Brian Stelter

The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?

New: A few weeks ago, when my father-in-law died, the funeral home asked if we wanted to use AI to write his obituary. So I dug into it and found that it's the biggest new trend in "death care." Tens of thousands of AI obits have been made already. Often the families don't even know wapo.st/4okuxIg

Trump’s Efforts to Control Information Echo an Authoritarian Playbook

NYT's Peter Baker: "History is filled with examples of leaders seeking to stifle unwelcome information. The Soviets falsified data to make their economy look stronger than it was. The Chinese have long been suspected of doing the same..." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

We'll see -- and I'm sure there will be follow up stories

Climate change data, deleted. Books, removed. DEI initiatives, banned. Trump keeps asserting more control over info. But public pressure and media scrutiny still matters. Look to the Smithsonian...

Trump's firing of the Labor Statistics chief has been one of the most widely-criticized acts of his second term

Trump’s Efforts to Control Information Echo an Authoritarian Playbook

“Trump’s Efforts to Control Information Echo an Authoritarian Playbook”

@peterbakernyt.bsky.social for @nytimes.com

These VOA newscasters and reporters were given visas because there weren't experienced broadcast journalists in the US with native level skills in such languages as Bambara, Lao or Georgian. But since Kari Lake wiped out nearly all VOA's 48 language services there are indeed no jobs for them now.

"This is like firing your pollster for telling you that you're way behind in the race," David Chalian says on CNN

Trump says he’s directing team to ‘immediately’ fire senior official over jobs numbers | CNN Business President Donald Trump is directing his team to “immediately” fire Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whom he accused of manipulating the monthly jobs reports fo...

"If you don't like the message, fire the messenger. That's what this has become," Jeff Zeleny says on CNN www.cnn.com/2025/08/01/b...

"If I replace the Labor Statistics Commissioner, the job numbers will be great!" is the new "If we stop testing, we'll have fewer Covid cases!"

Between Monday and Thursday, Fox News mentioned Sydney Sweeney 181 times, and Jeffrey Epstein 18 times.

The medium was the message as Kamala Harris chose "The Late Show" for her first interview since losing the election. She told Stephen Colbert the part of Trump 2.0 she didn't see coming "was the capitulation." No direct mention of CBS parent Paramount; she didn't need to say it.

Today's Reliable Sources, feat. the latest on Kamala Harris, Sydney Sweeney, Shari Redstone, Reddit, Vogue, Greg Gutfeld, and much more: cnn.it/3He4UrO

Eight thought-provoking pieces ✅ "The full force of a federal agency" is being deployed "to coerce advertisers into supporting conservative media," Julia Angwin writes in this NYT guest essay about the FTC's recent maneuver with two ad agency giants. She says it was both a "thinly veiled attempt to prop up X" and "an attempt to tilt the media landscape in favor of the government in ways that are simply un-American." ✅ "Satire is the first weapon against authoritarian overreach," Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein write in this excellent column about "South Park" declaring "war on the extortion-industrial complex." ✅ Mediaite's Colby Hall makes a strong case here: "Megyn Kelly is the new Rush Limbaugh — and prototype for the future of political media." ✅ New Washington Post Opinions editor Adam O'Neal wants writers to communicate "with optimism about this country in particular and the future in general." Jonathan Capehart, one of the many boldface names leaving the Post, responds on Substack here. ✅ In a blog post titled "RIP, CBS," former ABC correspondent Terry Moran says "the CEOs always think they can somehow pacify Trump or buy him off with concessions. And they are always wrong." ✅ I loved this history lesson by The Atlantic's new in-house historian and archivist Jake Lundberg. He details how "the rise of the cheap, daily newspaper in the 19th century created the first true attention economy" and "remade how Americans engaged with the world." ✅ WSJ editor Emma Tucker has "completely revitalized the staid Journal with her suffer-no-fools attitude and upscale tabloid instincts," and now the paper is "eating the Times’s lunch in the second Trump era," Puck's Dylan Byers observes. ✅ Governments are "focusing on creators' giant fan bases as a new strategy for soft power," treating influencers to all-expense-paid trips in exchange for videos, WaPo's Drew Harwell reports.

Thanks @brianstelter.bsky.social for including my story and many other great ones in today's Reliable Sources view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/175...

Just announced by CBS: Kamala Harris will be on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" tonight "for her first interview since the 2024 presidential election." Comes on the same day she announced her forthcoming book "107 Days."

"The CEOs always think they can somehow pacify Trump or buy him off with concessions. And they are always wrong."

I literally pointed that out in the previous post

Today's Reliable Sources lead: Shares of Meta are rocketing to another record high this morning. The company's quarterly results may leave you feeling awe, envy, fear or some mixture of all the above... cnn.it/41fkoTc

Kamala Harris will release '107 Days,' a behind-the-scenes look at her historic presidential run Former Vice President Kamala Harris has announced a new memoir called "107 Days," detailing her historic Democratic presidential run last year.

"Former Vice President Kamala Harris will have a memoir out in September on her historic presidential run. The book is called '107 Days,' the length of her abbreviated campaign, and will be published by Simon & Schuster on Sept. 23."

RIP, CBS Trump's cronies move in at the Tiffany Network

Terry Moran: "I wish all my former colleagues in the legacy media all the best in the coming years. And I wish all of us, here in these newer, freer, untamable media spaces strength and good cheer. There is so much work to do." terrymoran.substack.com/p/rip-cbs?ut...

Details: The season 27 premiere of "South Park" attracted 5.9 million viewers across cable and streaming last week. It was the #1 show on all of cable last Wednesday. Comedy Central says the show enjoyed its biggest share of the cable audience for a season premiere episode since 1999.

South Park’s raunchy season premiere breaks a record dating back to 1999 | CNN Business Judging by President Trump’s most recent post about TV ratings — “if you get ratings, you can say or do anything” — “South Park” can keep up the savage Trump criticism.

Judging by President Trump's most recent post about TV ratings — "if you get ratings, you can say or do anything" — "South Park" can keep up the savage Trump criticism. It just broke one of its own ratings records dating back to 1999: www.cnn.com/2025/07/30/b...

thanks!

Paramount deal thrusts David Ellison into Trump’s war with US media What began as a Hollywood studio merger has become a test of how far corporate America will bend to president’s will

The "source close to Ellison" name-checked Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite and said Ellison plans to bring back "a performance-based culture" to CBS News, adding, "Not quotas. Not ideology. Just objective journalism." Here's the FT story: www.ft.com/content/b077...

"The news lost its way — it became extreme, elitist, and performative," the Ellison confidant said. "People like Colbert and others act like they're the IP, the value, when it’s the brand and journalism that matter. We need to get back to fundamentals. That's what David and his team believe."

Today's Financial Times has some striking quotes from a "person close to David Ellison" about his beliefs re: CBS and the news biz. The source spoke about CBS News and Stephen Colbert seemingly in the same breath 🤨 and said "the news lost its way."

Thanks @brianstelter.bsky.social for covering our disciplinary complaint against FCC chair Brendan Carr in today's @cnn.com Reliable Sources newsletter.

➡️ view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/175...

Joe Rogan isn’t letting go of Epstein — that’s a problem for Trump | CNN Business “Do you think we’re babies? Like, what is this?” asked Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the US and arguably the most influential Trump-friendly media figure.

"We are now entering week number four of this scandal engulfing President Trump, largely because the outrage is coming from within Trump’s normally steadfast circle of conspiracy-minded media boosters. . . .

"Rogan’s criticism suggests Trump’s headache will only grow."
— @brianstelter.bsky.social

in today's Reliable Sources:

Hawaii local media steps up with tsunami alerts; Trump's "big burrito" technique; Carr targets Comcast next 🔗 cnn.it/4mjy1J1

With 5 weeks until the regular season begins, the NFL now finds itself in a dreadful position: HQed at a crime scene, supporting an employee who was seriously wounded in the attack, and facing a renewed PR nightmare about head trauma problems in football cnn.it/4l0RYDq