at what is known about the incident, the records and what is being done to make them public as a grieving community clamors for more information.

    ———

    WHY ARE THE CASE DOCUMENTS SEALED?

    There had been ways to seal criminal records in Colorado for decades, but in 2019, state lawmakers changed the law to allow records to be automatically sealed when a case is dropped and defendants aren’t prosecuted. Before that law was passed, anyone seeking to seal their records would’ve had to petition the court in what was an opaque process that was difficult for many to navigate, said one of the sponsors, Democratic state Rep. Mike Weissman.

    Weissman said he thinks Colorado’s law strikes the right balance with a mechanism to ask for documents to be unsealed, but that speeding up the process for unsealing cases that draw intense public interest could be a possible improvement.

    Law enforcement agencies are still able to access sealed records, though they are limited in what they can share publicly. The law prevents authorities from even acknowledging the existence of such sealed cases when someone from the public asks about them. Allen has cited the 2019 law in his refusal to discuss what happened.

    ———

    CAN SEALED RECORDS BE MADE PUBLIC?

    Yes, but it isn’t easy. Colorado law allows anyone to ask a court to unseal a record if they believe the benefit outweighs the defendant’s right to privacy. But that can only be done if someone has reason to believe a record may exist, since court officials can’t disclose such information to the public.

    The process happens behind closed doors with no docket to follow. It isn’t even known which judge is considering the request. All of that makes it impossible to know when a decision could come.

    David Loy, legal director at the First Amendment Coalition, said it seems troubling that the public is unable to follow the petition request to unseal the documents.

    “It’s sort of a black box as to who the judge is, we don’t normally have secret judges, we don’t normally have secret courts, for very important reasons,” he said.

    Getting access to records is important for learning the details of cases and whether the justice system worked as it should have, including whether a red flag order should have been pursued to remove any firearms, said Jeff Roberts, who heads the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition,

    “You don’t truly know the circumstances until you can see what law enforcement authorities wrote about what happened,” he said.

    ———

    WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE BOMB THREAT INCIDENT?

    Most of what is known about the June 18, 2021, incident in Colorado Springs comes from a news release put out that night by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

    In it, the office said that a woman calling from the street where Aldrich’s grandparents lived reported that “her son” was threatening to harm her with a homemade bomb, multiple weapons and ammunition. Aldrich was later found at house about a mile (1.6 kilometers) away, on the block where his mother lived. The release noted that no explosives were found, but it didn’t mention if any other weapons were found.

    Ring doorbell video obtained by the AP shows Aldrich arriving at their mother’s front door with a big black bag, telling her the police were nearby and adding, “This is where I stand. Today I die.”

    Two squad cars and what appears to be a bomb squad vehicle later pull up to the house, and a barefooted Aldrich emerges with hands up.

    ———

    WHAT HAPPENED AFTER ALDRICH’S 2021 ARREST?

    It’s not clear, because case records are sealed. What is known is that in August, Aldrich told a reporter for The Gazette in Colorado Springs that they had spent two months in jail after the 2021 arrest, though it is unknown if that is true. The reporter called Aldrich in response to a voicemail Aldrich had left with the newspaper asking that its previous story about the bomb threat be removed or updated, asserting that the case had been dropped.

    ———

    SHOULD COLORADO’S RED FLAG LAW BEEN USED?

    That is difficult to say, largely because of the lack of public details about what happened after Aldrich’s arrest and what other evidence authorities might have gathered. And it isn’t clear when Aldrich acquired the semi-automatic rifle and handgun investigators recovered at the scene of last month’s shooting.

    The law allows a law enforcement agency or household member ask a court to order someone to surrender their firearms if they pose a significant risk to themselves or others.

    Had a red flag order been issued against Aldrich, any firearms they had at the time would have been taken away and they would have been prevented from buying additional weapons from a gun dealer required to perform a background check.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Jesse Bedayn contributed to this report. Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Hong Kong publisher Lai faces Security Law in delayed trial

    Hong Kong publisher Lai faces Security Law in delayed trial

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    HONG KONG — Jimmy Lai broke into Hong Kong’s rambunctious media world 30 years ago armed with the belief that delivering information equates with protecting freedom.

    Lai’s own freedom is at stake as he fights charges of endangering national security as former publisher of his now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

    Already serving a 20-month term for other offenses, the 74-year-old Lai could face up to life in prison if he is convicted under a sweeping National Security Law that Beijing has imposed on the former British colony, silencing or jailing many pro-democracy activists.

    The high-profile trial was to begin Thursday but was postponed due to a request from Hong Kong’s Department of Justice based on its objection over whether Lai’s British lawyer will be allowed to defend him. Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader John Lee has asked China to issue a ruling that could block veteran barrister Timothy Owen from representing Lai.

    If Beijing intervenes, that would mark the sixth time the Communist-ruled government has stepped in despite its promise to respect Hong Kong’s judicial independence and civil liberties for at least 50 years after China took over from Britain in 1997.

    The Department of Justice has asked for the trial, which will be overseen by three judges, to be suspended pending a decision from Beijing about Lai’s defense lawyer.

    Lai’s legal troubles derailed a stunning career for a man smuggled into Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland at age 12.

    After getting only a primary school education, he started out working in a glove factory and sprinted up the ranks to found the casual clothing chain Giordano in 1981. Following the crackdown on 1989 student-led pro-democracy protests centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, he became an outspoken advocate for democracy, founding Next Magazine the year after.

    Attacks on Giordano by the Chinese government prompted Lai to sell his shares in the business and devote himself to the media world.

    In 1995, Lai launched the Apple Daily, which quickly became one of the city’s top selling newspapers with its sometimes outrageous coverage of politics and celebrities. The publication survived a newspaper price war and expanded into Taiwan in the 2000s.

    Apple Daily pioneered the use of short animated films online to accompany news reports. Its investigative scoops and critical reports on the government attracted a strong following. Apple Daily also adopted a strong pro-democracy stance, often urging readers to join protests.

    Lai participated in mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019, meeting with then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss since-withdrawn legislation that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

    Opposition to the bill morphed into months of sometimes violent protests as demands for greater democracy in Hong Kong escalated.

    The protest movement, which eventually was snuffed out, lacked any clear leader, but Lai’s high profile made him a target of the authorities.

    Apple Daily denounced the enactment of the National Security Law in June 2020. Lai told The Associated Press that “Hong Kong is dead,” but said he would stay.

    “If I leave, not only do I disgrace myself, I’d discredit Apple Daily, I’d undermine the solidarity of the democratic movement,” he said.

    In August that year, Lai was arrested on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces. More than 200 officers raided the offices of Next Digital, Apple Daily’s parent company. Arrests of its top executives, editors and journalists and the freezing of $2.3 million worth of assets forced the newspaper to shut down in June 2021. It sold a million copies of its final edition.

    In recent hearings, Lai has appeared tanned, possibly due to outdoors time in Stanley Prison — the city’s largest maximum security lockup — and in good spirits. People who have been in touch with him have noted that he is turning to his Roman Catholic faith in prison, with a friend who wished to remain anonymous due to the issue’s sensitivity saying Lai drew the figure of Jesus on the cross in the letters he sent to others.

    Lai is charged with two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one charge of collusion under the National Security Law. His trial is Hong Kong’s first to center on allegations of “collusion with foreign forces.” Lai also was charged with sedition under a colonial-era law that has been used to quash dissent.

    Next month, Lai is due to be sentenced for alleged fraud related to subletting office space to a company he also controlled.

    In an interview in July 2020, Lai seemed unfazed.

    “If I have to go to prison, I don’t mind. I don’t care,” he said. “I cannot worry, because you never know what kind of measures they will take against me.”

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  • George Lois, icon of ads and magazine covers, dead at 91

    George Lois, icon of ads and magazine covers, dead at 91

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    NEW YORK — George Lois, the hard-selling, charismatic advertising man and designer who fashioned some of the most daring magazine images of the 1960s and popularized such catchphrases and brand names as “I Want My MTV” and “Lean Cuisine,” has died. He was 91.

    Lois’ son, the photographer Luke Lois, said he died “peacefully” Friday at his home in Manhattan.

    Nicknamed the “Golden Greek” and later (to his displeasure) an “Original Mad Man,” George Lois was among a wave of advertisers who launched the “Creative Revolution” that jolted Madison Avenue and the world beyond in the late 1950s and ’60s. He was boastful and provocative, willing and able to offend, and was a master of finding just the right image or words to capture a moment or create a demand.

    His Esquire magazine covers, from Muhammad Ali posing as the martyr Saint Sebastian to Andy Warhol sinking in a sea of Campbell’s tomato soup, defined the hyper spirit of the ’60s as much as Norman Rockwell’s idealized drawings for the Saturday Evening Post summoned an earlier era. As an ad man, he devised breakthrough strategies for Xerox and Stouffer’s and helped an emerging music video channel in the 1980s by suggesting ads featuring Mick Jagger and other rock stars demanding, with mock-petulance, “I Want My MTV!”

    Lois boiled it down to what he called the “Big Idea,” crystallizing “the unique virtues of a product and searing it into people’s minds.” He was inducted into numerous advertising and visual arts halls of fame, and in 2008 his Esquire work was added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Martin Scorsese, Tina Brown and Graydon Carter were among his admirers.

    His legacy was vast, although the actual dimensions are disputed. His claims to developing the 1960s “I Want My Maypo” breakfast ads and to inspiring the creation of New York magazine have been widely contradicted. Some former Esquire colleagues would allege that he exaggerated his role at the expense of other contributors, such as Carl Fischer, who photographed many of the magazine’s famous covers. But his overpowering energy and confidence were well recorded.

    In her memoir “Basic Black,” former USA Today publisher Cathie Black recalled bringing in Lois in the early 1980s to propose a new advertising approach for a publication that struggled at first over how to identify itself. Lois’ idea was to champion USA Today’s dual appeal as a newspaper and magazine, proposing the slogan, “A lot of people are saying USA Today is neither fish nor fowl. They’re right!” Before a gathering of the publication’s, including founder Al Neuharth, Lois gave an Oscar-worthy performance, Black wrote, “bounding in like a 6-foot-3 teenager hopped up on Red Bull.”

    “He flung his jacket to the floor, tore off his tie, then flashed one prototype ad after another, prancing around the room and keeping up a running monologue sprinkled with jokes and profanity. It was epic, almost scary. I was thrilled. When he was finished, the room sat absolutely silent.” All eyes turned to Neuharth, who sat “absolutely still, his expression hidden behind his dark aviator glasses.” Neuharth paused, removed his glasses and smiled. “We’ve got it,” he said.

    Lois’ longtime wife, Rosemary Lewandowski Lois, died in September. A son, Harry Joseph Lois, died in 1978.

    Lois, the son of Greek immigrants, was born in New York City in 1931 and would cite the racism of his Irish neighborhood for his drive “to awaken, to disturb, to protest.” He liked to say that a successful advertiser absorbed as many influences as possible, and he prided himself on his knowledge of everything from sports to ballet. He was a compulsive drawer and for much of his life made weekly visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    He enrolled in Pratt Institute, soon met his future wife and eloped with her before either had graduated. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, he joined the advertising and promotion department of CBS and in 1960 helped found the advertising agency Papert Koenig Lois. Two years later he was recruited by Esquire editor Harold Hayes and remained until 1972, the same year Hayes left.

    Esquire was a prime venue for the so-called New Journalism of the 1960s, nonfiction stories with a literary approach, and the magazine would publish such celebrated pieces as Gay Talese’s portrait of Frank Sinatra and Tom Wolfe’s “The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!” But to read the words, you had to buy the magazine, and Lois’ covers launched countless conversations.

    For a cover story on “The New American Woman,” he featured a naked model folded into a garbage can. A notorious 1970 cover showed a grinning Lt. William Calley, the serviceman later found guilty of murdering unarmed civilians in the My Lai Massacre, with his arms around a pair of Vietnamese children, two other kids behind him.

    In the mid-1970s, Lois was among the public figures who led efforts to free the boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter from prison. Carter’s conviction for murder was later overturned, and he was released in 1985. Lois also wrote several books and was featured in the 2014 documentary about Esquire, “Smiling Through the Apocalypse.”

    Interest in Lois was renewed through the popularity of the AMC series “Mad Men,” but he was not flattered, writing in his book “Damn Good Advice” that the show was “nothing more than a soap opera set in a glamorous office where stylish fools hump their appreciative, coiffured secretaries, suck up martinis, and smoke themselves to death as they produce dumb, lifeless advertising.”

    “Besides,” he added, “when I was in my 30s I was better looking than Don Draper.”

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  • Donald Trump faces billionaires in retreat and tabloid trolling a day after campaign announcement | CNN Politics

    Donald Trump faces billionaires in retreat and tabloid trolling a day after campaign announcement | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A day after Donald Trump announced his third bid for the presidency, he faced public defections from billionaire backers and vicious trolling from a once-friendly New York tabloid – underscoring his early challenges in mounting a political comeback nearly two years after the end of his divisive presidency.

    Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of the private equity firm Blackstone and a one-time Trump ally, announced Wednesday that he would not support Trump’s bid for the Republican nomination, saying it’s time “for the Republican party to turn to a new generation of leaders.”

    A spokesman for another billionaire supporter – cosmetic heir Ronald Lauder – confirmed to CNN on Wednesday that Lauder would not back Trump’s bid to become only the second US president elected to two nonconsecutive terms.

    And in another sign that the once-supportive conservative media empire controlled by Rupert Murdoch has moved on from Trump, the New York Post on Wednesday topped its story of his campaign announcement with a brutal headline, “Been there, Don That.” (By contrast, a front-page Post headline last week heralded Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as “DeFuture,” after the Republican cruised to a second term.)

    The pullback by some donors shows that some of the party’s elite figures are open to alternatives two years out from the next presidential election. Trump, who has relied on a small-donor base to fuel his political ambitions, remains a formidable fundraising force. In an unprecedented move, he never stopped fundraising after leaving the White House, and his array of political committees has amassed more than $100 million in cash reserves.

    Trump is the first major Republican candidate to announce his candidacy. Over the weekend, DeSantis – a potential rival for the nomination – is slated to address one of the Republican Party’s most influential donor groups when he delivers a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual gala dinner. Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, another Republican viewed as a possible presidential contender, also is slated to speak at the Saturday night event in Las Vegas.

    Trump remains a “big factor” in Republican politics and has earned accolades from coalition members for his staunch support of Israel, said Matthew Brooks, RJC’s executive director.

    But “people are window-shopping right now,” Brooks added. “There are people who are asking if we need a new direction and a new face.”

    Brooks said Trump was invited to the RJC gathering but had a scheduling conflict.

    CNN has reached out to Trump aides for comment.

    Schwarzman’s retreat from Trump is particularly significant because he’s one of the biggest donors in Republican politics and contributed $3 million in 2020 to a super PAC supporting Trump’s unsuccessful reelection campaign.

    In the midterms alone, Schwarzman donated more than $35 million to Republican candidates and groups active in federal elections, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit group that tracks political money.

    “America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday,” Schwarzman said in his statement, first reported by Axios. Schwarzman said he would support one of the GOP’s “new generation of leaders” but did not say whom he is considering backing.

    Another Republican megadonor, Citadel’s Ken Griffin, recently indicated he would back DeSantis in 2024, should the Florida governor seek the GOP nomination.

    Lauder, a long-time Trump friend and financial supporter of Republican candidates and causes, has not indicated who would win his support.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Retired Las Vegas AP correspondent Robert Macy dies at 85

    Retired Las Vegas AP correspondent Robert Macy dies at 85

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    LAS VEGAS — Retired Las Vegas correspondent Robert Macy, who wrote thousands of stories about entertainment, crime and sports in Sin City over the course of two decades for The Associated Press, has died. He was 85.

    Macy died early Friday in hospice in Las Vegas following a brief illness, his family said.

    After graduating from the University of Kansas with a degree in journalism in 1959, Macy spent the next decade working in television, in public relations and for newspapers.

    He began his almost 30-year career with the AP in 1971 when he was hired by the news cooperative as a writer in Kansas City, Missouri. Macy gained attention there early on for his coverage of a hotel pedestrian walkway collapse that killed more than 100 people.

    A decade later Macy was in Las Vegas, where throughout the ’80s and ’90s he wrote about a virtual who’s who of entertainers, then staples of The Strip.

    In 1988 he reported on the fatal police shooting of a man who took a 74-year-old employee hostage while trying to steal $1 million in jewelry from the Liberace Museum. Macy was there when singer Wayne Newton, known as “Mr. Las Vegas,” performed his 25,000th show in 1996.

    He interviewed more than 200 celebrities, including comedians George Burns and Red Skelton and singers from Phyllis McGuire to Paul Anka to the Osmond Brothers. He also developed friendships with more than a few.

    Macy knew entertainers Siegfried & Roy so well that when trainer and performer Roy Horn was attacked in 2003 by one of their white tigers, the AP story carried his byline even though he was already retired.

    Macy retired from the AP in 2000 and the following year was inducted into the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame.

    He is survived by his wife, Melinda, of Las Vegas: son Brent and daughter-in-law Martha, of Las Vegas; and son Scott, granddaughters Kara and Savannah and great-granddaughter Azlynn, all of Leesburg, Florida.

    Funeral services are pending.

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  • Once key, US newspaper editorial endorsements fade away

    Once key, US newspaper editorial endorsements fade away

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Newspaper endorsements are fading away as prizes to be nabbed by political campaigns, the practice a victim of both the news industry’s troubles and the era’s bitter politics.

    Earlier this month, newspapers controlled by Alden Global Capital said they would no longer endorse candidates for president, governor and the U.S. Senate. The newspapers in the hedge fund’s portfolio include dozens of dailies like the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Boston Herald, Orlando Sentinel and San Jose Mercury News.

    They’re not alone. The days when a prominent endorsement would quickly make it way into a campaign ad or voters would clip out an editorial to take into the voting booth seem destined for history.

    “I do think you can make the argument in many cases that they’ve outlived their usefulness because of the increased polarization and the skepticism of media in general,” said Carol Hunter, executive editor of the Des Moines Register. “I don’t think that’s a healthy trend. But I think that’s reality.”

    For all the effort that news organizations have made in crafting compelling endorsements, there have always been questions about whether those arguments have much influence, particularly in high-profile races.

    At no time was that more evident than 2016, when 57 of the biggest newspapers endorsed Hillary Clinton and two picked Donald Trump, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “None of the above,” with five, did better than the eventual president.

    At a time when newspapers are scratching for readers, executives wonder whether they should bother.

    “Picking a candidate in this environment may alienate more readers than it persuades,” the New York Daily News wrote in announcing the new policy, which means the tabloid will sit out the governor’s race between Democrat Kathy Hochul and Republican Lee Zeldin.

    Of the country’s 100 biggest newspapers by circulation, 92 endorsed a presidential candidate in 2008. By 2020, only 54 made a choice, according to UCSB. There’s no such reliable accounting in smaller races. But given that there are 2,500 fewer newspapers in the U.S. than there were in 2005, it stands to reason there are a lot fewer endorsements.

    That absence “is yet another loss for grassroots democracy,” said Penelope Muse Abernathy, a Northwestern University professor who catalogs the decline in local news.

    At a time of unpopularity for the press, many people don’t like being told what to do, said Poynter Institute media business analyst Rick Edmonds.

    For the newspapers, “there’s a little bit of ‘don’t rock the boat’ there,” Edmonds said. “There are ways to be respectful in a formal editorial. Make a point, but not in a condescending or dismissive way.”

    In an internal memo earlier this year, leaders of the Gannett newspaper chain noted that editorials were frequently cited as a reason people canceled subscriptions. Surveys said opinion pages were among their least-read content, and tied to problems in credibility and trust.

    Some readers have difficulty distinguishing between news and opinion, or flat-out don’t believe that a paper’s editorial stance doesn’t affect its news coverage, said Hunter, whose Iowa newspaper is owned by Gannett.

    Gannett didn’t ban political endorsements, but strongly advised its more than 220 newspapers to cut back on national opinion and focus on local issues. The Des Moines Register’s opinion pages, for example, now run twice a week. The Register is being selective in its choices this fall, weighing in on the Iowa governor’s race and a referendum on guns. But the state’s top newspaper won’t endorse in federal races, including U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s bid for an eighth term.

    The McClatchy newspaper chain also didn’t ban presidential endorsements. But it said the newspapers would not make a choice in races where its editors could not interview candidates — effectively putting it out of the business of presidential endorsements.

    One of its newspapers, the Charlotte Observer, said it would make endorsements in “competitive and notable” races where it could conduct extensive research and interviews, North Carolina Opinion Editor Peter St. Onge wrote in a column.

    Many news organizations simply have fewer people to do the work. Sixty percent of journalists working at newspapers in the United States have lost jobs since 2005, Abernathy said.

    Staffing is indeed an issue at the Register, Hunter said. The newspaper is unable to cover the state’s federal delegation the way it used to, and wants to devote resources to local news, she said.

    Many politicians view the dwindling state of endorsements with a collective shrug. News organizations were once seen as objective, but Republican consultant Alex Conant said many voters his candidates are trying to reach consider newspapers as partisan as politicians.

    “Editorial boards used to be an important validator,” Conant said. “But they’re not that important any more.”

    When he was running Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign in 2016, Conant encouraged his client to meet with the editorial board at the Register, the dominant newspaper in the crucial early caucus state of Iowa.

    If Rubio were running for president now, Conant said, he wouldn’t bother with it.

    Hunter said it hasn’t been decided whether the Register would endorse anyone running for president in the 2024 caucuses. A lot will depend on access to the candidates, she said.

    In the book “News Hole,” University of Virginia professor Jennifer Lawless and George Washington University’s Daniel Hayes show how congressional candidates are getting much less news coverage than they used to.

    That’s also the case for many elections further down the ballot, for local judge or school board, where endorsements had been one of the few places to learn about candidates. In many cases, these races are now nationalized: Voters are left to evaluate candidates as extensions of national parties instead of as neighbors, Abernathy said.

    Advertisements — often filled with disinformation — become the primary source of information, she said. By contrast, American Presidency Project co-director John Woolley said, newspaper endorsements “are a good thing in that they model how to think, and clarify to people what the big issues are.”

    “I still think that’s the case,” he said, “and I don’t think we can get too much of that in our lives.”

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  • Cox First Media names industry veteran as its new publisher

    Cox First Media names industry veteran as its new publisher

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    DAYTON, Ohio — A company that publishes three newspapers in Ohio has named a media industry veteran as its new publisher.

    Suzanne Klopfenstein will formally assume her new role with Cox First Media on Jan. 1, when current publisher Jana Collier retires. But the company said the Springfield, Ohio, native will begin working now with Collier and other executives to ensure a smooth transition.

    Dayton-based Cox First Media includes the Dayton Daily News, the Springfield News-Sun, the Journal-News, Dayton.com and Cox First Media advertising services. Together, these brands reach more than 444,000 people through daily print and digital publications, and the products have a total paid circulation of 104,805 and 172,000 newsletter subscribers.

    Klopfenstein has 30 years of media experience, most recently as senior director of sales for Cox First Media. She joined Cox Enterprises and the Dayton Daily News in 1993 and has been at the forefront of Cox First Media’s digital advertising and audience strategies.

    Collier has worked for Cox for 34 years and has been publisher since 2020.

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  • Semafor news site makes debut, intent on reinventing news

    Semafor news site makes debut, intent on reinventing news

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    NEW YORK — The media organization Semafor launched on Tuesday with no less an ambition than reinventing the news story.

    Semafor is the brainchild of Ben Smith — former media reporter for The New York Times and, before that, former editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed — and Justin Smith, ex-CEO of Bloomberg Media. Since both men — who are not related — quit their previous jobs in January, Semafor has raised $25 million and hired more than 50 staff members.

    Semafor’s website, with a distinctive yellow-tinged backdrop that looks like a newspaper left out in the sun, went live shortly after 6 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, with eight newsletters in place as well as an events business.

    “We see, and are very excited about, a big opportunity to create a new and high-quality, independent global news brand that is obsessed with solving a number of big consumer frustrations that we see in the news business, primarily polarization,” said Justin Smith, the new company’s CEO.

    The founders also believe people suffer from information overload. While another media organization may seem an odd way to deal with that issue, they envision Semafor helping consumers make sense of all that’s out there.

    Stories contain separate sections that present the news, the author’s analysis, a counter to that viewpoint, perspective on how the issue is seen elsewhere in the world and a distillation of other stories on the topic.

    “Really good reporters do analysis all the time,” said Gina Chua, executive editor, a post she formerly held at Reuters. “That’s great in a story but oftentimes readers don’t know where the facts stop and the analysis begins. What we’re doing is very clearly separating them out.”

    It’s probably the highest-risk move Semafor is making, said Ben Smith, the organization’s editor-in-chief.

    Among the stories Semafor offered at launch: a previously unreported accident at SpaceX that injured a rocket technician, by Reed Albergotti, formerly of the Washington Post; and an investor group’s campaign to force Coca-Cola into the garbage business, by Liz Hoffmann, formerly of the Wall Street Journal.

    Ex-Washington Post writer David Weigel interviewed Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman and Ben Smith looked at his old shop, with a story about an identity crisis at The New York Times.

    Ben Smith’s story was Semafor’s centerpiece on Tuesday morning, next to a welcome to readers that he also penned. A series of clocks on top of the site showed the time in various cities, including Washington, Dubai and Beijing. A map of the world sat in the upper right corner.

    A breaking news column ran down the left side of the site and, on the right, readers were encouraged to sign up for various newsletters.

    Ben Smith will author a newsletter on the media, and others will center on business, technology and climate. Semafor Flagship, the day’s main newsletter, will be written from London, while Semafor Principals will look at Washington’s power players.

    The latter is currently considered the turf of Politico — another of Ben Smith’s former homes — and Axios, two of the century’s most successful media startups.

    Events will also be a big part of Semafor’s business, and 11 have already been held. They include a series on trust in news, sponsored by the Knight Foundation, that featured Ben Smith’s interview with Tucker Carlson.

    “It’s an extension of our journalism, it’s very very popular with clients and an important way to monetize news,” Justin Smith said.

    Another event is planned for December, when many African leaders will be in Washington. Semafor is anticipating worldwide expansion, making Africa the first area overseas where it is investing in reporting.

    At its start, the company is looking to make money through advertising and brand partnerships, said Rachel Oppenheim, chief revenue officer.

    The news site, www.semafor.com, will be available for free initially. After a year, the company will look for ways to charge for its service, Justin Smith said.

    “Ultimately, we believe we will have subscriptions over time,” he said.

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  • ‘She Said,’ drama of Weinstein reporting, premieres in NYC

    ‘She Said,’ drama of Weinstein reporting, premieres in NYC

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    NEW YORK — Five years after a pair of exposés revealed Harvey Weinstein’s long trail of sexual abuse of women, “She Said,” a film that dramatizes the dogged fight to uncover years of allegations against the movie mogul, premiered Thursday at the New York Film Festival.

    The film stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who helped uncover the many allegations against Weinstein. When news of their impending report was first leaked by Variety, Weinstein at the time commented: “The story sounds so good, I want to buy the movie rights.”

    Instead, the movie that would become “She Said” was adapted from Twohey and Kantor’s 2019 book about the investigation. It unspooled Thursday at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, with numerous women who came forward to tell their story in attendance, including Ashley Judd. Weinstein, meanwhile, is currently being tried in Los Angeles for 11 counts of rape and sexual assault. He has pled not guilty.

    The 70-year-old Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2020 for committing a criminal sexual act and third-degree rape.

    One of the loudest of the film’s numerous standing ovations was for Judd, whose on-the-record account led The Times’ first report and whose bravery emboldened many others to speak out. Other women who came forward were also in the audience. Judd plays herself in the film.

    “I just want to remember when I was speaking to my mother about all this, she said, ‘Oh, you go get ’em, honey,” Judd said in an on-stage conversation following the film, recalling that her father was with her after her 1996 meeting with Weinstein at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel. “When I came down from the hotel room, he knew something devastating had just happened to me by the look on my face.”

    “It was very validating that someone finally wanted to listen and do something about it,” Judd added. “The film was the next step in that.”

    That “She Said” was premiering in New York at a festival Weinstein once frequented made the evening particularly poignant. Eugene Hernandez, executive director of the festival, noted that “it’s a room Harvey Weinstein has been in.”

    The movie, too, has been a subject in Weinstein’s current trial. During pre-trial hearings, Weinstein’s attorneys requested that the trial be delayed because of the release of “She Said,” arguing that it could influence jurors. Universal Pictures will open “She Said” in theaters Nov. 18. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench rejected the motion.

    But the array of women on stage — including the stars, the Times reporters, director Maria Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz — made a powerful statement. “She Said” follows the ups and downs of Kantor and Twohey’s persistent investigation, battling against a decades-old wall-of-silence, a litany of NDAs and Weinstein’s own belligerent responses.

    “The number of people who shared information with us was relatively small, and yet their impact was so large,” Kantor. said “We hope this film helps people remember that these personal stories really can make an enormous difference.”

    The Times’ reporting on Weinstein, along with that of The New Yorker, was the catalyst not just for Weinstein’s dramatic downfall but the rapid expansion of the #MeToo movement begun by activist Tarana Burke that would spread throughout Hollywood and many other industries.

    “She Said” follows in the tradition of investigative journalism films like “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight,” with the notable difference that its protagonists are women balancing their 24/7 work lives with their young families. The film takes care to show the reporters as hard-working professionals not so unlike the young, ambitious women Weinstein preyed on.

    Kazan took a moment to reflect on what’s changed in Hollywood in the five years since. There are now intimacy coordinators on set for sex scenes and a more open conversation about gender imbalance. But, she said, “there’s so much change left to be effected.”

    “Anybody reading the newspaper headlines since let’s just say the beginning of May would know that we’re still living in an oppressive patriarchy,” said Kazan. “That’s not special to our industry.”

    Judd added that, thanks to SAG-Aftra agreements, auditions no longer happen in hotel rooms. But she also made the point that something deeper has changed within women.

    “I have reframed the experiences that I have had to understand that they were, in fact, harassment and assault, when I had previously minimized them,” Judd said. “I think that the individual transformation a lot of us have had as a result of what Tarana started and as a result of this reporting, has allowed women’s consciousness to transform and to set boundaries and reclaim autonomy and say, ‘This is the up with which I will not put. This is the hill on which I’m willing to die.’ ”

    ———

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • Judge keeps slain Vegas reporter’s files protected, for now

    Judge keeps slain Vegas reporter’s files protected, for now

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    LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas police, prosecutors and defense attorneys must wait to access a slain investigative journalist’s cellphone and electronic devices, over concerns about revealing the reporter’s confidential sources and notes, a judge said Tuesday.

    Clark County District Court Judge Susan Johnson said the pause will last until all sides craft a way for a neutral party to screen the records.

    The judge granted a Las Vegas Review-Journal request to block immediate review of the records, which are expected to include source names and notes by reporter Jeff German.

    Police and prosecutors say they need access to German’s records for evidence that Robert “Rob” Telles, a former Democratic elected county official, fatally stabbed German on Sept. 2 in response to articles German wrote that were critical of Telles and his managerial conduct.

    The newspaper — with backing from dozens of media organizations including The Associated Press and The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press — maintains that confidential information, names and unpublished material are protected from disclosure under state and federal law.

    Telles, 45, the Clark County public administrator, was arrested Sept. 7 and remains jailed without bail on a murder charge. Authorities say surveillance video, Telles’ DNA on German’s body and evidence found at Telles’ home connect him to the killing.

    Johnson acknowledged that because it is rare for U.S. journalists to be killed allegedly because of their work, there was little legal precedent that could be followed to allow investigators to search German’s files.

    German, 69, was widely respected for his tenacity and confidential contacts in 44 years of reporting on organized crime, government corruption, political scandals and mass shootings — first at the Las Vegas Sun and then at the Review-Journal.

    Attorney David Chesnoff, representing the Review-Journal, said the judge needs to balance First Amendment rights of the media with the interests of police and prosecutors. He also acknowledged Telles’ defense team’s constitutional right to access to information about German’s killing, including identities of other people who might have had a motive to attack him.

    “It will have a long-term and chilling effect on sources and journalists receiving information from sources,” Chesnoff said, “if it’s OK to kill a journalist so that then everything that journalist dedicated himself to” can be exposed. “That would be outrageous,” he said.

    The Review-Journal argues that police should never have seized German’s cellphone, computers and hard drive. It cites Nevada’s so-called “news shield law” — among the strictest in the U.S. — along with federal Privacy Protection Act and First Amendment safeguards.

    “We are dealing with something unique,” the judge observed from the bench. “Everybody in this room is probably on his phone as far as a contact, right? I may be in his contact list.”

    Johnson said Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives should have access to relevant electronic information. She said German’s files and contact lists could first be reviewed by a three-person team appointed by the court.

    “I’m leaning toward two trusted Metro officers that are higher-ups,” along with a respected former U.S. magistrate judge, Johnson said. She set an Oct. 19 date for ruling and added that she “wouldn’t be horrified” if the seven-member Nevada Supreme Court reviewed her decision to provide guidance about how to proceed.

    Chesnoff, with Ashley Kissinger also representing the Review-Journal and media, said there was no way to know who in Las Vegas police ranks had ties to the slain reporter. Chesnoff urged Johnson to enlist police investigators from outside Las Vegas for the review panel.

    Attorney Matthew Christian, representing the police department, acknowledged the issue might need state high court review.

    But Las Vegas police “have a duty to run down a complete investigation, and the victim’s devices are always part of that,” he said.

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  • Nikki Finke, sharp-tongued Hollywood columnist, dies at 68

    Nikki Finke, sharp-tongued Hollywood columnist, dies at 68

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    NEW YORK — Nikki Finke, the veteran reporter who became one of Hollywood’s top journalists as founder of the entertainment trade website Deadline.com and whose sharp-tongued tenacity made her the most-feared columnist in show business, has died. She was 68.

    Finke died Sunday in Boca Raton, Florida, after a prolonged illness, according to Deadline.

    A famously reclusive blogger, Finke began writing LA Weekly’s “Deadline Hollywood” column in 2002 and made it essential reading for gossip and trade news. Four years later, she launched Deadline Hollywood Daily as a website.

    Blogging at Deadline.com, Finke made a pugnacious media empire of scoops and gossip, renowned for her “live-snarking” award shows and story updates that blared “TOLDJA!” when one of her earlier exclusives proved accurate.

    Finke’s sharp-elbow style earned her plenty of enemies in Hollywood. But the Long Island native’s regular drumbeat of exclusives proved her considerable influence with executives, agents and publicists. In 2010, Forbes listed her among “the world’s most powerful women.” Finke was unapologetic, declining to soften her approach for the most glamorous stars or the most powerful studio executives.

    “I mean, they play rough,” Finke told The New York Times in 2015. “I have to play rough, too.”

    Finke did it all largely from the confines of her apartment in west Los Angeles, not schmoozing at red-carpet premieres or cocktail parties. But from her reclusive remove, Finke could ruthlessly skewer executives whose decision making she disapproved of. She once called Jeff Zucker, then-president of NBC Universal, “one of the most kiss-ass incompetents to run an entertainment company.”

    “I can’t help it!” Finke told The New Yorker in 2009. “It’s like meanness pours out of my fingers!”

    In 2009, Deadline Hollywood was purchased by Jay Penske, whose company, Penske Media Corporation, would later also acquire Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Finke often quarreled with Penske, particularly after his purchase of the Deadline rivals. She departed the site in 2013 after months of public acrimony, but remained under contract as a consultant. “He tried to buy my silence,” Finke wrote at the time. “No sale.”

    “At her best, Nikki Finke embodied the spirit of journalism, and was never afraid to tell the hard truths with an incisive style and an enigmatic spark. She was brash and true,” Penske said in a statement Sunday. “It was never easy with Nikki, but she will always remain one of the most memorable people in my life.”

    After her departure, Finke played with various projects but never returned to entertainment journalism. Her deal with Penske reportedly prohibited her to report on Hollywood for 10 years, though she at one time threatened to go solo again with NikkiFinke.com. Instead, she debuted HollywoodDementia.com, with fictional showbiz tales instead of real ones.

    Before her notoriety with Deadline, Finke had spent years as a reporter for The Associated Press, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, the New York Post and the New York Observer. She inspired a 2011 HBO pilot that starred Diane Keaton as reporter Tilda Watski.

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  • Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

    Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The governor of Oklahoma is calling on four McCurtain County officials to resign after they allegedly participated in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist remarks about lynching Black people and talking about killing journalists.

    The McCurtain Gazette-News over the weekend published the audio it said was recorded following a Board of Commissioners meeting on March 6.

    The paper said the audio of the meeting was legally obtained, but the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it was illegally recorded and is investigating. The sheriff’s office also said it believes the recording had been altered.

    “I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement Sunday. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place,” the statement said.

    The governor called for the immediate resignations of McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning and jail administrator Larry Hendrix. He also said he would ask the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to look into the case.

    McCurtain County is in southeastern Oklahoma, about 200 miles from Oklahoma City.

    The recording was made hours after Gazette-News reporter Chris Willingham filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office, Manning and the Board of County Commissioners, alleging they had defamed him and violated his civil rights, the newspaper reported.

    In the recording, Manning spoke of needing to go near the newspaper’s office and expressed concern about what would happen if she ran into Willingham, the Oklahoman reported, citing additional reporting from the Gazette-News.

    According to the Oklahoman report, Jennings said, “Oh, you’re talking about you can’t control yourself?” and Manning replied: “Yeah, I ain’t worried about what he’s gonna do to me. I’m worried about what I might do to him. My papaw would have whipped his a**, would have wiped him and used him for toilet paper … if my daddy hadn’t been run over by a vehicle, he would have been down there.”

    Jennings replied that his father was once upset by something the newspaper published and “started to go down there and just kill him,” according to the Gazette-News.

    “I know where two big, deep holes are here if you ever need them,” Jennings allegedly said. Clardy, the sheriff, allegedly said he had the equipment.

    “I’ve got an excavator,” Clardy is accused of saying during the discussion. “Well, these are already pre-dug,” Jennings allegedly said.

    In other parts of the recording, officials expressed disappointment that Black people could no longer be lynched, according to the paper.

    CNN has not been able to verify the authenticity of the recording or confirm who said what. CNN has reached out to all four county officials for comment.

    The Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association voted Tuesday to suspend the membership of Clardy, Manning and Hendrix, the group’s executive director told CNN.

    Willingham and his father, Bruce Willingham, the paper’s publisher, have been advised to temporarily leave town, CNN affiliate KJRH reported.

    “For nearly a year, they have suffered intimidation, ridicule and harassment based solely on their efforts to report the news for McCurtain County,” Kilpatrick Townsend, the law firm representing the Willingham family, told CNN in a statement.

    The McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday that there is an “ongoing investigation into multiple significant violations” of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act, which makes it “illegal to secretly record a conversation in which you are not involved and do not have the consent of at least one of the involved parties.” It also said the recording has yet to be “duly authenticated or validated.”

    “Our preliminary information indicates that the media released audio recording has, in fact, been altered. The motivation for doing so remains unclear at this point. That matter is actively being investigated,” the statement said.

    The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has received an audio recording and is investigating, Communications Director Phil Bacharach said.

    The FBI wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it was involved in the investigation, with spokesperson Kayla McCleery saying it is agency policy not to comment.

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  • Ron DeSantis is targeting the free speech protections that might save Fox News | CNN Politics

    Ron DeSantis is targeting the free speech protections that might save Fox News | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    As Fox News faces legal peril over its coverage of Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies, one of its most featured Republicans, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is trying to gut the free speech protections that may ultimately save the network from financial ruin.

    DeSantis and his GOP allies in the state legislature have proposed a sweeping overhaul to defamation laws here that would make it far easier to sue news organizations in Florida. The legislation, fashioned to punish media outlets over their coverage of conservatives, would turn the state into a battleground over the future of the First Amendment.

    But in doing so, DeSantis has sparked warnings from the right that his attempts to target the mainstream media will result in headaches for conservative outlets as well. Among the most vulnerable, opponents have said, could be the media organizations that have done the most to promote DeSantis amid his ascent in the GOP.

    “I understand the emotion behind this bill, but you cannot legislate on emotion and this bill is a sword that will cut both ways,” said Trey Radel, a former Republican colleague of DeSantis in the US House who hosts a weeknight radio show on a Florida Fox News affiliate. “This bill has the potential to stifle, if not shut down, center right media and conservative talk radio.”

    The legislation as introduced takes direct aim at the landmark US Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan, which created a higher barrier for public figures to sue for defamation. The decision has been a bedrock of US media law since the case was decided in 1964, protecting news outlets from expensive lawsuits for mistakes made during the course of reporting by requiring plaintiffs to prove the reporter or outlet demonstrated “actual malice” when publishing erroneous information about a public figure.

    Fox News has leaned heavily on the ruling in defending itself from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. Dominion in its lawsuit has alleged Fox “recklessly disregarded the truth” during its 2020 presidential election coverage by pushing various pro-Trump conspiracies about the company’s voting technology.

    Fox attorneys cited New York Times v. Sullivan five times in its March 7 court filing asking for a summary judgment. In public statements, the network has repeatedly insisted it is protected by the precedent set in that case.

    “Despite the noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” Fox News Media said in one such recent statement.

    But if Florida Republicans get their way, those protections would be eroded. House Speaker Paul Renner acknowledged last week that the bill his chamber is considering “is designed to challenge current constitutional law” and “tee up a court case.” The push comes as two of the Supreme Court’s more conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have openly expressed a willingness to revisit the high court’s ruling in Sullivan, with Thomas calling the court’s libel precedent “policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law.”

    DeSantis has for years quietly eyed going after the media’s First Amendment protections, first floating legislation targeting libel laws in December 2021, according to emails obtained by CNN. Stephanie Kopelousos, the governor’s director of legislative affairs, sent draft bill language to the office of the state Senate president, though it was not filed for the 2022 legislative session.

    His intentions became public last month at an unusually staged event during which DeSantis, seated behind a studio desk like a news anchor with “TRUTH” emblazoned on a screen behind him, signaled his willingness to turn Florida into a test case to challenge Sullivan.

    “It’s our view in Florida that we want to be standing up for the little guy against some of these massive media conglomerates,” DeSantis said.

    But that was several weeks before Dominion unleashed a trove of embarrassing text messages and testimony from Fox executives and personalities that suggested they knowingly aired Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

    Adding to the intrigue is the lengths to which the conservative network and others owned by Rupert Murdoch, have gone to promote DeSantis ahead of his likely bid for president. In between regular appearances on Fox programming, DeSantis in recent weeks has played catch with “Fox & Friends’” Brian Kilmeade, sat down with TalkTV’s Piers Morgan in the governor’s mansion, toured his hometown with the New York Post’s Salena Zito and granted a rare newspaper interview to David Charter of the Times of London – all reporters who work in Murdoch’s media empire. The New York Post declared the Republican governor “DeFUTURE” after his resounding reelection victory in November.

    Fox News declined to comment. But the Wall Street Journal, another Murdoch-owned outlet, recently published an op-ed by Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr criticizing other media outlets for their “gleeful” coverage of Fox’s “setback” instead of standing up for the protections created by Sullivan. In a plea that seemed aimed at DeSantis’ efforts, Barr urged conservatives with power not to attempt to weaken libel laws.

    “For the foreseeable future, we will likely be on the wrong side of the culture-setting consensus,” he wrote. “There are precious few conservative news outlets as it is. Why make them more vulnerable to the multitude of left-wing plaintiffs’ lawyers?”

    Republican state Rep. Alex Andrade, the sponsor of the Florida House bill, said he would “take Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch over Bill Barr every day of the week.” Andrade contended that libel laws have become so one-sided, “If you’ve been egregiously defamed by a media outlet, in 2023 you have almost no opportunity for actual recourse.”

    Andrade said he planned to tweak the bill to address some of the blowback before its next committee stop, but otherwise intended to charge ahead. The bill’s next vote is not yet scheduled.

    “The majority of the concerns are not based in reality,” Andrade said.

    Under the Florida bill, the definition of a public figure is narrowed significantly and it puts more onus on an individual to verify a defamatory allegation before publishing. Editing video in a misleading way could be considered defamation in this bill. It also allows someone to sue wherever the material is accessed – in today’s digital world, that could be anywhere in the state – which opponents say will lead to “venue shopping” for favorable judges. Courts must assume any statement made by an anonymous source is false, the bill says, which free speech advocates say would have a chilling effect on whistleblowers.

    The bill, which was also introduced in the state Senate with some modifications, has attracted an astounding array of opponents that cross the political spectrum. At a House committee hearing last week, the conservative Americans for Prosperity and the more progressive American Civil Liberties Union both testified against it. Brendon Leslie, the founder of the Florida Voice, a DeSantis-friendly conservative media outlet, warned on Twitter that progressive donors would flood conservative media with lawsuits if the bill became law. Bobby Block, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, called the bill a “blunt instrument” that has made commentary-heavy evangelical and conservative broadcast stations “incredibly nervous.” US Rep. Cory Mills, a Republican from Central Florida, wrote in a letter to state GOP legislative leaders that he was “gravely concerned that (the bills) violate free speech rights.”

    Though Sullivan is primarily known for protecting news organizations, the bill could make it easier to sue local bloggers, people who post web comments and other online speakers, opponents have warned.

    “It doesn’t just hurt … what’s been referred to as the legacy media,” said Carol LoCicero, a lawyer who has represented The Villages Daily Sun, a newspaper published by the conservative owners of The Villages retirement community. “It hurts people from all points of view. It hurts individuals. Frankly, it will hurt politicians as they’re campaigning for office and making statements about their opponents.”

    DeSantis, though, is so far undeterred. He told reporters last week that he didn’t think the bill would “cause much of a difference in terms of free speech.”

    “I do think it may cause some people to not want to put out things that are false, that are that are smearing somebody’s reputation,” he said.

    Legal experts are skeptical that the bill will be upheld even if it passes. Other Supreme Court justices have so far not shown the same enthusiasm as Thomas and Gorsuch for reviewing its precedent in Sullivan. Dave Heller, deputy director of the Media Law Resource Center, said the proposed legislation is “breathtaking in its hostility toward a free press” and Mark Lerner, an attorney who represented Newsmax in a libel dispute, called the measure “unconstitutional” and said its proponents “who think they’re championing conservative voices may be surprised that it chills them.”

    Radel, the former congressman and radio host, said conservative outlets might not survive the legal costs they could face while legal challenges move through the court system.

    “That type of scorched earth policy is going to destroy conservative talk in Florida in the meantime,” he said. “I work for a privately owned broadcasting group that will not be able to afford a barrage of lawsuits before we wait for it to go before the Supreme Court.”

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  • Inside the long and winding road to Trump’s historic indictment | CNN Politics

    Inside the long and winding road to Trump’s historic indictment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The New York grand jury hearing the case against Donald Trump was set to break for several weeks. The former president’s lawyers believed on Wednesday afternoon they had at least a small reprieve from a possible indictment. Trump praised the perceived delay.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had other plans.

    Thursday afternoon, Bragg asked the grand jury to return an historic indictment against Trump, the first time that a current or former US president has been indicted. The surprise move was the final twist in an investigation that’s taken a long and winding road to the history-making charges that were returned this week.

    An indictment had been anticipated early last week – including by Trump himself, who promoted a theory he would be “arrested” – as law enforcement agencies prepared for the logistics of arraigning a former president. But after the testimony of Robert Costello – a lawyer who appeared on Trump’s behalf seeking to undercut the credibility of Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen – Bragg appeared to hit the pause button.

    Costello’s testimony caused the district attorney’s office to reassess whether Costello should be the last witness the grand jury heard before prosecutors asked them to vote on an indictment, multiple sources told CNN.

    So they waited. The next day the grand jury was scheduled to meet, jurors were told not to come in. Bragg and his top prosecutors huddled the rest of the week and over the weekend to determine a strategy that would effectively counter Costello’s testimony in the grand jury.

    They called two additional witnesses. David Pecker, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer, appeared on Monday. The other witness, who has still not been identified, testified on Thursday for 35 minutes in front of the grand jury – just before prosecutors asked them to vote on the indictment of more than 30 counts, the sources said.

    Trump and his attorneys, thinking Bragg might be reconsidering a potential indictment, were all caught off-guard, sources said. Some of Trump’s advisers had even left Palm Beach on Wednesday following news reports that the grand jury was taking a break, the sources added.

    After the indictment, Trump ate dinner with his wife, Melania, Thursday evening and smiled while he greeted guests at his Mar-a-Lago club, according to a source familiar with the event.

    The Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into Trump has been ongoing for years, dating back to Bragg’s predecessor, Cy Vance. Its focus shifted by mid-2020 to the accuracy of the Trump Org.’s financial statements. At the time, prosecutors debated legal theories around the hush money payments and thought they were a long shot. At several points, the wide-ranging investigation seemed to have been winding down – to the point that prosecutors resigned in protest last year. One even wrote a book critical of Bragg for not pursuing charges against Trump released just last month.

    The specific charges against Trump still remain under seal and are expected to be unveiled Tuesday when Trump is set to be arraigned.

    There are questions swirling even among Trump critics over whether the Manhattan district attorney’s case is the strongest against the former president amid additional investigations in Washington, DC, and Georgia over both his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents at his Florida resort.

    Trump could still face charges in those probes, too, which are separate from the New York indictment.

    But it’s the Manhattan indictment, dating back to a payment made before the 2016 presidential election, that now sees Trump facing down criminal charges for the first time as he runs again for the White House in 2024.

    It was just weeks before the 2016 election when Cohen, Trump’s then-lawyer, paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep silent about an alleged affair with Trump. (Trump has denied the affair.) Cohen was later reimbursed $420,000 by the Trump Organization to cover the original payment and tax liabilities and to reward him with a bonus.

    That payment and reimbursement are keys at issue in the investigation.

    Cohen also helped arrange a $150,000 payment from the publisher of the National Enquirer to Karen McDougal to kill her story claiming a 10-month affair with Trump. Trump also denies an affair with McDougal. During the grand jury proceedings, the district attorney’s office has asked questions about the “catch and kill” deal with McDougal.

    When Cohen was charged by federal prosecutors in New York in 2018 and pleaded guilty, he said he was acting at the direction of Trump when he made the payment.

    At the time, federal prosecutors had determined they could not seek to indict Trump in the scheme because of US Justice Department regulations against charging a sitting president. In 2021, after Trump left the White House, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York decided not to pursue a case against Trump, according to a recent book from CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

    But then-Manhattan District Attorney Vance’s team had already picked up the investigation into the hush money payments and begun looking at potential state law violations. By summer 2019, they sent subpoenas to the Trump Org., other witnesses, and met with Cohen, who was serving a three-year prison sentence.

    Vance’s investigation broadened to the Trump Org.’s finances. New York prosecutors went to the Supreme Court twice to enforce a subpoena for Trump’s tax records from his long-time accounting firm Mazars USA. The Trump Org. and its long-time chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg were indicted on tax fraud and other charges in June 2021 for allegedly running an off-the-books compensation scheme for more than a decade.

    Weisselberg pleaded guilty to the charges last year and is currently serving a five-month sentence at Rikers Island. Prosecutors had hoped to flip Weisselberg to cooperate against Trump, but he would not tie Trump to any wrongdoing.

    Disagreements about the pace of the investigation had caused at least three career prosecutors to move off the investigation. They were concerned that the investigation was moving too quickly, without clear evidence to support possible charges, CNN and others reported last year.

    Vance authorized the attorneys on the team to present evidence to the grand jury near the end of 2021, but he did not seek an indictment. Those close to Vance say he wanted to leave the decision to Bragg, the newly elected district attorney.

    Bragg, a Democrat, took office in January 2022. Less than two months into his tenure, two top prosecutors who had worked on the Trump case under Vance abruptly resigned amid a disagreement in the office over the strength of the case against Trump.

    On February 22, 2022, Bragg informed the prosecution team that he was not prepared to authorize charges against Trump, CNN reported. The prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, resigned the next day.

    In his resignation letter, Pomerantz said he believed Trump was guilty of numerous felonies and said that Bragg’s decision to not move forward with an indictment at the time was “wrong” and a “grave failure of justice.”

    “I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating,” Pomerantz wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by CNN.

    At that point, the investigation was focused on Trump’s financial statements and whether he knowingly misled lenders, insurers, and others by providing them false or misleading information about the value of his properties.

    Prosecutors were building a wide-ranging falsified business records case to include years of financial statements and the hush money payments, people with direct knowledge of the investigation told CNN. But at the time, those prosecutors believed there was a good chance a felony charge related to the hush money payment would be dismissed by a judge because it was a novel legal theory.

    Dunne and Pomerantz pushed to seek an indictment of Trump tied to the sweeping falsified business records case, but others, including some career prosecutors, were skeptical that they could win a conviction at trial, in part because of the difficulty in proving Trump’s criminal intent.

    Despite the resignations of the prosecutors on the Trump case, Bragg’s office reiterated at the time that the investigation was ongoing.

    “Investigations are not linear so we are following the leads in front of us. That’s what we’re doing,” Bragg told CNN in April 2022. “The investigation is very much ongoing.”

    At the same time that Bragg’s criminal investigation into Trump lingered last year, another prosecution against the Trump Org. moved forward. In December, two Trump Org. entities were convicted at trial on 17 counts and were ordered to pay $1.6 million, the maximum penalty, the following month.

    Trump was not personally charged in that case. But it appeared to embolden Bragg’s team to sharpen their focus back to Trump and the hush money payment.

    Cohen was brought back in to meet with Manhattan prosecutors. Cohen had previously met with prosecutors in the district attorney’s office 13 times over the course of the investigation. But the January meeting was the first in more than a year – and a clear sign of the direction prosecutors were taking.

    As investigators inched closer to a charging decision, Bragg was faced with more public pressure to indict Trump: Pomerantz, the prosecutor who had resigned a year prior, released a book about the investigation that argued Trump should be charged and criticized Bragg for failing to do so.

    “Every single member of the prosecution team thought that his guilt was established,” Pomerantz said in a February interview on “CNN This Morning.”

    Asked about Bragg’s hesitance, Pomerantz said: “I can’t speak in detail about what went through his mind. I can surmise from what happened at the time and statements that he’s made since that he had misgivings about the strength of the case.”

    Bragg responded in a statement saying that more work was needed on the case. “Mr. Pomerantz’s plane wasn’t ready for takeoff,” Bragg said.

    Prosecutors continued bringing in witnesses, including Pecker, the former head of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer. In February, Trump Org. controller Jeffrey McConney testified before the grand jury. Members of Trump’s 2016 campaign, including Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks, also appeared. In March, Daniels met with prosecutors, her attorney said.

    And Cohen, after his numerous meetings with prosecutors, finally testified before the grand jury in March.

    The second week of March, prosecutors gave the clearest sign to date that the investigation was nearing its conclusion – they invited Trump to appear before the grand jury.

    Potential defendants in New York are required by law to be notified and invited to appear before a grand jury weighing charges.

    Behind the scenes, Trump attorney Susan Necheles told CNN she met with New York prosecutors to argue why Trump shouldn’t be indicted and that prosecutors didn’t articulate the specific charges they are considering.

    Trump, meanwhile, took to his social media to predict his impending indictment. In a post attacking Bragg on March 18, Trump said the “leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States will be arrested on Tuesday of next week.”

    “Protest, take our nation back,” Trump added, echoing the calls he made while he tried to overturn the 2020 election.

    Trump’s prediction would turn out to be premature.

    Trump’s call for protests after a potential indictment led to meetings between senior staff members from the district attorney’s office, the New York Police Department and the New York State Court Officers – who provide security at the criminal court building in lower Manhattan.

    Trump’s lawyers also made a last-ditch effort to fend off an indictment. At the behest of Trump’s team, Costello, who advised Cohen in 2018, provided emails and testified to the grand jury on Monday, March 20, alleging that Cohen had said in 2018 that he had decided on his own to make the payment to Daniels.

    Costello’s testimony appeared to delay a possible indictment – for a brief time at least.

    During the void, Trump continued to launch verbal insults against Bragg, calling him a “degenerate psychopath.” And four Republican chairmen of the most powerful House committees wrote to Bragg asking him to testify, which Bragg’s office said was unprecedented interference in a local investigation. An envelope containing a suspicious white powder and a death threat to Bragg was to delivered to the building where the grand jury meets – the powder was deemed nonhazardous.

    The grand jury would not meet again until Monday, March 27, when Pecker was ushered back to the grand jury in a government vehicle with tinted windows in a failed effort to evade detection by the media camped outside of the building where the grand jury meets.

    Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump’s who had a history of orchestrating so-called “catch and kill” deals while at the National Enquirer, was involved with the Daniels’ deal from the beginning.

    Two days after Pecker’s testimony, there were multiple reports that the grand jury was going into a pre-planned break in April. The grand jury was set to meet Thursday but it was not expected to hear the Trump case.

    Instead, the grand jury heard from one last witness in the Trump case on Thursday, whose identity is still unknown. And then the grand jury shook up the American political system by voting to indict a former president and 2024 candidate for the White House.

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  • The largest newspaper publisher in the US sues Google, alleging online ad monopoly | CNN Business

    The largest newspaper publisher in the US sues Google, alleging online ad monopoly | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, is suing Google, alleging the tech giant holds a monopoly over the digital ad market.

    The publisher of USA Today and more than 200 local publications filed the lawsuit in a New York federal court on Tuesday, and is seeking unspecified damages. Gannett argues in court documents that Google and its parent company, Alphabet, controls how publishers buy and sell ads online.

    “The result is dramatically less revenue for publishers and Google’s ad-tech rivals, while Google enjoys exorbitant monopoly profits,” the lawsuit states.

    Google controls about a quarter of the US digital advertising market, with Meta, Amazon and TikTok combining for another third, according to eMarketer. News publishers and other websites combine for the other roughly 40%. Big Tech’s share of the market is beginning to erode slightly, but Google remains by far the largest individual player.

    That means publishers often rely at least in part on Google’s advertising technology to support their operations: Gannett says Google controls 90% of the ad market for publishers.

    Michael Reed, Gannett’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement Tuesday that Google’s dominance in the online advertising industry has come “at the expense of publishers, readers and everyone else.”

    “Digital advertising is the lifeblood of the online economy,” Reed added. “Without free and fair competition for digital ad space, publishers cannot invest in their newsrooms.”

    Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global ads, told CNN that the claims in the suit “are simply wrong.”

    “Publishers have many options to choose from when it comes to using advertising technology to monetize – in fact, Gannett uses dozens of competing ad services, including Google Ad Manager,” Taylor said in a statement Tuesday. “And when publishers choose to use Google tools, they keep the vast majority of revenue.”

    He continued: “We’ll show the court how our advertising products benefit publishers and help them fund their content online.”

    The legal action from Gannett comes as Google faces a growing number of antitrust complaints in the United States and the European Union over its advertising business, which remains its central moneymaker.

    EU officials said last week that Google’s advertising business should be broken up, alleging that the tech giant’s involvement in multiple parts of the digital advertising supply chain creates “inherent conflicts of interest” that risk harming competition.

    Earlier this year, the Justice Department and eight states sued Google, accusing the company of harming competition with its dominance in the online advertising market and similarly calling for it to be broken up.

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