Most Popular
Ad Age “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco’s media roundup for the morning of Friday, March 31:
What can you expect in today’s media scan? Let me quote an expert: “I will say it’s everything. It’s the highs and lows, brightness and darkness, alpha to omega, a quiet-loud-sad-happy tragiredemptive circus of emotion, anguish, and grace. I hope people feel it all come together and have that rush you feel when the roller coaster finally coasts back to the platform.” OK, actually that’s showrunner Scott M. Gimple describing this Sunday’s season finale of “The Walking Dead” to Entertainment Weekly’s Dalton Ross. But it more or less applies here too! Anyway, let’s get started …
1. At 9:37 p.m. ET last night, a “Breaking News” alert from The New York Times landed in our email inbox: “Michael Flynn wants to talk to congressional investigators examining the Trump team’s ties to Russia. But first he wants immunity” — linking to a piece by Mark Mazzetti and Matthew Rosenberg headlined “Michael Flynn Offers to Testify Before Congress in Exchange for Immunity.” Naturally, that’s one of the stories dominating the morning news cycle — along with a certain flaming freeway. (For that story, check out “7 things to know about the fiery I-85 bridge collapse” via The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)
2. Oh, look! Here’s Fox News (!) joining the Flynn pile-on this morning: “Flynn in 2016: When you are ‘given immunity’ that probably means you committed a crime.”
3. Now look over here! The Tweeter-in-Chief has chirped in:
Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 31, 2017
4. And then, gosh, here’s The Hill chiming in: “FLASHBACK: Trump during campaign: If you’re not guilty, why do you need immunity?”
5. Everybody reading ths: “Enough about Flynn already!” Me: OK, fine, let’s talk about the press release snafu of the week: “EPA climate release tries to praise Trump but blasts him instead.” Per Politico’s Alex Guillen,
The criticism came in a quote from Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, which EPA inaccurately attributed to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a strong supporter of the coal industry and Trump’s order. “President Trump has chosen to recklessly bury his head in the sand,” said the quote, which appeared at the top of the EPA press release’s litany of reactions to Trump’s climate order. The quote added that the order “calls into question America’s credibility,” and said the president and Administrator Scott Pruitt “have chosen to shirk our responsibility, disregard clear science and undo the significant progress our country has made.”
6. Oh, hey, look! Happy people on Twitter!
Successful deployment of SES-10 to geostationary transfer orbit confirmed. pic.twitter.com/FkVoUYSsmq
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 30, 2017
Incredibly proud of the SpaceX team for achieving this milestone in space! Next goal is reflight within 24 hours.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2017
The Guardian has a video (embedded below) titled “SpaceX successfully launches first recycled rocket” and offers this brief explainer:
A recycled SpaceX rocket recovered at sea from its first flight nearly a year ago blasted off again on Thursday from Florida on a satellite-delivery mission. The launch was another key step in founder Elon Musk’s plan to slash costs by reusing his rockets. The success is a step toward vastly less expensive spaceflight, which some hope can revolutionize travel in the solar system and take humans to Mars
7. And finally, as long as we’re still not talking about Mike Flynn, here’s a video titled “Game of Thrones Season 7: Long Walk – Official Promo,” which tops the YouTube “Trending” chart this morning, having racked up more than six million views in less than 24 hours.
Simon Dumenco, aka Media Guy, is an Ad Age editor-at-large. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.
This news item is brought to you by http://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/watch-game-thrones-promo-mike-flynn-show/308509/?utm_source=The%20Media%20Guy&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AdvertisingAge/The%20Media%20Guy