Media

The big media battle after 9/11 was over the aperture for mainstream coverage, and which voices would be permitted to speak. Arab and Arab-American journalists who thought the Iraq war would be a disaster barely got a hearing. I was struck by CNN’s Sunday morning lineup today, which included Jake Tapper’s interview with an American woman stuck in Gaza and Fareed Zakaria’s with Columbia University’s Rashid Khalidi, a longtime target of pro-Israel Americans’ loathing, along with Jake Sullivan and Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog.

The strength of the American reflex to support Israel surprised even many Israelis: the Fox-ish Israeli TV host Shai Golden delivered a five--minute monologue apologizing to Biden for doubting him. But the fight for the limits of acceptable debate on the current Middle East crisis is just getting started.

Wall Street Journal reporters split over Iran story

THE NEWS

The Wall Street Journal overrode some objections inside its own Washington bureau to publish an explosive, disputed Oct. 8 report that Iran “helped plan” last week’s attack by Hamas.

The article cited senior members of Hamas and Iran-backed military group Hezbollah, as well as an adviser to Syria and a European official, who told the paper that Iranian security officials helped plan and ultimately greenlit the attack on Israel.

The stakes of the story couldn’t be higher. A proven, direct Iranian role in the Hamas attack could trigger a broader regional war.

Three people with knowledge of the situation told Semafor that before the story was published, veteran staffers on the national security team at the paper raised concerns about the story, which was written by three of the paper’s correspondents based in the Middle East. Reporters from the Washington, D.C. bureau said that they could not directly confirm the explosive string of allegations shared by their colleagues abroad, and sought more time before publication.

Curiously, while reporters from the D.C. bureau contacted the White House for comment on the story, according to a person familiar with that element of the reporting, no Washington bylines appeared on the piece.

A Wall Street Journal spokesperson rejected the notion that there was any internal friction over the publication of last week’s story. “We stand by our reporting,” a spokesperson for the paper said.

U.S., Israeli, and Iranian officials, as well as Hamas leaders, all rejected the Journal’s claims. And the Journal is currently the only major news organization to report that last week’s attack had a direct link to Iran, though The New York Times published a story on Friday partially confirming the details of the Journal’s report. The Times reported that officials from Iran helped plan the attack, but the U.S. and its allies have downplayed (though not debunked) the suggestion that the Iranian government was deeply involved.

Crucially, U.S. officials told the Times and other outlets that intelligence suggests key Iranian leaders were surprised by the Hamas attack. Other outlets like CNN and the Washington Post have not confirmed any link, though Israeli and U.S. government officials have not ruled out that possibility.

Garrett Haake is the senior Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News.

⁛ News

Solidarity forever: The premier U.S. journalists’ union wants my emails.

Specifically, in response to a critic’s defamation lawsuit, The NewsGuild filed a motion seeking a critic’s correspondence with The New York Times — in this case, with me. They’re also seeking the correspondence of a woman who sought to tip that reporter to sexual misconduct inside the union.

The legal motion represents a strange coda to a Times column I wrote in 2020, which revealed how both the union and newsroom management were slow to respond to complaints of a Pittsburgh union leader’s sexual misconduct.

“We are always troubled when litigants use discovery to seek communications between sources and journalists, and it is especially concerning coming from a union that represents journalists,” Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said.

But the Guild makes no apologies: Its president, Jon Schleuss, cast the intrusion as a fight “against any attempts to undermine our growing power and solidarity.”

Media lawyers, however, see it as a dangerous precedent and a bizarre move by an institution representing journalists. Also bizarre: The union put out a press release front-running my story, an annoying and pointless tactic that’s also loathed by many of its members. -- Ben Smith

Velshi back on: Semafor reported Friday that MSNBC had quietly shifted three Muslim hosts out of the anchor chair last week following external criticism of their coverage for being overly critical of Israel in the wake of last week’s attack. The network gave various logistical and programming reasons for their absence from the anchor chair, and pointed out that anchors Ali Velshi and Ayman Mohyeldin both appeared frequently throughout the week and weekend as part of the network’s live coverage.

After Semafor’s story published on Friday, MSNBC reversed a decision to use a replacement host for Velshi on his weekend show. -- Max Tani

Uygur 2024: The Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur is launching a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, our David Weigel scooped last week. Uygur, 53, has been sharply critical of President Joe Biden, and hopes to position himself as a progressive alternative to an incumbent who “is definitely going to lose” if he makes it to the general election. Uygur’s signature YouTube channel has some 5.6 million subscribers. But the Turkish-born pundit’s history of brash on-air comments hampered his last campaign for public office, when he ran for a California House seat in 2020.

✦ Marketing

MediaLinked: The no-conflict-no-interest folks at MediaLink, who unofficially run Cannes Lions, are now looking to buy the festival.

Nobody was asking: “The McDonald’s universe is in a state of disarray,” the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker noted, with McDonald’s Israel providing free food to the IDF while the brand’s outlets in Muslim countries tweet statements supporting Gaza. McDonald’s HQ didn’t respond to an inquiry about the tweets.

✰ Hollywood

Rebundling watch: Comcast and Disney have hired bankers to value Hulu, a necessary step toward the expected sale of Comcast’s stake in the service to its competitor.

Netflix IRL: Netflix will open a set of retail storefronts under the brand Netflix House, where you can try your hand at a “Squid Game themed obstacle course.” Pass!

Correction: An earlier version of this newsletter’s introduction said that Al Jazeera’s oped had no mention of dead Israeli civilians. The op-ed did reference “the killing of at least 100 Israelis,” and so we’ve changed the text to reflect that.

• A high-profile memestock CEO sent sexually explicit images and messages in a weeks-long text exchange with a woman who tried to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from him using fake identities.
• OpenAI has quietly changed its “core values.” The AI startup now says its singular goal is to build “safe, beneficial” artificial general intelligence, noting that anything else is “out of scope.”
• Three Hamas leaders have emerged at the top of Israel’s most wanted list. But targeting them will be a challenge for Israel.
• In the era of the “buff business leader,” some tech workers have turned to a broad class of oral and injectable drugs, treatments, and supplements to improve their health and appearance.