From today's Reliable Sources: The criticism of correspondent Fred Pleitgen's reporting from Iran is unfair and suggests an all-too-common unfamiliarity with the basic tenets of journalism... cnn.it/4rUYM9W
i don't have the ability to do so. i'm sorry.
The thing I keep wondering as David Ellison does this spiel: What if the truth doesn’t happen to align with what the “70% of centrist Americans” whom Ellison defines as his audience want to see on the news?
(Via @brianstelter.bsky.social)
Friday's Reliable Sources lead:
The reality of reporting under Israel's military censor during wartime
cnn.it/4rUYM9W
"We are aware that stuff is happening that we should care about, but the fog of bullshit surrounding this stuff is so thick that we can barely make out its shape or heft..." www.newyorker.com/news/fault-l...
Paramount CEO David Ellison has pledged to support editorial independence at CNN, saying it “needs to be maintained,” amid widespread concern about his company’s plans for the news network. Here's our writeup of his CNBC interview: www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/m...
NBC says Savannah Guthrie plans to come back to "Today." Penguin Random House says it is publishing Eric Dane's memoir. Dario Amodei says Sam Altman has given "dictator-style praise to Trump." All that and much more in today's Reliable Sources digest: cnn.it/4boUoKC
When I recapped the controversy about Trump's "Call of Duty" video on CNN International, anchor Becky Anderson, from her desk in Abu Dhabi, said: "We've had 1,072 drone attacks here; eight cruise missile attacks; and 196 ballistic missile attacks here. So I can tell you it's not a video game."
Of course, as The Washington Post's great tech reporter
@drewharwell.com said in a TikTok last night, "this has been a meme presidency." And sometimes the trolling is the point. The outrage is the goal. Because it all translates to attention.
What steps will the White House take to sell an unpopular war in Iran to the American people? Well, here's one answer: A social media video that literally likens the war to a video game by mixing "Call of Duty" game footage with clips of American missile strikes.
CNN, CBS and the ideological creep of both newsrooms is something I am following closely, in the belief that their Orbanization may already be underway.
If my language is more cautious than yours, I can live with the criticism that follows.
view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/177...
"Nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer money flows into the department, and decisions being made by the secretary are literally life and death decisions about putting American troops in harm’s way — the public deserves to know what their military is doing, especially in times of war."
NYT: Iran's official TV networks and aligned social media accounts are "waging an information war parallel to the real-world fighting, blending fact and fiction, often using unproven claims and fake videos generated using artificial intelligence." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/b...
As Pete Hegseth says the US is "accelerating" its strikes in Iran, Pentagon reporters say they are not getting answers to key questions about the military operations. "Lots of chest-thumping, less concrete data" is how one reporter put it. My latest: www.cnn.com/2026/03/04/m...
Today's Reliable Sources newsletter lead:
I checked in with six longtime US military reporters, and they said they're struck by the lack of day-to-day details about the ongoing military operations cnn.it/4aOnRgP
Key context for today's Gayle King contract renewal news: Bari Weiss has been brainstorming how to reinvigorate the third-place "CBS Mornings" show, according to people familiar with the matter. www.cnn.com/2026/03/04/m...
A huge tip-of-the-hat to all the journalists covering this war.
CBC News has been speaking with Iranians crossing the border into Turkey. Many of the people Briar Stewart interviewed there "feared speaking" publicly: "They often requested that their name or image be withheld because they feared facing reprisal." www.cbc.ca/news/world/i...
The BBC World Service has been citing info from a journalist in Tehran, accompanied by a reminder that "international news organizations are often refused visas to Iran, which severely limits their ability to gather information there." www.bbc.com/news/live/cy...
Iranian state-run media outlets are showing the aftermath of some strikes. News agencies like Reuters and The AP are getting some photos and videos out. And satellite images are showing areas that can’t be reached by photographers.
But as Clarissa Ward said, “we get glimmers” from inside Iran, since some citizens have reached the outside world and shared videos via Starlink and other methods www.cnn.com/world/live-n...
NetBlocks says Iran's latest blackout "has entered its fourth day, with the national censorship measure now in place for over 72 hours"
Today's Reliable Sources lead:
The "information blackout" in Iran, and how journalists are finding ways around it
cnn.it/4aZoy5M
the whole 'monitoring the situation' meme is poking fun at this & also partly people just giving into the fact that our information systems push us to consume and converse in totalizing ways. of course the effect is that everything just becomes entertainment or raw data in a pretty dehumanizing way
Jon Stewart: "How quickly the right has gone from 'peace through strength' to 'peace through war.' And we're all just along for the ride, in a war with no clear purpose, no end in sight. It's all just at the whims of Donald Trump." www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkc...
Very sharp piece about threats to Federal Judges from last night's 60 Minutes, including a heartbreaking interview with the judge whose son was killed at her front door by a disgruntled defendant.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiUU...
Will be interesting to revisit @brianstelter.bsky.social's analysis in the coming months. There are varying degrees of media capture--even if we haven't hit full-blown Orban levels yet, plenty of evidence suggests legitimate cause for concern. I do hope my critique proves to be entirely unfounded.
thank you for the reality based assessment
Social media videos and surprise phone calls: How Trump told the world about Iran www.cnn.com/2026/03/02/m...
