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Wednesday, August 20, 2025 |
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Hey, good morning. The Trump White House is joining TikTok, publishers are talking about "usage-based deals" with AI firms, and "South Park" is reacting to the militarization of DC. But first... |
The 'chilling effects' continue |
Why do museums exist? What are the exhibits for? How do they tell society's stories? Who gets to decide? Historians and curators have been tasked with addressing these basic questions and defending their missions now that President Trump has told his aides to "go through the Museums" and "start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities."
Museum associations and advocates have been girding for this fight for months. Dozens of groups signed an open letter back in March when a Trump executive order disparaged the Smithsonian. "Our goal," the letter said, "is neither criticism nor celebration; it is to understand — to increase our knowledge of — the past in ways that can help Americans to shape the future."
Trump, who grew up listening to Norman Vincent Peale's sermons about "The Power of Positive Thinking," clearly wants celebration. "We have the 'HOTTEST' Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums," he wrote yesterday on Truth Social.
Between last week's White House letter about a "review" of eight Smithsonian museums, and that post about examining museums more broadly, the battle lines are drawn. In some ways, it's a continuation of a fight that liberals and conservatives have been having forever about how much to emphasize America's sins versus its strengths.
As I said on CNN News Central this morning, it's also about white identity politics, since Trump is complaining there's too much focus on "how bad slavery was." The NYT's Zolan Kanno-Youngs called it the latest example of Trump trying to "minimize the experiences and history of Black people in the US."
"It's essentially a whitewashing of history," Anderson Cooper said last night. His guest, Annette Gordon-Reed, the Pulitzer-winning Harvard historian, said, "The danger is that you get an incomplete picture of what happened in the country. If you can't learn from history, if you don't know what actually happened. So, it's a way of keeping people ignorant of the past."
It's also bigger than any one exhibit. The American Alliance of Museums, which represents 35,000 professionals in the sector, said in response to the WH's targeting of the Smithsonian, "This is not just a concern for select institutions. These pressures can create a chilling effect across the entire museum sector."
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Historians are 'gravely concerned' |
Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, has been hearing from some of the AHA's 10,500 members around the world. They're expressing "grave concern," she told me this morning, "about ongoing political interference into the work of the Smithsonian and federal agencies, including the National Park Service, that interpret the American past."
The admin's actions stand to "impose a single and flawed view of American history onto the Smithsonian, placing at risk the integrity and accuracy of historical interpretation," Weicksel said. "Such actions diminish our shared past and threaten to erode the public’s trust in our shared institutions."
Weicksel and other leaders in the field argue that Americans have a great deal of trust in museums and historical sites, and MAGA-style meddling will diminish that trust. "Across numerous surveys, a majority of Americans consistently say they want a full, honest, and unvarnished presentation of our nation's history," the Organization of American Historians said recently.
Pro-Trump media outlets, however, are now hyping examples of "woke" exhibits, so let's see what the surveys show a year from now. The OAH predicted that the White House "review" will "undoubtedly be in service of authoritarian control over the national narrative, collective memory, and national collections." I opened with questions, so here's one more: How cooperative will the Smithsonian be?
>> Flashback: Last month, CNN's Piper Hudspeth Blackburn filed this excellent piece titled "Can you mount an art exhibition about race in the age of Trump?"
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The Trump White House has launched an official TikTok account, Reuters reports, despite the TikTok sale-or-ban law and another looming deadline. Trump has repeatedly delayed enforcement of the law in what some legal experts believe is his "starkest power grab" to date. China hawk Michael Sobolik of the Hudson Institute wrote on X that Trump creating a White House TikTok account "while brazenly ignoring the law" signals "unbelievable weakness to Xi Jinping."
In other TikTok news today:
>> The AP reports that Minnesota has "joined a wave of states suing TikTok, alleging the social media giant preys on young people with addictive algorithms that trap them into becoming compulsive consumers of its short videos."
>> NBC says "a network of nearly 90 TikTok accounts has been using AI to create fake versions of high-profile Spanish-language journalists and spread falsehoods online for potential financial gain."
>> The Economist details how the app "helps to recruit soldiers."
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Three more Trump-Fox stories |
>> Newly unredacted documents from Smartmatic's lawsuit against Fox show Trump's US attorney in DC, Jeanine Pirro, openly bragging about helping Trump and the GOP while working as a Fox News host, Jeremy Barr reports. (WaPo)
>> "Gavin Newsom is expertly trolling Fox News stars by mimicking Trump online," writes Justin Baragona, citing the reactions from Tomi Lahren, Dana Perino, Trace Gallagher and others. (The Independent)
>> Trump "dialed into 'Fox & Friends' on Tuesday morning and revealed his newest and truest motivation for brokering an end to the war in Ukraine: He’s worried he might not get into heaven after he dies," Shawn McCreesh writes. (NYT)
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Political concessions from Nexstar? |
The FCC is mandated to "promote diversity, localism and competition," and a mega-merger between Nexstar and Tegna would undermine all of that, the public interest group Free Press said in response to yesterday's deal news.
The org's co-CEO Jessica J. González said she expects that FCC chair Brendan Carr will wave it through "after extracting a number of political concessions from Nexstar's owners" because, she said, "the Carr FCC is focused primarily on benefiting Trump rather than the people it’s actually supposed to serve." Carr isn't commenting on the pending transaction for the time being...
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South Park aims at militarization of DC |
On tonight's episode of "South Park," the talking towel character Towelie takes a bus trip to a militarized Washington, DC, complete with tanks and soldiers outside the White House and the Supreme Court. "This seems like the perfect place for a towel," Towelie says in a teaser clip. The show obviously has something to say about the deployment of National Guard troops in the nation's capital...
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>> "Ahead of the launch of ESPN's new streaming service on Thursday, the sports network revealed that it will bundle its Unlimited plan with NFL+ Premium" for $39.99 a month. The offering includes NFL RedZone, Lucas Manfredi notes. (TheWrap)
>> "The Spectator's U.S. edition plans to double its print output to 24 issues annually as part of a broader relaunch this fall," Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
>> Trinity Broadcasting is firing back at Dr. Phil McGraw, slapping his Merit Street Media with a countersuit in a Texas federal court. The new complaint accuses Dr. Phil "of swindling the Christian TV network under a $500 million, ten-year deal in which he failed to deliver a single episode of his flagship talk show." (THR)
>> Film critic Michael Phillips "has taken a buyout at the Chicago Tribune after he says the paper eliminated the role." (TheWrap)
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❌'ed local papers saved by new owners |
Yesterday, we noted the recent move by News Media Corp. to abruptly shut down rural newspapers in five states. But it turns out there is more to the story. Twelve of the shuttered papers in Wyoming and South Dakota "are set to publish again, after buyers stepped up within days to prevent the rural communities from becoming 'news deserts' where little or no local media remains," the AP's Sarah Raza reports.
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💡 An answer-based biz model for news? |
"Publishers that have struck deals to license their content to AI firms for training large language models are now discussing internally — and in at least one case, with AI firms — whether they can get paid based on how often AI businesses use their content in answers to consumer questions," The Information's Catherine Perloff reports. She calls these "usage-based deals." The shift would be "a drastic change from the flat-fee terms firms like OpenAI have agreed to in licensing deals with publishers so far, potentially jacking up what AI firms would have to pay." Check out Perloff's full story here...
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>> Google is paying $30 million "to settle a lawsuit claiming it violated the privacy of children using YouTube." (Reuters)
>> Meta "is splitting its newly formed AI group into four distinct teams and reassigning many of the company's existing AI employees, an attempt to better capitalize on billions of dollars’ worth of recently acquired talent." (Bloomberg)
>> Speaking of Meta... It's rolling out "an AI-powered voice translation feature to all users on Facebook and Instagram." (TechCrunch)
>> Zoë Schiffer is out with a great story about Stability AI and Tinseltown this morning: "AI Isn't Coming for Hollywood. It Has Already Arrived." (WIRED)
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New Paramount's latest deals |
Matt and Ross Duffer are officially parting ways with Netflix "to enter a wide-ranging, four-year exclusive deal for feature films, television and streaming projects at Paramount." The pact is "expected to emphasize 'ambitious' and 'large-scale theatrical' projects," Variety's Rebecca Rubin reports.
Also, CBS and Dick Clark Productions have "a new five-year deal to broadcast the American Music Awards on CBS and stream the show live on Paramount+," Billboard's Paul Grein reports.
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Entertainment odds and ends |
>> Streaming viewership accounted for almost 50% of TV watch time in July, with Netflix snagging 8.8% of the pie, followed by Disney with 4.7%, according to Nielsen's monthly Gauge. (Nielsen)
>> Bill Carter notes that Sept. 8 is Stephen Colbert's tenth anniversary as "Late Show" host, but CBS doesn't seem to be planning any celebration. (Late Nighter)
>> Trump fans have QAnon, and Taylor Swift devotees have "T-Anon." Zach Schiffman explains what it is here. (NYMag)
>> "Nintendo's marquee 2025 holiday video game release slot is going to Kirby Air Riders." (Game File)
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