Mediaite ONE SHEET: WaPo’s Bigtime Scoop, Trump Fills FCC Vacancy and More!

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TOP STORY

THE TALE OF THE HIDDEN PRESIDENT

The story of President Donald Trump and the Gifted Plane From Qatar always felt a little off, but it wasn’t clear why. Back in early July the president announced he wouldn’t take the plane out of the country; The New York Times later revealed there were several security concerns attached to the vehicle that prohibited the president from flying on it. At the time, the White House said the new Air Force One would head to Mildenhall Air Force Base.

The Times earned the president’s ire for leaking that information and several of its journalists were subpoenaed over their reporting; the newspaper ultimately prevailed. But the story has refused to die, and yesterday it was blown wide open by the Washington Post, which reported that Trump secretly traveled via another plane he boarded by way of a catering truck. As Post reporter Dan Lamote told Kaitlan Collins last night, the story “came to the Post in part because individuals thought that there was a hole in public understanding here that needed to be clarified.”

The weeks of truth dodging and deception on behalf of the White House that followed is where we begin today — as the story dominated today’s stack.

THREE TAKES

CNN’s Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — The Post’s reveal is a “spectacular scoop” that is “intriguing on so many levels,” Stelter wrote this morning. It’s also “bound to further intensify the fight about government leaks that undermine Trump’s claims and inform the public,” something the president is unlikely to be happy about.

Putting the story together was a team effort that may have included New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Eric Schmitt and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, who had a matching story up “within an hour and a half” of the Post’s original report. Whatever the president ends up thinking about it, the story is a major win for the outlet, Stelter added — nodding to all their recent layoffs.

“Given all that The Washington Post has been through in the past few years, big scoops are even more meaningful,” Stelter wrote.

Townhall, Matt Vespa — Not everyone is impressed by what the Post pulled off. The reveal “caused a flood of bad takes, all pointing to one thing: the Left wants Trump to die,” Vespa insisted. “They want to see him assassinated, because that’s why he took the secret flight, you idiots.”

The decision to lie “wasn’t Trump hiding from Tehran or the press,” but was instead “about protecting a man who has faced numerous assassination attempts.” Vepsa cited CNN’s Scott Jennings, who noted “it sounds like this was a very serious threat to Trump’s safety.” For Vespa, the leak of this new story was “grossly irresponsible.” He concluded: “So, nice job bungling the actual point about this story, liberal media.”

The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — Rather than zeroing in on the journalistic angle, Kristol and Egger focused on the logistics, and notably credited the White House with a “remarkable bait-and-switch.

Kristol and Egger, whose plaudits for the West Wing are few and far between, gave the administration props for “a wise and prudent response to a troubling threat.” Still, the Bulwark duo got their requisite shots in on the commander-in-chief — noting the “mental image of Trump bouncing around in the back of a catering truck is just a nice bonus.”

TAKEAWAY: The president’s war against the media, which is one that’s been fought for years at this point, is about to ratchet up even further — and the Washington Post made clear, Monday night, that it is a foe the president has not yet vanquished. It’s not outside the realm of possibility there will be swift repercussions for this leak, though the example set by the Times has more than demonstrated newspapers and the press are more than capable of defending themselves. Despite insistence from conservative media that Trump and his handlers did exactly what they’re supposed to do, the Post’s latest reveal cracked open a story that needed to be told and understood.

📰 TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS 📰

SCOOP 🍨Status, Oliver Darcy —NBC News announced a subscription service last February at an internal meeting, Darcy reported this morning. That’s a departure from the network’s promise to keep its journalism paywall-free, and “not everyone inside the company is thrilled” with the change. “Until then, NBC News had proudly championed the fact that it made its reporting free, opting for an advertiser-supported model in contrast to one reliant on subscriptions that put stories behind a paywall,” Darcy explained.

Chairman Cesar Conde “doubled down” on that plan only last month, but that plan “appears to have quietly evolved” since then. “Much of the outlet’s best journalism—enterprise pieces and exclusives that rely on sourced reporting—is now being placed behind the paywall,” Darcy continued, and that trend is “expanding.” Darcy added that he understands “some reporters believe it has negatively impacted their relationships with sources.”

SCOOP 🍨 POLITICO Playbook, Will Steakin, Adam Wren, and Dasha Burns — DSA candidate Francesa Hong has not been able to secure endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) ahead of today’s primary in Wisconsin. That’s despite her team making “multiple overtures” to the pair, two sources told POLITICO. “It was ultimately Sanders’ decision to stay out of the race, frustrating those around Hong,” POLITICO’s writers added.

ANALYSIS 👀 The Bulwark’s False Flag, Will Sommer — Florida has been locked in a “never-ending Republican primary race for governor” — one that will finally be decided next week, Sommer said today, and “it looks like groyper favorite James Fishback’s political ambitions are doomed.” But that doesn’t mean Fishback isn’t still trying, something evidenced by his decision to give “a much-teased press conference accusing [Trump-endorsed rival Rep. Byron] Donalds of being under Justice Department investigation” in which he “claimed that a whistleblower had told his campaign about the case.”

This is all despite the fact that Donalds has already been cleared by the Justice Department, and even noted on X that deliberately accusing “someone of being under investigation is a dangerous form of weaponization.” So why is Fishback doing this anyway? He’s being sued by “high-school debater Briana Whatley,” who’s accused him of “stiffing her on thousands of dollars in scholarship money.”

ANALYSIS 👀The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Andrew Egger— Monday “may have been the greatest policy day in history for America’s antivax cranks,” Egger wrote today, all thanks to two big “triumphs.” The first was Trump’s signing of his “long-awaited executive order to upend America’s pediatric-vaccine schedule.” The change could “lead to nothing but still more vaccine hesitancy from people who take the president and his antivax-kook advisers at their medical word” — or it could lead to unnecessary policy changes that force parents to make many more trips to the pediatrician to get the same amount of vaccine coverage.”

But even that EO was overshadowed by texts released by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) as part of their joint effort against Dr. Anthony Fauci. The duo “breathlessly accused Fauci of knowing that pregnant women who got the COVID vaccine exposed themselves to enormous miscarriage risk” and of obscuring “data showing that pregnant women who received an mRNA COVID shot would miscarry at rates of over 80 percent.” Unsurprisingly, these “allegations went off like a bomb on social media.”

ANALYSIS 👀 The Free Press, Vinay Prasad — Of course, not everyone sees yesterday’s big vaccine story the same way. Prasad promptly accused Fauci of “vaccine deceptions” and insisted the texts are proof the doctor had “many doubts that he later characterized as misinformation when they were uttered aloud by critics.”

“At an absolute minimum, the disclosed text messages reveal concerning facts about our Covid vaccine response,” Prasad, who was a “professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco during Covid,” wrote. Though it can (and has been) be argued that it was wise of Fauci to not air private theories before they were tested (and ultimately debunked), Prasad noted the release of the texts now means the public’s “faith in public-health efforts has been badly damaged.” Which, it seems, is what Rand and Johnson are going for anyway.

📈BUSINESS OF MEDIA 🎥

CJR, Riddhi Setty — The Pittsburgh Progress, a news cooperative founded by 18 former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette journalists, made its debut in late July with a focus on labor solidarity and community-centric reporting. Founding member Erin Hébert shared that the cooperative wants to focus on stories important to their community, such as staffing shortages of union nurses. Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president Andrew Goldstein, who participated in the Post-Gazette strike, noted that the mainstream media alienated many local communities. By its fall hard launch, the Progress aims to have raised enough funds to cover six months of operating expenses and hire between six and eight full-time staffers. QUOTE 📣  “Ownership of the Progress is divided between workers and the reader-members, with a majority of the seats on the publication’s board going to workers. Reader-members may have input on the direction of the publication and can sit on an elected board, but the journalists retain all editorial decision-making power.”

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — The search-dependent digital media company People Inc. saw its Google search traffic decrease 40% in the second quarter compared to last year, now representing only 21% of its total search traffic. However, chief innovation officer Jonathan Roberts says that overall revenue has not fallen. After CEO Neil Vogel shared on a podcast that People Inc. used Cloudflare to block non-Google LLM bots, major artificial intelligence companies immediately reached out to sign lucrative content licensing deals, which have become a fast-growing “non-session” revenue stream. QUOTE 📣 “I think the lesson here is that if even the most search-dependent media company can grow in an environment trending toward Google Zero, then just about any outlet can.”

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — First, this tidbit comes from Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, though it’s actually from CJR. Since it’s not in CJR’s own newsletter right now and this is a newsletter of newsletters, we’re filing it under SOMN. Anyway, former Washington Post “TikTok guy” Dave Jorgenson, who launched an independent media career a year ago, chatted about the challenges legacy media outlets face when rewarding top creative talent. Jorgenson explained that traditional newsrooms often try to promote successful creators into editor or managerial roles to justify paying them more, which takes them away from the creative process they actually enjoy. Going independent has allowed him to focus on making things while owning his business. QUOTE 📣 Owens agreed: “I think this is a major flaw in how a lot of legacy media outlets operate. They identify their most talented journalists and then move them up to manager and editor roles, regardless of whether they show any aptitude for those jobs. And those journalists go along with it because it’s the only way to get paid more.”

Poynter, Tom Jones — President Trump has nominated Danielle Thumann Severs, a longtime aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, to fill a vacant seat at the Federal Communications Commission. If confirmed, Thumann Severs would give Republicans a 3-1 majority, which would remove lone Democratic commissioner Anna Gomez‘s ability to slow down or stall votes by denying a quorum. QUOTE 📣 “Things are bad now. They could get even worse.”

The Publisher Newsletter, Peter Houston — A new report on the zero-click content shift by Media Voices in association with WoodWing reveals that while 98% of publishers are aware of the zero-click phenomenon, many are still failing to act. SEO consultant Barry Adams warns that too many publishers are chasing passive referral traffic and writing content to satisfy search algorithms rather than building loyal communities. QUOTE 📣 Adams says, “They think advertisers are the customers, which I think is the most critical strategic mistake a publisher can make. Advertisers help make you money, absolutely, but they’re not your customers. They’re enablers.”

Awful Announcing, Sam Neumann — Disney and Comcast have settled their high-stakes carriage dispute over the NFL Network and RedZone, restoring the channels in time for the NFL preseason and regular season. The channels went dark in late April after Disney took over NFL Media and failed to reach new contract terms with Comcast. Before resolving the standoff, Comcast had publicly accused the network of demanding double the fees for the same programming and unfairly pushing those costs onto subscribers who do not watch sports. QUOTE 📣 “Financial terms of the new deal weren’t disclosed, and it’s unclear whether Disney got the fee increase or tier placement it was reportedly after.”

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — Media executive David Ellison‘s acquisition of Paramount has trapped him in a classic sunk cost fallacy as he pushes to get the Warner Bros. Discovery deal across the finish line. Owens notes that Ellison overpaid so much for WBD that the combined company will be saddled with tens of billions of dollars in debt. However, even backing out would cost too much, so it’s a lose-lose situation right now. QUOTE 📣 “But even worse, he agreed to concessions that made it extremely expensive for him to back out of the deal — including the $2.8 billion breakup fee to Netflix and another $7 billion to WBD if the entire merger falls apart.”

OTHER COOL STUFF

Morning Brew: Harry Potter fans successfully forced an undersea cable between the UK and Ireland to be rerouted after complaining that the construction would desecrate the beachside grave of Dobby the elf.

Awful Announcing: Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham is reportedly shopping a tell-all book pitch on the side. This is the final year of her contract and the most publicly notable she’s ever been.

👀 WHAT GOT MISSED? 👀

POLITICO Playbook, Will Steakin, Adam Wren, and Dasha Burns — Birth rates are falling throughout Europe and East Asia, and the United States is “not far behind.” Governments are also “struggling for solutions” the trio note while citing reporting from POLITICO’s Marc Felix Serrao out of Spain. They add, “Various policies and incentives haven’t helped much; higher immigration can, but it brings its own set of challenges.” For all the attention Monday’s childhood vaccination executive order got, the story getting less attention is that there are fewer children being born in the first place.

🏆 NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY 🏆

The Bulwark’s False Flag, Will Sommer — In addition to his story on Fishback’s ongoing quest to be named Governor of Florida despite the mounting, credible reasons why he should not, Sommer also offered a look into the “weird body drama” of far-right commentator Elijah Schaffer today.

Both are stories that haven’t been present in our newsletters of late, and both offer glimpses into parts of American culture and the political sphere that are important. Fishback’s story is one of corruption; Schaffer’s is a look at what goes wrong when someone’s life implodes due to a series of their own poor decisions. In a way, they’re kind of the same story — and it’s one that Sommer tells effectively in Monday’s False Flag.

This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.