Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1061

ABC Banks on Marvel and 'Empowered Women' at Upfronts

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After a dismal offering at NBC and an ambitious presentation from Fox, upfront week moves on to ABC this afternoon. ABC, which isn't in great shape, is also wildly rebooting its lineup. (You can see an interactive now-and-then schedule below.) In a conference call earlier today, ABC's entertainment president Paul Lee explained that "it doesn't get more agressive" than the network's new Tuesday lineup, which is anchored by an already heavily promo-ed Marvel collaboration, and ABC's revamped Thursday night, which starts with the Once Upon a Time spinoff and is apparently all about "empowered women." Meanwhile, Dancing with the Stars has been scaled back to one night a week. Stay tuned below for details and clips from new shows — the presentation starts just after 4 p.m. Eastern. 

  ABC

2013 | 2012

  8:00 p 8:30 p 9:00 p 9:30 p 10:00 p 10:30 p Monday Dancing With the Stars Castle Tuesday Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The Goldbergs Trophy Wife Lucky 7 Wednesday The Middle Back in the Game Modern Family Super Fun Night Nashville Thursday Once Upon a Time in Wonderland Grey's Anatomy Scandal Friday Last Man Standing The Neighbors Shark Tank 20/20 Saturday Saturday Night College Football Sunday Once Upon a Time Revenge Betrayal

2013 | 2012

  8:00 p 8:30 p 9:00 p 9:30 p 10:00 p 10:30 p Monday Dancing With the Stars Castle Tuesday Dancing With the Stars Results Show Happy Endings Don't Trust the B– Private Practice Wednesday The Middle Suburgatory Modern Family The Neighbors Nashville Thursday Last Resort Grey's Anatomy Scandal Friday Shark Tank Primetime: What Would You Do? 20/20 Saturday   Sunday Once Upon a Time Revenge 666 Park Avenue

 

The Presentation

5:22 Mind Games is a procedural with Christian Slater and Steve Zahn who play people who try to change people's minds. Zahn plays bipolar. 

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5:18 Onto midseason. There's a The Quest, which is, we guess, Lord of the Rings, but a reality show? Resurrection is about a boy who comes back to life after 32 years after falling in the river trying to save his aunt and dying. 

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5:16 "Let's go in on a turd together," he concludes. 

5:15 And we're back to Splash jokes. 

5:13 Kimmel, onto Fox, has an alternate name for Gordon Ramsay's Junior MasterChef: "Mommy a mean British asshole told me my pancakes taste like goat dick." He calls CBS "those smug motherf--kers," and makes some cracks about their audience being old. 

5:10 In his roast, Kimmel makes a Splash joke. He also calls Matt Lauer a villain a lá Don Draper or Walter White. He also has a good way to distinguish himself and Jimmy Fallon. Fallon sings. Hes's "the one who comes here every year and calls you assholes." Now he's on an NBC rant. "They're strategy for next year is to oppose immigration reform," he says of NBC being beaten by Univision. 

5:07 Kimmel is now out. He asks the advertisers to just put their money in bags.  He explains:  "It's time to stop calling this an upfront and call it what it is: throwing shit against a wall and seeing if it sticks." 

5:04 Lee is doing a bit about how Jimmy Kimmel is now "insufferable" since he's been bumped up. 

5:00 Here's Betrayal, which Lee calls "achingly romantic." It's a limited series, and looks like your standard pretty people making bad romantic choices deal. 

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5:00 Shark Tank is apparently a big hit with families. Go figure. 

4:59 And now a Scandal finale sneak peek. 

4:53 Here's the "kick-ass" Alice in Wonderland show that's a Once Upon a Time spinoff: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It begins with Alice being institutionalized for insanity. Alice meets a genie love interest, who she fights to get back. 

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4:50 The show is about three friends that usually stay in, who decide to enter the world. 

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4:49 Wilson describes her show: "This show is really the anti-Sex and the City because when these ladies eat at night, they aren't talking about dick." 

4:46 And now the Rebel Wilson comedy Super Fun Night. Wilson comes on stage to introduce her show. She reads from a paper, awkwardly, on purpose. Conan O'Brien exec-produced.

4:43 Are you ready for a James Caan comedy? Because he's in Back in the Game, a Bad News Bears-esque story about a woman who coaches misfit kids on a baseball team. Caan plays her father. 

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4:37 Lucky 7 is apparently about the "99 percent" according to Lee, but it's also "aspirational." So, okay. It's about a bunch of people who work at a gas station and win the lottery. 

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4:36 Now Trophy Wife with Malin Akerman as the new wife of Bradley Whitford, who has two ex-wives one of which Marcia Gay Harden.  

4:31 First up we have The Goldbergs, the 80s-set comedy with Bridesmaids Wendi McLendon-Covey and Jeff Garlin. There seem to be a bunch of nostalgia humor. "The only one that understands me is Flavor Fav," one of the kids says. 

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4:30 He says "you nerds are going to love" S.H.I.E.L.D.

4:25 ABC Entertainment Group President Paul Lee describes the schedule as a mix of "stability and out and out ambition." Dancing will be two hours on Monday, building the results show into it. 

4:22 After some talk of market demos, we're onto a clip reel. 

4:14 Now we're talking about Watch ABC, which means that viewers can watch live streams of the network. It launched in Philadelphia and New York today.  

4:11 Sweeney makes a Barbara Walters tribute. Walters blows Sweeney a kiss. Walters gets a standing ovation. 

4:10 When Sweeney walks out Sawyer gestures angrily. Sweeney segues into how great Jimmy Kimmel at 11:35 is. 

4:07 And we're off. We begin with a Scandal spoof starring Kerry Washington and Jimmy Kimmel, the latter of which is supposedly protecting the president. Washington demands to see said president, who is revealed to be the Disney/ABC Television Group president Anne Sweeney, who reveals, among other things: "ABC Family...is adopted" and that she wears Diane Sawyer's clothes.

       

Watch Sandy's Underwater Roller Coaster Get Torn Apart

Today, the same day that Prince Harry visited the Jersey Shore, the marooned roller coaster that became a symbol of what Sandy wrought—and made for some of the storm's most iconic images—started its journey back out of the ocean. Raw footage shows a large claw-like contraption hacking away at the Jet Star off of Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, almost as if in slow motion. According to the Asbury Park Press, the job will take 48 hours: 

Hear is a GIF of the contraption pulling apart the coaster like a dog shaking a toy. 

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Meanwhile, Casino Pier is installing a new "thrill" ride. According to the New York Times's Sarah Maslin Nir on Twitter that the pseudo-replacement for the coaster swept to sea will be called "Superstorm." Seriously. But according to reporters on the scene, Casino Pier's Toby Wolf explained that the name is more of a sign of resilience than a "too soon" moment. Jennifer Weiss of The Wall Street Journal wrote that Casino Pier manager Josh Karu described the ride "as a pendulum in which riders are seated in a circle, facing inwards." Sounds... fun?

       

Holder and the White House Try to Make the Case for Media Surveillance

Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried, in near-simultaneous press conferences Tuesday afternoon, to justify the government's unusual access of data from the Associated Press. In different ways stemming from different agendas, they both failed.

The Justice Department's subpoenaing of phone records from the Associated Press prompted a predictable reaction when the White House press corps was given the chance to ask questions at the White House about the most press-centric story of Scandal Week. The Huffington Post called it an "unrelenting grilling," in which Carney refused to comment. Sort of. Noting that it was up to Attorney General Eric Holder to respond, Carney tried to sketch out President Obama's position on the matter, while distancing the White House from the DoJ.

On the issue of what is a Department of Justice investigation, as I understand it, the president is a strong defender of the First Amendment and a firm believer in the need for the press to be unfettered in its ability to conduct investigative reporting and facilitate the free flow of information. He also, of course, recognizes the need for the Justice Department to investigate alleged criminal activity without undo influence.

[image error]The brief excursion through the First Amendment was not a huge success. Within minutes both "#unfettered" and "Jay Carney" were trending on Twitter. Usually paired with a reaction akin to the one below.

Carney says Obama believes in balancing "unfettered" investigative journalism w/natl security. Doesn't sound unfettered then.

— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) May 14, 2013

The distinction between the free press and government restriction is probably best demonstrated in the statute under which the government is allowed to supoena the press, as pointed out to us by Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Kurt Opsahl yesterday. It reads, in part:

Because freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news, the prosecutorial power of the government should not be used in such a way that it impairs a reporter's responsibility to cover as broadly as possible controversial public issues. This policy statement is thus intended to provide protection for the news media from forms of compulsory process, whether civil or criminal, which might impair the news gathering function.

What follows are 14 conditions that need to be met before the government can get a subpoena, which itself should be "as narrowly drawn as possible." The message is clear: If the Department of Justice feels that it is necessary to infringe on the liberty of the freedom of the press, even retroactively, it better be an extraordinary situation approached with extraordinary care.

A few minutes after Carney spoke, the press got to ask questions of Holder in an overcrowded briefing at the Justice Department that was ostensibly about Medicare fraud. After noting that he'd recused himself from the AP investigation, the attorney general quickly tried to make the case that the investigation — which apparently focused on a May 2012 leak to the agency about a bomb plot in Yemen — was the exactly the sort of extraordinary situation that demanded Justice's efforts. Talking Points Memo transcribed his reponse.

This was a very serious leak and a very, very serious leak. I've been a prosecutor since 1976 and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, it is within the top two or three most serious leaks I've ever seen. It put the American people at risk. That's not hyperbole. It put the American people at risk.

That's a subjective assessment, of course, and one that bodes poorly if the leaker is ever identified. Holder's Department of Justice has prosecuted six leakers previously, more than under any administration since World War I. And at least four of those accused, by Holder's assessment, must have been involved in less important leaks than the AP's.

If the case in Yemen is the one that prompted the leak investigation (and it appears nearly certain that it is), the AP revelations appear to have undermined an intelligence operation in that country. The story involved Al Qaeda giving a bomb to a terrorist who was, in fact, a CIA double agent. The risk to the American people that Holder cites presumably derives largely from that agent being compromised.

Holder also revealed that Deputy Attorney General James Cole had responded to the Associated Press's angry letter sent to Justice yesterday. Cole's letter attempts to explain how their efforts met the 14 stipulations mandated in the statute while still remaining aloof about content. The subpoena was narrowly drawn, it argues, because the records only cover a subset of the two-month period it originally mentioned. That's an argument, but not a very good one.

While it may be in Carney's job description, it's not the Department of Justice's duty to make the press happy. It is, however, to ensure that any point at which the government must get in their way is done as quickly and openly as possible. It's fair to assume that neither Holder's warnings about the severity of the leak or his deputy's gray-lined explanation of why their efforts were done correctly will assuage concerns about an agency that's eager to uncover leaks, rigid about prosecuting them, and very gauzy about how that job gets done.

       

Is the 'Press Photo of the Year' Actually Photoshop Art?

Swedish photographer Paul Hansen is fighting back against claims—from hackers calling his work a composite, bloggers calling it a "fake," and still others questioning the meaning of news photography in a digital age—that his winning image for the "World Press Photo of the Year" contest is nothing but a computer-aided forgery. Even the World Press judges are doing some forensic second-guessing.

Hansen won the major award last month for "Gaza Burial," a shot he snagged in Gaza City during the brief air war with Israel in November 2012. The photo captured a funeral procession for two young children, aged four and two, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Almost from the day it was published, Hansen (like others covering the conflict) was accused of embellishing the photo, possibly to make the Palestinian mourners look more sympathetic. The odd angle and ghostly lighting seemed highly unusual for a straight news photograph—and given the heavy political weight of the situation, the symbolism of such moments resonates around the globe. (Hansen has also been caught up in similar controversy before. It's not that the incidents didn't happen, they just maybe didn't look quite the way he made them look.)

Suspicions were raised even further when Hansen arrived at the award ceremony on April 27, but "forgot" to bring the unaltered RAW file that contains the original source image straight from the camera. Without the original source it would be very difficult to tell what alterations had been made before publication. Nearly all news photos these days are taken digitally and most undergo some small degree of touchup before publication, like small lighting and color adjustments. But news agencies must adhere to their own strict guidelines, the most important being that nothing should be added to or removed from a photo.

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On Sunday, Neal Krawetz published a post on his website "The Hacker Factor" declaring that "This year's 'World Press Photo Award' wasn't given for a photograph. It was awarded to a digital composite that was significantly reworked." Krawetz has a Ph.D. in computer science and blogs about "non-classical computer forensics," among other things, so he isn't just an armchair pixel hunter. Intrigued by the controversy over the photo, he looked at the meta data embedded in copies of the photo (not the original file), an examined shadows and other details to make his call that "it appears to have been modified specifically for this contest."

The next day, the website Extreme Tech upped the ante, calling the image a "fake" and stating that (based off of Krawetz' analysis) the image appeared to be splice of at least three different images. Now Hansen was being formally accused of doctoring his award-winning photograph. 

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On Tuesday, Hansen denied that he did anything wrong. He told news.com.au that it was a totally normal case of retouching, and the original image is bascially what he saw with his eye.

"To put it simply, it's the same file - developed over itself - the same thing you did with negatives when you scanned them."

The World Press Photo organization also stuck up for Hansen, saying they had "no reason to doubt his explanation" and that there was already a "heated discussion about the level of enhancement of the image file." It was examined by numerous judges and photo experts and found to be legit, but just to ease everyone's mind they sent the original image to two new experts for further analysis and they concluded that ... it's legit.

It is clear that the published photo was retouched with respect to both global and local color and tone. Beyond this, however, we find no evidence of significant photo manipulation or compositing. Furthermore, the analysis purporting photo manipulation is deeply flawed, as described briefly below.”

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Whether or not Hansen's photo is "real," the debate over how much license should be given to photographers covering the news isn't going away. Every one accepts a certain level of manipulation in photographs, especially in the Instagram age. (Even a flash "changes" the original scene.) But how much alteration can you make before the image itself is no longer the same image? And how much editorializing can you do as a news outlet when it comes to altering the mood or perspective to heighten drama, the way reporters do it with their words? The only thing to do is to remember that no journalist is 100 percent objective—not even the camera itself.

       

Kuwaiti Police Sweep Cafes, Arrest 215 People for Being Gay

215 gay men and lesbians were recently arrested in Kuwait after an intense investigation of "Internet cafes and suspicious places" across the country, The Kuwaiti Times reported early Tuesday morning. The newspaper, along with the U.S.-based Arab Times, cited another Kuwaiti Arab-language newspaper, Al-Anba, which reported the arrests earlier this week. Sydney journalist Dan Nolan captured the bombastic headline chosen by The Kuwaiti Times to convey the news:

Hard to believe but this is a real headline from the Kuwait Times this week... twitter.com/Dan_Nolan9/sta…

— Dan Nolan (@Dan_Nolan9) May 14, 2013

And the sparse story accompanying it:

and this is the story that goes with it twitter.com/Dan_Nolan9/sta…

— Dan Nolan (@Dan_Nolan9) May 14, 2013

With over two hundred people arrested, the raid appears to be largest in Kuwait in quite some time. A similar episode took place in May 2012, when 149 people identified by police as gay or transgender were arrested under suspicion of prostitution.

While the details so far remain thin, the arrests are far from unprecedented in Kuwait. The country's laws make homosexuality punishable with detention, and Kuwaiti police have a long history of investigating and jailing people thought to be gay. In early May Kuwaiti officials detained 10 gay teenagers for practicing "Satantic rituals," and in April police arrested dozens of transgender Kuwaiti citizens.

       

Obama Tells Harvey Weinstein, Justin Timberlake to Blame Rush Limbaugh

President Obama told donors like Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake (who was wearing hipster glasses), and Tommy Hilfiger that Washington gridlock is pretty much Rush Limbaugh's fault on Monday evening at a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein's house in New York's Greenwich Village. Obama admitted that his theory — that after the 2012 election, the Republican "fever" would break, and they'd decide to co-sign some of his agenda — was wrong. "My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet," Obama said, according to the White House pool report. This is because of a certain corpulent radio host. "I genuinely believe there are Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they’re fearful of their base and they’re concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them. And as a consequence we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government."

In June 2012, Obama had predicted that being a lame duck would actually be a perk. He told donors:

"I believe that if we're successful in this election, when we're successful in this election, that the fever may break, because there's a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that,...

My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn't make much sense because I'm not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again."

And if Republicans refuse to cooperate? Well, unlike the president, they do face reelection. Obama suggested he would crush them in the midterms. "If there are folks who are more interested in winning elections than they are thinking about the next generation then I want to make sure there are consequences to that."

       

Minnesota Just Passed Gay Marriage: What Now?

In a historic vote early Monday evening, the Minnesota State Senate voted 37-30 to pass same-sex marriage, after the House passed it last week in a 75-59 vote. Minnesota's statehouse is now the 12th state in the country to join a wave of gay marriage approval, setting the stage for Governor Mark Dayton to sign the law heading into a big summer for the movement nationwide — including the first legal same-sex marriages in the state. Here's a look at the next steps. 

Will Governor Dayton Sign the Bill? 

Yes. Dayton, a Democrat, has already promised to sign HF1054 as soon as it comes across his desk, probably within days. After coming out in support of the bill, he pushed the state legislature, and on April 18 Dayton told a rally in front of the Minnesota State Capital that "it's a constitutional right — an American right — to marry the person that you love. No doubt about it."

When Would Gay Couples Be Allowed to Get Married? 

August 1.

And This Makes Minnesota...

...the 12th state to legalize. And as Reuters points out, it also makes Minnesota "the third state this month to legalize gay marriage after Rhode Island and Delaware." Minnesota also joins Iowa as the only two midwestern states to approve same-sex marriage — for now.

Did Someone tell Michele Bachmann?

She's a little busy with Benghazi at the moment, but, as you might imagine, she's sticking to her guns:

I’m proud to have introduced the original traditional marriage amendment, and I thank all Minnesotans who have worked so hard on this issue.

— Michele Bachmann (@MicheleBachmann) May 13, 2013

What About the Big Picture?

Well, the country is still waiting on the Supreme Court's decision on DOMA and Prop. 8 — both decisions are expected in June. (Indeed, it's a busy six weeks left in the term for the Supremes.) As for gay Minnesotans and Minnesotans who support gay rights, Minneapolis celebrates its gay pride on June 29 and 30, though the celebrations are no doubt beginning as we type.

       

The Justice Department Secretly Seized AP Phone Records — on a Terror Leak?

Last Friday, the Associated Press received a letter from the Department of Justice informing the news agency that the government had acquired two months of telephone records — incoming number, outgoing number, and call duration — for a more than 20 lines associated with the agency. Among those were phones in the Associated Press offices, personal lines for reporters, and the AP's phone in the House of Representatives press gallery.

The letter the AP received has not been made public, but it apparently provided no reason for the seizure. According to an article published by the AP, it may relate to a May 2012 article published by the Associated Press revealing an Al-Qaeda bomb plot. That plot, originating in Yemen, was targeted for the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, but was foiled when the device was given to a CIA double agent. The AP broke the story, holding it for several days at the request of the White House. According to the AP, the reporters on that story owned numbers that were among those subpoenaed, indicating that Justice may be trying to identify the source of the leak.

Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the AP sent a scathing letter in response to the revelations. Calling it a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" that is "a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights," Pruitt writes:

There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news-gathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.

The AP demanded that the department to return the data to the AP and destroy its records.

During his confirmation hearings to lead the CIA, John Brennan was asked about the AP's story on the Yemen plot. In his response to a question from Senator Jim Risch, Brennan said:

The irresponsible and damaging leak of classified information was made several days – and possibly even a week – earlier when someone informed the Associated Press that the U.S. Government had intercepted an IED that was supposed to be used in an attack and that the U.S. Government currently had that IED in its possession and was analyzing it. Various reporters were asking questions of our press people that raised alarm bells. ...

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is conducting a criminal investigation of these leaks, and I participated in a voluntary interview with those conducting the investigation.

This afternoon, that office released a statement indicating that it "take[s] seriously" its obligations to follow the law when subpoenaing records from media organizations. "Because we value the freedom of the press," the statement reads, "we are always careful and deliberative in seeking the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws." Under Attorney General Eric Holder, Justice has initiated an unprecedented number of prosecutions for alleged leaking.

Requests by The Atlantic Wire for comment from the AP have not yet been returned. 

Photo: Attorney General Eric Holder. (AP)

       

Social Roulette Is the Best (and Scariest) Way to Delete Your Facebook Account

If you have suicidal Facebook tendencies — as in, you want off the social network but just can't bare to part with your photos, wall posts, and all those precious, precious likes — then you should probably try playing the new game Social Roulette. 

You've heard of Russin Roulette before, yes? Everyone's seen some crazy person play it in a movie — or that movie. You put a single bullet in a gun, spin the chamber, put the gun to your head, and hope for the best. Sometimes you win, sometimes your brains paint the wall. It's easy. It's horrifying. Now imagine that, but with Facebook.

Social Roulette is the new game designed by Jonas Lund, Jonas Jongelan, and NYU ITP adjunct professor Kyle McDonald. It gives you a one-in-six chance of having all of your friends, photos, and likes deleted before it will deactivate your account. Sure, you can reactivate your account, but none of your stuff will be there. It's like gambling with something you have no problem doing away with, which is sort of what gambling's all about, except you don't really win anything but freedom... and then dread.

So, they've only got one question? 

do you feel lucky? well, do ya, punk?

— Social Roulette (@roulettenet) May 11, 2013

It took us a full 20 minutes, after we saw it getting passed around a bunch today, to muster the courage to even try the game. So far as we know, this is the only social game in the ever-popular world of social games that has ever confronted social people with the end of their social social lives. If you're been using Facebook long enough, losing everything could be traumatizing in a way. Even the existential dread of saying goodbye to those old college photos you'd rather forget — that could take a while to get over. But then the game didn't work. It's returning an error message right now. But we promise, we were going to play. We were going to risk it all. 

Alas, sometimes the gun jams and you do get lucky. 

       

How to Make Every New Yorker Hate You

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cellphone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

Go ahead, ask us to sign a petition. Take up two seats on the subway? That's cool, too. But just don't freaking feed the pigeons! Why would you do that? 

Here's every spectacular "noooooooooooo" that the movie world has given us. Yessssssssssss. 

So, this is basically every awkward handshaker's worst nightmare: 

And finally, it's Monday. Have a couple of kittens: