Make Sonic Boom Again Mark Meadows Congress

Mark Meadows, the signal, and the noise

Last Tuesday, nosotros learned that Marker Meadows, who served as primary of staff in the waning days of the Trump White House, had agreed to cooperate with the congressional committee probing the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan six. Meadows—who worked to effort to overturn Trump'due south election defeat and was by his side while the Capitol was attacked—had initially refused to cooperate with the probe, citing Trump's (dubious) claims of executive privilege, then U-turned later on the commission started to pursue contempt charges against recalcitrant witnesses. He turned over documents and agreed to sit for a deposition. Big questions remained, however, equally to how meaningful Meadows'south cooperation would be. He connected to cite executive privilege.

Throughout the day, reporters and pundits seemed to disagree with each other—and themselves—as to how big a deal the agreement actually was. CNN's story that broke the news called it "a critical shift" that likewise "could be fragile." On the network's air, Alisyn Camerota called it "a big development" while Paula Reid called it "a really pregnant development" but also noted that "there's a large question about what exactly will happen"; later on, Anderson Cooper sounded notes of skepticism virtually its significance before asking John Dean, the star Watergate witness, whether at that place are "any circumstances under which you see Mark Meadows being a John Dean level bombshell witness for this commission?" (John Dean said he thought Mark Meadows would be a Mark Meadows, not a John Dean.) Over on MSNBC, Brian Williams said that Meadows had given the committee "a great headline," before quipping that of the half-dozen chiliad emails Meadows already handed over, "three k could be from Wayfair." The New York Times called Meadows'due south motion "a notable reversal for a crucial witness" earlier noting its "strict limits." The evolution, Politico'southward DC Playbook newsletter judged, "shows that the Jan. 6 panel's ambitious tactics are working, manifestly and simple," but also that "no one seems to expect that Meadows is going to show up and spill the beans well-nigh what exactly happened on January. half dozen," adding that a fight over executive privilege could shortly "send us right dorsum to Square One."

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Yesterday, Meadows suspended his cooperation with the committee, on the grounds that it was failing to respect executive privilege. (He says he may answer written questions.) He was slated to exist deposed today; the committee has threatened to pursue contempt charges. "Concluding week, we and many others predicted that Marking Meadows's offer to 'cooperate' with the January. half-dozen select committee would fall through, putting the console back at Square One," Playbook wrote. "That prediction proved right." The Times reported that "Meadows's reversal was the 2d in two weeks." On MSNBC, Williams chosen the news "less than surprising." On CNN, Camerota said information technology was a "major reversal" and a "major development," while Reid called information technology "a significant blow" for the committee. (I'm still awaiting John Dean'south accept; someone let me know if I missed it.)

Lawmakers on the committee have been quick to signal out that Meadows is claiming executive privilege effectually his experience in the White House while at the same fourth dimension shopping a book about his feel in the White Firm. (It came out yesterday; as of concluding night, information technology was in 1,436th place on Amazon'southward book nautical chart.) The book has made headlines for its revelations about an episode dissever from the insurrection—Trump's diagnosis with COVID-19 last fall. Last Tuesday, just as Meadows was agreeing to cooperate with the committee, Martin Pengelly, a reporter at The Guardian, obtained a copy of the book; the next day, he broke the news that, per Meadows, Trump tested positive for COVID nigh a week before informing the public of a positive examination. (Meadows writes that Trump tested negative after the first positive test, simply besides says that Trump showed symptoms of balmy affliction and that he told officials in Trump'due south orbit to treat the president as if he had COVID.) In the interim, Trump attended a presidential debate with Joe Biden, at to the lowest degree two printing briefings, and various other events. On the twenty-four hour period of his first positive exam, he traveled for a rally and spoke maskless with reporters on board Air Forcefulness Ane. Ane announcer nowadays, Michael D. Shear, of the Times, tested positive for COVID soon later, as did 2 other members of the White Firm printing corps.

It's long been suspected that Trump may already have known he had COVID at the debate with Biden—the moderator, Play a joke on's Chris Wallace, said afterward that Trump had shown up too tardily to get tested—so it's no surprise that Meadows's acknowledgment blew upwardly as a large story. Maggie Haberman, of the Times, quickly confirmed Trump'south early positive test with two other officials from his administration; over the weekend, Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey, of the Washington Post, published a detailed reconstruction of Trump's movements that week, final that betwixt his first positive test and his eventual hospitalization with COVID, he came into contact with more than five hundred people, not including attendees at his rally. (Trump called the reporting based on Meadows'south volume "simulated news"; Meadows went on the right-wing network Newsmax and agreed. "If you actually read the book—the context of information technology—that story outlined a imitation positive," he claimed, contradicting what the book says.) In the days since, other stories from the book accept dripped out. According to Haberman and Noah Weiland, Meadows writes that Trump was sicker than officials publicly disclosed at the time. Nosotros already knew that they lied—Meadows was literally caught on camera trying to offer more than a honest cess off the record, before going on the tape and contradicting himself. Withal, the confirmation seemed to irk Haberman. "In an interesting motion, Meadows seems to suggest they had to mislead the public because the media might write stories saying Trump was in even worse health," she wrote on Twitter.

As I've argued before, news cycles driven by a book about the Trump administration tin can be tedious: often, a reporter volition exclusively obtain a book written past a Trump official or another reporter and and so cover its details every bit urgent news, even if those details aren't especially new or urgent or interesting; this then tends to drive frenzied, somewhat cornball cable-news chatter about how awful Trump was that doesn't really add anything to our understanding of his presidency. (This is not to say that such details aren't useful for the historical record, merely the demands of the news are more than immediate.) Nosotros've seen some of these dynamics play out around Meadows's book, and its effect on his standing in Trumpworld. Still, newsworthiness is the ultimate standard here—and Meadows's accounting of Trump's experience with COVID is clearly newsworthy. Every bit I've written before, Trump committed many of his worst sins in full public view, raising the bar, in my view, for reporting on his private carry. His unreported positive COVID exam is an example to the contrary—we didn't know well-nigh it before, information technology'south undoubtedly interesting, and while it's not equally urgent to know well-nigh it now as it would have been when Trump was president, Trump obviously remains a big grapheme in public life. A longstanding issue in Trump coverage has been separating true significance from angry racket. The positive-test story looks like a signal.

Which brings the states back to Meadows and the committee. It's non inherently a contradiction for a development to be both significant and still tenuous. But—given what nosotros know about Meadows'southward character, and what he told us about executive privilege—it's non clear to me that his professed cooperation was specially pregnant without knowing what information technology would look similar. That'due south not to say that his brief interactions with the committee weren't significant at all—he already handed over documents which, if Meadows's approach to his book is annihilation to go by, could be incriminating without him necessarily intending them to exist. Indeed, CNN reported yesterday that committee members already view some of the communications that he shared as relevant to their probe. But many of them could still be from Wayfair; again, nosotros just don't know yet. The work of reporting out what happened on January half-dozen will continue, committee or none.

Beneath, more on the Meadows book and politics:

• Newsy nuggets: News organizations have pursued stories about other claims from Meadows's volume that vary in their significance: Trump threatened to wipe out a Taliban negotiator's hometown; Trump "strongly considered" withdrawing his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the Supreme Court because he was "put off" by Kavanaugh's assertion that he "liked beer"; Trump pushed a ruby-red push button on his desk, leading Meadows to caryatid for "any sonic blast, breaking drinking glass, or cloud of smoke I assumed was coming," before discovering that Trump had only ordered a Diet Coke. Meadows also writes that he banned members of his family from making facial expressions—or even blinking—in the audience during Trump'southward first debate with Biden, because he feared cameras would catch them and the media would pounce.
• The books beat: The Postal service's Paul Farhi profiled Pengelly, of The Guardian, who scooped a number of loftier-profile books—including titles by Michael Wolff, James Comey, and Stormy Daniels—even before getting hold of Meadows'due south. Pengelly "somehow manages to get a contraband re-create of each book first—and shell the world in spilling the most consequential and interesting details," Farhi writes. "His work has caused consternation in publishing circles considering information technology preempts the advisedly managed publicity campaigns surrounding high-profile volume releases. His stories tend 'to blow upwardly [publishers'] rollout plans,' said ane frustrated but admiring Trump book author."
• "Consummate crap": Belatedly final week, Dana Milbank, a columnist at the Mail, published an article claiming that "the media treats Biden as badly equally—or worse than—Trump" and citing as proof a "sentiment analysis" he deputed that claimed to "measure the negativity with precision" across more than two hundred thousand articles. Milbank's column was widely discussed—including at the White Firm—just his claims have also fatigued criticism. On Monday, Nate Silvery, of the data site FiveThirtyEight, called its sentiment analysis "complete crap." He added, "designing good algorithms is hard, merely this is an especially bad i. And as a news consumer, you should be extremely wary of statistical methodologies you don't understand only that confirm your priors."
• Quayle's eggs-aplenty: Mark Z. Barabak, a columnist at the LA Times, assessed the wave of recent negative media coverage about Vice President Kamala Harris and situated it in the context of coverage of vice presidents past. Dan Quayle, who served equally vice president to George H.W. Bush, "spent much of his four years in the White Business firm as the rep-tied, apple-cheeked butt of countless jokes, from which his reputation never recovered," Barabak writes. "I remember one particular visit, a domestic trip to Rochester," David Beckwith, who was Quayle'south vice presidential printing secretary, told Barabak. "The headline of the newspaper was, 'Quayle fails to make gaffe.'"

Other notable stories:

• Vanity Fair's Joe Pompeo reports that CNN and its fired host Chris Cuomo are "on the brink of all-out war": the two sides are sniping at each other via the printing while besides lawyering up, with Cuomo preparing to sue CNN for the remainder of his contract, according to the New York Mail. Yesterday, Jeff Zucker, CNN's president, confirmed at a boondocks-hall coming together with staff that the network has not paid Cuomo any severance; Zucker besides suggested that he does not regret waiting so long to discipline Cuomo for giving political communication to his blood brother, Andrew, just should have made him take take a leave of absenteeism to exercise it. Meanwhile, the publisher HarperCollins said that it will no longer release Chris Cuomo's forthcoming book, which was to be titled (wait for it) Deep Denial.
• In media-jobs news, The 19th*, a nonprofit newsroom that covers gender and politics, named Julia B. Chan—formerly a managing editor at KQED, in the Bay Surface area—as its new editor in primary. Elsewhere, Yamiche Alcindor, a White House correspondent at PBS, will join the Washington squad at NBC News, where she is already a correspondent. (Alcindor will keep to host Washington Week on PBS.) And Emerald Robinson—the White House correspondent for Newsmax who recently linked COVID vaccines to Satan and hasn't been on-air since—is officially being axed. James Rosen, a onetime Fox reporter (who has himself been accused of sexual harassment), volition have Robinson'southward Newsmax job.
• In his newsletter, The Relieve Journalism Committee, Jeremy Arnold poured some cold water on the musician Benn Hashemite kingdom of jordan'south recent claim, in a YouTube video, that the reporter Ian Urbina is using a music-journalism project to "scam" artists. "The story here from my perspective is actually just: A well-significant journalist tried his hand every bit a music industry innovator and fabricated a lot of rookie errors, compounded by some bad comms decisions," while "a well-meaning musician tried his paw at journalism and made a lot of rookie errors, compounded by typical mob dynamics on social media," Arnold concludes.
• According to Jewish Insider'due south Matthew Kassel, the Times has updated its manner guide to supersede "anti-Semitism" with "antisemitism," post-obit other outlets including BuzzFeed and the AP. The change "reflects a deeper linguistic debate that has long been brewing within the Jewish customs," Kassel writes. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has said that the hyphenated course, which was popularized past a right-wing German polemicist, "legitimizes a form of pseudo-scientific racial classification."
• For Poynter, Julia Métraux explores why "LGBTQ+ stories are often not proportionally included in religion reporting, both in religious and mainstream publications," even though nearly half of LGBTQ+ adults place as being religious. Newsroom diversity is 1 issue, Métraux reports, while "positive representation of stories at the intersection of LGBTQ+ issues and religion also varies by organized religion and denomination."
• Yesterday, French government arrested Khalid Aedh al-Otaibi, a Saudi man who has been linked to the assassination of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as he tried to get out France—simply to subsequently admit that they don't yet know if they detained the right person. This morning, officials confirmed that they arrested the wrong man; the confusion reportedly stemmed from a shared proper name. The detained man has at present been freed.
• Yesterday also marked one yr since Chinese government arrested Haze Fan, a news banana in Bloomberg'southward Beijing bureau, on suspicion of violating national-security laws; Fan has non been seen since then, and officials have not provided further information about her case. John Micklethwait, Bloomberg's editor in chief, said that he was "very worried nearly her well-being." Bloomberg's Madeleine Lim has more details.
• In the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, Boris Johnson's government has come nether fire over reports that it held a Christmas party for staff a year ago, in violation of COVID rules; Johnson has denied this, but yesterday, a leaked video showed his then-comms squad joking nigh a political party at a practice press briefing concluding December. Johnson's former aide Dominic Cummings (who knows a bit virtually breaking COVID rules) has said that journalists were at the party, too.
• And Greg Tate, who wrote about Black music and civilisation for the Village Voice and many other outlets, has died. He was sixty-4. The New Yorker's Hua Hsu once described Tate as "the critic who convinced me that criticism could exist art." Tate'southward "best paragraphs throbbed similar a political party and chattered like a salon," Hsu wrote in 2016. "They were stylishly jam-packed with names and reference points that shouldn't have got along merely did."

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Jon Allsop is a freelance announcer whose piece of work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJR'south newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop.

TOP Prototype: Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, center, arrives at the U.S. Capitol for the beginning mean solar day of former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate, Tuesday, February. 09, 2021 in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Puddle via AP)

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