Tag Archives: broadcasting industry

US

Paul Pelosi attacker trafficks in conspiracy theories in call to TV station after video release

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CNN
 — 

The man who attacked the husband of Nancy Pelosi in their home last year showed no remorse and continued his dangerous fixation on the former House speaker in a bizarre phone call to a San Francisco reporter on Friday, according to the Bay Area station’s reporting.

David DePape called KTVU’s Amber Lee from the San Francisco County Jail on the same day the attack footage was released, with what he called “an important message for everyone in America.”

Without mentioning Pelosi by name, DePape said he had gathered “names and addresses” of people he believed were “systematically and deliberately” destroying American freedom and liberty and said he wanted to “have a heart-to-heart chat about their bad behavior.”

DePape added that he should have been “better prepared,” adding that he was sorry that he “didn’t get more of them.”

KTVU said their reporter was not allowed to ask follow-up questions of DePape during the phone conversation, which he allowed to be recorded.

The call came on the same day that a California court released video of the attack, audio of the 911 call and his initial police interview after the arrest in which he echoed right-wing extremist views, including MAGA tropes that underscored how he was influenced by dangerous rhetoric and conspiracies.

DePape also told a San Francisco police officer in October that the reason he went to the Pelosis’ San Francisco home was because he believed that the then-speaker was “the leader of the pack” of all the politicians in Washington, DC, “lying on a consistent basis.”

In laying out his reasons for enacting the attack, DePape epitomizes how dangerous unsubstantiated political rhetoric that enters the mainstream has contributed to political violence nationwide.

US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said earlier this month that threats against members of Congress is “still too high” even though threat investigations dropped in 2022 for the first time in five years. Federal law enforcement agencies have consistently warned about the increasing threat of politically motivated violence after rioters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, raising specific concerns about the likelihood that online calls for violence result in real-world attacks.

DePape claimed in his October interview that Democrats, led by Pelosi, spied on former President Donald Trump in a way that was worse than Watergate, when then-President Richard Nixon was forced to resign after it was discovered his administration tried to cover up a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

“When Trump came into office, what they did went so far beyond spying on a rival campaign. It is just crazy,” DePape said in an audio recording of his interview with a San Francisco police officer in October.

Without evidence, DePape claimed that Democrats were on an “endless f**king crime spree” when it came to Trump.

“Not only were they spying on a rival campaign, they were submitting fake evidence to spy on a rival campaign, covering it up, persecuting the rival campaign,” DePape said of what he believed Democrats were doing to Trump.

DePape said that these actions originated with Hillary Clinton, who unsuccessfully ran against Trump in 2016, and that all Democrats are “criminals.” But he zeroed in on Pelosi as the one who “ran with the lying.”

DePape is facing both state and federal charges related to the attack. He has pleaded not guilty.

The video and audio were released by a court Friday, over the objections of DePape’s attorneys who argued it would “irreparably damage” his right to a fair trial. Media outlets, including CNN, pressed the court to release the information.

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Entertainment

‘Harry & Meghan’ is Netflix’s most watched documentary debut in its first week

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CNN
 — 

Netflix’s documentary about Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, debuted with a total of 81.55 million hours watched in its first week, the company said in a press release Tuesday. That’s the highest viewing time of any documentary to debut on the streaming service in its premiere week.

The series appeared in the Top 10 TV list in 85 countries and was No. 1 in the United Kingdom. It was one of the most watched series on Netflix

(NFLX) globally for that week, with the Addams Family drama “Wednesday” getting 1 billion views.

Part two of “Harry and Meghan” will be released on Netflix Thursday with a further three episodes focusing on their decision to leave the Royal Family.

In a trailer for the second part of the documentary, Prince Harry tells viewers, “they were happy to lie to protect my brother,” while his wife says “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves, I was being fed to the wolves.”

Prince Harry discusses “institutional gaslighting” in a new trailer for part two of their highly anticipated Netflix docuseries, which will have three episodes and will be available Thursday.

In the clip, released Monday, the Duke of Sussex discusses stepping back from royal duties and ponders what might have happened to the couple “had we not got out when we did.”

“Our security was being pulled. Everyone in the world knew where we were,” Meghan says.

In the first three episodes of the docuseries, which have already aired, the couple shared intimate details of their courtship, took aim at the “unconscious bias” inside the royal family, and criticized the media attention they’d been subjected to — particularly from Britain’s tabloid press.

In a Netflix web posting introducing the trailer for the second installment of the series, the company said, “Theirs is one of the most high-profile love stories in history, and even the most plugged-in fans and followers of their story have never heard it told like this before.”

Buckingham Palace said it would not be commenting on the docuseries when the first part released last Thursday.

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Entertainment

Adam Scott, Naomi Campbell, Aubrey Plaza among the celebrities honoring this year’s CNN Heroes

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CNN
 — 

Celebrities and musicians are coming together tonight to honor everyday people making the world a better place.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper and ABC’s Kelly Ripa will co-host the 16th Annual “CNN Heroes All-Star Tribute,” premiering live at 8 p.m. ET. They will be joined by more than a dozen celebrities, including supermodel and activist Naomi Campbell and actors Adam Scott of “Severance,” Aubrey Plaza of “The White Lotus” and Tenoch Huerta of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” who will serve as award presenters.

The 2022 CNN Hero of the Year will be revealed during the live broadcast, selected by CNN’s audience from this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes. All 10 honorees are awarded a $10,000 prize, and the Hero of the Year receives an additional $100,000 for their cause.

“We’re so deeply honored to be here,” said actress and singer Sofia Carson, who will be performing a song from award-winning songwriter Diane Warren at the event. “Diane wrote this incredible anthem ‘Applause’ for those leading, surviving and fighting and tonight we dedicate this song and performance to our heroes.”

Two teenagers who are making a difference in their communities will be honored as 2022 Young Wonders:

  • Sri Nihal Tammana, a 13-year-old from Edison, New Jersey, started “Recycle My Battery,” which keeps used batteries out of the ecosystem through a network of collection bins.

Here are three ways you can be a part of tonight’s CNN Heroes special:

Tune in to watch the two-hour televised event tonight at 8 p.m. ET on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español or on CNNgo, the online streaming platform available on Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TV and Android TV, and on CNN mobile apps.

CNN has partnered with GoFundMe to enable donations to this year’s Top 10 honorees. GoFundMe is the world’s largest fundraising platform that empowers people and charities to give and receive help. Supporters can make online donations to the Top 10 CNN Heroes’ non-profit organizations directly from CNNHeroes.com.

Do you know someone in your community doing amazing things to make the world a better place? Keep an eye on CNN.com/heroes and consider nominating that person as a CNN Hero in 2023. You can also read more about many of the 350 past CNN Heroes who have helped over 55 million people across all 50 US states and in more than 110 countries around the world.

This year, for the first time, CNN Heroes is collaborating with The Elevate Prize Foundation to provide additional prizes in the form of non-profit training, organizational support and grants to the 10 honorees. The CNN Hero of the Year will also be named an Elevate Prize winner and receive additional funding and ongoing support for their work.

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US

After 25 years of wrongful imprisonment, 2 Georgia men set free after newly uncovered evidence exonerates them of murder charges

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CNN
 — 

After spending 25 years in prison on murder convictions related to the 1996 shooting death of their friend, two Georgia men were exonerated this week, after new evidence uncovered in a true-crime podcast last year proved their innocence, their lawyers said.

Darrell Lee Clark and his co-defendant Cain Joshua Storey were 17 years old when they were arrested for their alleged involvement in the death of 15-year-old Brian Bowling.

He died from a gunshot wound to the head in his family’s mobile home on October 18, 1996, according to Clark’s lawyers, Christina Cribbs and Meagan Hurley, with the nonprofit Georgia Innocence Project.

Moments before the gun was fired, Bowling was on the phone with his girlfriend and told her he was playing a game of Russian roulette with a gun, which was brought to his home by Storey, who was in the room at the time of the shooting, according to a news release from the Georgia Innocence Project.

Storey was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but months later, police began investigating the death as a homicide, and interviewed two witnesses whose statements led authorities to tie Clark to Bowling’s death, the Georgia Innocence Project said.

“Despite the circumstances, which strongly indicated that Bowling accidentally shot himself in the head, at the urging of Bowling’s family members, police later began investigating the death as a homicide,” according to a motion filed by Clark’s attorneys, requesting a new trial.

The two teenagers were sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, following a weeklong trial in 1998.

Clark’s exoneration came a year and a half after investigative podcasters Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis began scrutinizing his case in their Proof true-crime podcast in 2021, and interviewed two of the state’s key witnesses.

Through their investigation, new evidence emerged which “shattered the state’s theory of Clark’s involvement” in Bowling’s death and the podcasters flagged his case to the Georgia Innocence Project, according to its news release.

The first witness, a woman who lived near Bowling’s home was interviewed by police, who claimed she alleged the teens confessed they had “planned the murder of Bowling because he knew too much about a prior theft Storey and Clark had committed,” according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

Based on her testimony, Storey was charged with murder and Clark was arrested as a co-conspirator despite having a corroborated alibi, stating he was home on the night of the shooting, which was supported by two witnesses, according to Clark’s motion for a new trial.

But the woman revealed in the podcast, police coerced her into giving false statements and threatened to take her children away from her if she failed to comply, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

Police claimed the other witness, a man who was in a different room of the Bowlings’ home at the time of the shooting, identified Clark from a photo lineup as the person he saw running through the yard on the night Bowling was shot, the news release said.

It was uncovered in the podcast the man’s testimony was based on an “unrelated, factually similar shooting” which he witnessed in 1976, and he never identified Clark as the individual in the yard, nor did he ever witness anyone in the yard on the night of the shooting, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

Davis told CNN in an interview when she and Simpson started their investigation, they weren’t expecting anything to come of it, but as they interviewed more people, it was “clear that it just wasn’t adding up.”

“It took us a long time to talk to both of those witnesses. The podcast was happening in almost real time as an investigation. When we finally found and were able to talk to those two witnesses, it really solidified that both of these guys had been wrongly convicted,” Davis said.

Clark’s attorneys filed pleadings in September to challenge a wrongful conviction and ask for a new trial, citing new information which proved his conviction was based on false evidence and coercion, Hurley told CNN.

Clark, now 43, was released from the Floyd County Jail Thursday after the Rome Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office and Floyd County Superior Court Judge John Neidrach agreed the conviction should be overturned and all underlying charges against him dismissed, after evidence in the case was reexamined.

Storey, who admitted to bringing the gun to Bowling’s home, was also released after accepting a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter, and a 10-year sentence with time served, after spending 25 years in prison. He was also exonerated of murder charges.

Storey told CNN in an interview he was afraid to go to sleep the first night after he was released in case he would wake up and “realize it was all a dream.”

“It’s been surreal to say the least,” he added. “I believe it’s going to be great. One step at a time. I never allowed my mind to get locked up all those years, anyhow.”

“You never think something like that is going to happen to you,” said Lee Clark in a statement released by the Georgia Innocence Project. “Never would I have thought I would spend more than half my life in prison, especially for something I didn’t do.”

Clark’s father, Glen Clark, told CNN in an interview, “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time. 25 years. My son was wrongly accused, and I knew it all these years. It’s hard for me to live with that.”

“I watched my son go into prison as a kid, I watched him go through prison, I watched him come out as a man. He became a man in prison,” he added.

Clark is living with his family in their home in Floyd County for the foreseeable future as he focuses on readjusting to life outside prison and rebuilding his life, he told CNN. Storey said he also moved back to Floyd County, with plans to go back to school and get a job.

Clark said Judge Neidrach apologized on behalf of the state of Georgia and Floyd County this week during the court hearing this week, which was an important step toward healing.

“That really touched my heart, because I had been living in corruption for so long, and it meant a lot to have someone acknowledge that wrong,” he told CNN.

The Georgia Innocence Project will work to support Clark during his transition and connect him to resources, and a personal fundraiser has been organized on the MightyCause platform, open to the public for donations to Clark and his family, Hurley said.

“It’s probably going to take some time to like truly process that he is free and doesn’t have to go back behind prison walls, because he spent most of his life behind them,” Hurley said.

“More than anything, he’s looking forward to getting to spend time with his family and rebuilding some of those relationships that he was, frankly, ripped away from at the age of 17,” she added.

The exonerations of both men were the culmination of a collaboration between Clark, Storey and his defense team, as well as the Bowling family, which was willing to take an “objective look at this case and reevaluate some of the things they have been told in the past,” Hurley said.

Davis was in the courtroom during Clark and Storey’s hearing this week and said she’s still “in shock” and feels a huge amount of relief for both men.

“In the end, I also feel for Brian Bowling’s family who have been incredibly gracious and supportive as well. It’s really rare when you have the victim’s family support the convictions being overturned,” Davis said.

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Entertainment

What we learned from Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary

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CNN
 — 

The first few episodes of the Duke and Duchess’ highly-anticipated Netflix documentary series aired on Thursday.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the first three parts:

The couple talked about how they first met on social media.

“Meg and I had met through Instagram. I was scrolling through my feed. Someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them with the like Snapchat thing … like dog ears.” Harry said: “I was like, who is that?”

Meghan said she looked through his feed, before the pair got each other’s numbers.

Harry turned up late to the pair’s first date in Soho, London, in July 2016.

Meghan said: “You were late and I couldn’t understand why he would be late. But he kept texting saying, ‘I’m in traffic, I’m so sorry.’”

Harry recalled: “I was panicking, I was freaking out. I started sweating.” Unaware of this, Meghan began to doubt that the date would go anywhere, thinking he might have an “ego.”

But when he eventually showed up he was profusely apologetic, which Meghan described as “so sweet,” adding: “You were genuinely so embarrassed.”

Meghan added: “He was just so fun. Just so refreshingly fun and that was the thing we were like childlike together.”

They arranged to meet again the following night.

“That’s when it hit me,” Harry said. “This girl, this woman, is amazing. She’s everything I’ve been looking for.”

The couple described how their relationship was cemented in Africa, when Meghan traveled to join Harry on a visit to Botswana in August 2016 – having only met him twice before.

“We had to get to know each other before the rest of the world and before the media joined in,” said Harry.

They spoke of living in close quarters with the bare minimum and how they were still so unsure of how the relationship would develop.

Harry spoke at length about the media’s ever present role in his family life, starting with footage taken outside the hospital following his birth.

Of the ongoing attention throughout his childhood, he said: “The majority of my memories are of being swamped by paparazzi.”

He recalled learning as a young child how to handle the attention, saying: “Within the family, within the system, the advice that’s always given is ‘don’t react. Don’t feed into it.’”

“My mum did such a good job in trying to protect us. She took it upon herself to basically confront these people.”

Footage of family ski holidays was included to highlight this. In one clip, Harry is seen alongside his brother Prince William and cousins Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie as they are made to pose for the crowd of photographers, in an unwritten agreement that would ultimately allow them privacy later in the holiday. But that was followed by another more intrusive clip which led to his mother confronting the photographer.

Harry brought up the now discredited 1995 Panorama interview with his mother, Princess Diana. While he acknowledged that she had been “deceived,” he said that she had spoken “the truth.”

He said: “My mother was harassed throughout her life with my dad but after they separated the harassment went to new levels.”

The “moment she left the institution” left her “completely exposed,” he said.

Growing up, he witnessed “pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution.” He added: “What happened to my mum … I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”

In a telling section on his experience of other royal marriages, Harry said: “I think for so many people in the family, especially the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mold, as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with.

“The difference between making decisions with your head or your heart. And my mum certainly made most of her decisions, if not all of them, from her heart. And I am my mother’s son.”

Harry spoke about ways Meghan is similar to his mother, Diana, who died when he was 12 years old.

“So much of what Meghan is and how she is is so similar to my mum. She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence, she has this warmth about her,” said Harry.

“I accept that there will be people around the world who fundamentally disagree with what I’ve done and how I’ve done it. But I knew that I had to do everything I could to protect my family, especially after what happened to my mum.”

In her first extensive public comments, Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland spoke about her first time meeting Harry, as well as her fears for her safety and regrets as a parent. She also described the last five years as “challenging.”

“He was 6’1”, a handsome man with red hair, really great manners. He was just really nice. And they looked really happy together. Yeah, like he was the one,” she said.

Describing the early years of her daughter’s childhood, Ragland – who is African American – recalled repeatedly being asked if she was the nanny as her daughter’s skin was lighter.

Her mother said: “As a parent, in hindsight I would absolutely like to go back and have that very real conversation about how the world sees you.”

When Meghan began to face negative media attention, Ragland recalled telling her daughter “this is about race,” with Meghan replying: “Mommy, I don’t want to hear that.”

After news of their relationship broke, Meghan recalled how quickly she became the focus of photographers and the media.

The royal family regarded such intrusion almost as a workplace hazard, according to Harry.

“As far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well,” Harry said.

“So it was almost like a rite of passage. Some of the members of the family were like ‘right, but my wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?’ I said the difference here is the race element.”

Meghan recalled meeting Prince William and his wife Catherine over dinner.

Oblivious to royal protocol, she said she was “barefoot” and wearing ripped jeans at the time. She described herself as a “hugger,” but said that this can be “jarring” for some British people.

“I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside,” she said. “That formality carries over on both sides, and that was surprising to me.”

Harry said that his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, was the first senior member of the royal family to meet Meghan.

Meghan recalled being told that she would have to curtsy, while Harry said: “How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you all need to curtsy. Especially to an American. That’s weird.”

He went on to say that members of his family were “incredibly impressed,” though were uncertain about the difference in their backgrounds and thought that her being a Hollywood actress meant “this won’t last.”

“The actress thing was the biggest problem, funnily enough,” said Meghan. “There was a big idea of what that looks like from the UK standpoint. Hollywood – it was very easy for them to typecast that.”

In contrast to Meghan’s experiences growing up mixed race, Harry said that there was a “huge level” of unconscious bias in the royal family.

“The thing with unconscious bias is actually no one’s fault, but once it’s been pointed out or identified within yourself, you then need to make it right,” he said.

Harry even addressed the time when he wore a Nazi uniform to a private party in 2005, saying it was one of the “biggest mistakes” of his life, adding that he felt “so ashamed afterwards.”

The duchess discussed her estrangement from her father following a controversy over whether he staged a series of paparazzi style photographs in the lead up to their 2018 wedding.

Harry described the situation with his father-in-law as “incredibly sad.”

“I shouldered that because if Meg wasn’t with me then her dad would still be her dad,” he said.

Meghan opened up about her half-sister Samantha Markle, who she said she hadn’t seen since her early twenties but who frequently spoke of her in the media.

Meghan said: “I don’t know your middle name. I don’t know your birthday. You’re telling these people that you raised me, and you’ve coined me ‘Princess Pushy.’”

Also interviewed on the show was Ashleigh Hale, Samantha Markle’s estranged daughter who Meghan remains close with.

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Entertainment

Harry and Meghan accept award in New York ahead release of Netflix series

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CNN
 — 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have said “we know a ripple of hope can turn into a wave of change” after they were honored in New York for their work on racial justice and mental health.

Prince Harry and Meghan were in the Big Apple to receive the 2022 Ripple of Hope award on Tuesday night from the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization (RFKHR).

The award honors “exemplary leaders across government, business, advocacy, and entertainment who have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to social change and worked to advance equity, justice, and human rights,” according to organizers.

The couple paused briefly on the blue carpet to pose for photographers before making their way into the event. They did not stop to talk to the media or respond to questions from reporters about their upcoming Netflix docu-series, which is due to release on the streaming platform Thursday.

During the gala event, the Sussexes announced a new collaboration between their own non-profit organization and the RFKHR.

“We are honored to receive the RFK Ripple of Hope Award this year, and to partner with the Kennedy family in the creation of The Archewell Foundation Award for Gender Equity in Student Film,” the pair said in a statement. “Our hope with this award is to inspire a new generation of leadership in the arts, where diverse up and coming talent have a platform to have their voices heard and their stories told.

“The values of RFK Foundation and The Archewell Foundation are aligned in our shared belief of courage over fear, and love over hate. Together we know that a ripple of hope can turn into a wave of change,” they added.

RFKHR President Kerry Kennedy said the organization chose to honor the pair because it was “proud of their work on racial justice and mental health parity and awareness” and for “showing up when people really need them.”

She added: “If you look over the last two years, hospitals, universities, governments, even Hollywood have all grappled with racial justice issues, with gender, with sexual minorities, etc … And I think it’s really great that they’ve gotten us to start talking and normalizing this discussion.”

Later during the gala, Prince Harry joked with the crowd during an onstage Q&A about how he thought the couple had left their kids at home for a “date night.”

“To be honest with you, Kerry, I actually thought we were just going on date night. So I found it quite weird that we’re sharing the room with 1,500 people,” the duke quipped in a short clip provided by the gala’s organizers.

“We don’t get out much because our kids are so small and young, so this is completely unexpected,” he added. “But it’s nice to share date night with all of you.”

As the audience laughed, Meghan chimed in: “Thank you for bringing me on this very special date night.”

Hosted by actor Alec Baldwin, the annual gala also recognized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; Frank Baker, co-founder and managing partner of private equity firm Siris; Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan; and Michael Polsky, founder and chief executive of Invenergy. NBA legend and civil rights activist Bill Russell was also posthumously honored.

Sign up for CNN’s Royal News, a weekly dispatch bringing you the inside track on the royal family, what they are up to in public and what’s happening behind palace walls.

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Entertainment

Tosca Musk, Elon’s sister, has a business venture of her own — and it’s all about romance and female sexuality

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Atlanta, Georgia
CNN
 — 

Tosca Musk strides onto the red carpet at a Regal Cinemas, statuesque in a white pant suit and glistening burgundy silk top.

A hush comes over a group gathered outside the theater’s doors. Some whip out cell phones and start recording her every move.

It’s a chilly October night in Atlanta, and the fans are here for the premiere of “Torn,” the second in a trilogy of romantic fantasy movies based on books by author Jennifer Armentrout. The group of mostly female fans range in age from their twenties to their seventies, and some flew in from Boston, Detroit and other cities.

This is a big night for Musk and her five-year-old streaming service Passionflix, the backer of the movie. It’s their first public film premiere since the pandemic started.

She floats from one group to another, chatting effortlessly with Passionflix’s superfans, known as Passionistas. Her older brother, Elon Musk, may be the most famous sibling in the family, but he’s not the only one who’s founded a company.

Musk, 48, is the force behind Passionflix, which adapts romance novels into movies and streams them to a devoted niche audience. Romance novels are the most popular genre of books in the United States, and Musk is tapping into that market with stories about sultry, powerful female leads and handsome men with chiseled abs. She directs some of the films herself.

“Passionflix focuses on adapting romance novels exactly as the fan and the author envision it,” Musk says in a separate CNN interview. “We focus on connection, communication and compromise – and remove the shame from sexuality, specifically for women, because it empowers women to both acknowledge and ask for pleasure.”

Days earlier, on the set of a Passionflix movie, “The Secret Life of Amy Bensen,” Musk provides a few glimpses into life with her famous family.

Perched on a navy blue couch in a room tucked inside a warehouse in suburban Atlanta, she chooses her words carefully when asked about her older brother, who was on the verge of his Twitter acquisition.

The Musk children – Elon, Tosca and another brother, middle child Kimbal – were born in South Africa and spent time in Canada before coming to the United States. Their father, Errol, is an engineer and property developer, while their glamorous mother, Maye, is a model.

Tosca Musk attended film school at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and moved to California after graduation. For three months, she worked for one of Elon Musk’s companies, Zip2.

“I realized every time I stepped out of the film world, I was just not happy,” she says. “It just wasn’t my thing.”

After a brief stint at the Los Angeles office of Canadian media company Alliance Atlantis, she began directing and producing films while still in her twenties.

Musk produced romance films for the Lifetime and Hallmark channels and in 2005 launched a comic web series, Tiki Bar TV, which was hailed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as ahead of its time in the emerging field of vodcasts – or video podcasting.

Then came Passionflix. Its origin story is a classic tale of when one door closes, another one opens.

About five years ago, Musk got an email from a woman who wanted her to turn her script into a movie. Musk loved the script, but there wasn’t much interest from production companies.

“People weren’t really that interested because it was too risque … It was an adult movie with a little bit of reincarnation, things like that,” she says. “It just wasn’t one of those things that regular network television wanted to do.”

But Musk met the woman, Joany Kane, in Los Angeles, and they bonded over their shared passion for romance novels. During that conversation, Kane brought up the idea of turning romance novels into movies and creating a streaming platform for them.

And with that, Passionflix was born – with Musk at the helm and Kane as a co-founder.

“We had no investors. We had to go out and find every investor. So it was a matter of going out and pitching every single person,” Musk says. “We pitched every friend, every family member, everybody just for that small bit of angel investment. It was hard. The first money in is always the hardest money.”

Musk declines to say whether her brother Elon was one of her original investors. But she says she can always count on her two brothers, including restaurateur Kimbal Musk, to give her advice on her business ventures. She tries not to ask unless she really needs to.

“I get advice from them to a certain degree when I ask for it. But no unsolicited advice,” she says. “If I ask for advice, I have no doubt that he (Elon) will give it to me. And then I have to take it, because he’s going to be right. So you have to really want to know what you want to ask. But most of the time when I’m with my family, we talk about family things.”

So what does she think about her brother’s new role as CEO of Twitter – and the flurry of headlines surrounding it?

No comment.

Passionflix’s first film was “Hollywood Dirt,” based on a best-selling novel by Alessandra Torre about a Southern woman who finds romance with a Hollywood star when he comes to her small town to film a movie.

“During that shooting of that movie, we were struggling,” Musk says. “Are we going to get money? Are we going to be able to finish it? We were not really sure. We basically were just sort of piecing the dollars together.”

In May 2017, Musk played a trailer of the movie at a romance novel convention and asked attendees to prepay $100, as founding members, for a two-year Passionflix subscription. About 4,000 people signed up, Musk says, and she and Kane used that to show potential investors they were onto something.

“Trying to raise money for a female-driven platform on romance was just not high on anybody’s priority list at the time,” she says. “But as soon as we showed there was that many people that would come on board, the investors just started flying in.”

Passionflix has since produced more than two dozen feature-length and short films, according to the Internet Movie Database.

The company remains lean – it has a core team of seven people who each wear a lot of hats. In addition to producing its own content, Passionflix also licenses films for its platform.

“I think the biggest challenge for Passionflix is we can’t produce enough content to satiate the fans,” Musk says. “It’s a struggle with so many streaming platforms, when people want original content all the time.”

With more than 200 streaming services now competing for viewers, such niche markets face a myriad of challenges, says Dan Rayburn, a streaming media expert and consultant.

Creating, licensing and marketing content is very costly, he said. And while romance is the biggest-selling genre of books in the US, that doesn’t necessarily mean its popularity translates to movies.

“That’s comparing apples to oranges. Books are different,” Rayburn says. “This business is beyond tough. It’s highly competitive and requires an absolute large sum of money.”

Passionflix charges a subscription fee of $5.99 a month. The company does not disclose its subscriber numbers. Musk says subscribers are in the “six figures,” but declines to offer specifics.

Rayburn says it’s hard to determine the company’s profitability without knowing its expenses, including production and licensing costs.

“OK, if you don’t have subscriber numbers, what’s the usage? How many hours per month do people watch it? How much are you spending on content licensing?”

A deep dive into Passionflix’s online movie catalog reveals a mix of contemporary romance, fantasy romance, paranormal romance, erotic fan fiction and related sub-genres.

The films, which stream on the Passionflix site and on Amazon Prime Video, are rated on an escalating steaminess scale Musk calls a “barometer of naughtiness.”

The five categories: Oh So Vanilla, for wholesome romcoms; Mildly Titillating; Passion and Romance; Toe Curling Yumminess; and NSFW (Not Safe for Work). The latter category has risque plot lines and more sex – think “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

But Musk says that even the naughtiest Passionflix movies don’t reach the soft-core porn threshold.

“When we first started Passionflix, somebody asked us if we’re going to rate using MPAA,” she says, referring to the Motion Picture Association of America’s movie ratings such as PG-13, R, etc. “I don’t actually like any of those ratings. They’re not specific to women. I wanted something that could rate our shows and create more of a tongue-in-cheek conversation.”

Musk says she’s a romantic at heart and is a big fan of the genre.

“Love is amazing, it’s incredibly powerful. I love to tell stories of love, all kinds of love,” she says. “So parental love, friend love, family love, and love between any kind of couple.”

That broad range of romantic genres, and its sexy content, are what sets Passionflix apart from channels such as Hallmark and Lifetime Movie Network, says romance novelist Tamara Lush. She believes the romance genre has been especially popular during the pandemic because people seek comfort in stories with happy-ever-after endings.

“Hallmark is romance-centered but the stories are very, very sweet. Passionflix tells a wider range of stories, and the ones romance readers want to watch,” Lush says.

“The popularity of ‘Bridgerton,’ ‘After’ and ’365 Days’ on Netflix should tell streaming services all they need to know: that romance is a lucrative and sure bet for viewers.”

Passionflix’s original subscribers, known as founding members, get access to movie premieres and filming sets.

Last month in Atlanta, about four dozen of them piled into the Regal theater for the premiere of “Torn.” Following the movie, Musk hosted a question-and-answer session with the lead actors, followed by an after-party at a bar across the street. Fans and actors mingled over drinks.

Debbie Parziale, 67, says she flew in from Boston for the event. One of the founding members, she says she spent the pandemic years curled up on her couch, watching Passionflix movies.

“I love Tosca’s premise of empowering women and making sex not such a taboo subject,” she says. “She’s so true to the romance novels. When you read a book and watch one of her movies, it’s the book you read.”

Amanda Cromer, 32, says she signed up for Passionflix at a romance book convention. She loves the camaraderie that comes with being part of the Passionistas. The group has a virtual book club, called Passion Squad.

As one of the original members, Cromer can visit sets and interact with the actors. Cromer, who lives in a suburb of Atlanta, says that during a visit to the set of “Torn” she became an extra in a cafe scene.

“I love the empowerment the movies bring,” says Cromer, who attended last month’s “Torn” premiere with her mother.

“They choose books with strong female leads. They’ve done such a good job of portraying the female persona as a strong independent female, and not a timid person.”

Back on the set of her latest romance movie, Tosca Musk moves from one sparsely furnished room to another.

Musk lives in suburban Atlanta with her two children, 9-year-old twins who were conceived through in vitro fertilization using an anonymous sperm donor.

She’s getting ready to fly to Italy with the twins to film “Gabriel’s Redemption,” the third book in a series by Sylvain Reynard about a Dante scholar and his passionate affair with a younger graduate student. She says they plan to enjoy lots of gelato in Florence and visit Oxford, England, so the kids can see some of the locations where the Harry Potter movies were filmed.

As a single mother, Musk says she marvels at the path that led her to a job she loves.

She hopes Passionflix will help convince the film industry’s big names that adopting romance novels into movies is a worthy investment.

“The entertainment world is controlled mostly by men. At the end of the day, the decisions tend to sway toward the male audience as opposed to the female audience,” she says. “They also tend to be more about the victimization of women than they are about sexually free or sexually empowered stories about women.”

And for Musk, there’s also a simpler reason for her filmmaking ventures.

“I’m a storyteller at heart,” she says. “I just want to be able to tell stories.”

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Business

Disney plans to freeze hiring and cut jobs, memo shows

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Disney

(DIS) is planning to freeze hiring and cut some jobs as it strives to move the Disney

(DIS)+ streaming service to profitability against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Friday.

Chief Executive Bob Chapek sent the memo to Disney’s leaders, saying the company is instituting a targeted hiring freeze and anticipates “some small staff reductions” as it looks to manage costs.

“While certain macroeconomic factors are out of our control, meeting these goals requires all of us to continue doing our part to manage the things we can control – most notably, our costs,” Chapek wrote in the memo.

The move came after Disney missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly earnings on Tuesday as the entertainment giant racked up more losses from its push into streaming video, which it refers to as its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business. Shares of the company fell more than 13% on Wednesday following its results.

Disney has said the fast-growing service added 12 million subscribers in its fiscal fourth quarter but reported an operating loss of nearly $1.5 billion. The company said Disney+ would become profitable in fiscal 2024, with losses having peaked in the quarter.

The streaming service is known for original series including the “Star Wars” entries “The Mandalorian,” “Andor” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the Marvel entries “WandaVision,” “Hawkeye” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” and content hubs for Disney, Pixar, Marvel and “Star Wars” films.

Wall Street analysts voiced concern about Disney’s escalating streaming costs. MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson observed in a note this week that “the company has to prove that their pivot to DTC will be worth the investment price that is currently being paid.”

Corporate America is making deep cuts to its employee base to brace for an economic downturn. Meta said this week it would cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce to rein in costs.

One of Disney’s studio peers, Warner Bros Discovery, has undergone dramatic cost-cutting efforts, including layoffs, as the recently merged company restructures its content operations.

Chapek said Disney has established a task force, including Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy and General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez, to help him make “critical big picture decisions.”

The company already has begun looking at content and marketing spending, but Chapek said the cuts would not sacrifice quality. Hiring will be limited to a small subset of critical positions, and some staff reductions are anticipated as the company looks to make itself more cost-efficient, Chapek wrote.

Chapek said business travel would be limited and trips would require advance approval, or conducted virtually as much as possible.

“Our transformation is designed to ensure we thrive not just today, but well into the future,” Chapek wrote.

The memo was first reported by CNBC.

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Entertainment

Dave Chappelle on ‘SNL’: A timeline of the controversy around his transgender jokes

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CNN
 — 

Tonight Dave Chappelle will host “Saturday Night Live” for the third time – an appearance that is courting controversy before he even takes the stage.

The comedian has drawn increasing ire in recent years for making jokes aimed at transgender people, and the outcry grew louder last fall when Netflix released a Chappelle special, “The Closer,” in which he doubled down on his comments.

Netflix stood by Chappelle, who went on a national tour after the special and largely ignored the controversy after addressing it in his act.

But his comments were criticized by fellow comics, fans, trans advocates and some Netflix employees, and a Minnesota venue canceled a Chappelle show this year over the controversy.

Given that context, it was surprising to some “SNL” viewers to see him invited back to Studio 8H. Here’s a look at Chappelle’s recent history of jokes about trans people – and the resulting backlash.

August: In a series of stand-up shows at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, Chappelle made jokes aimed at trans people for at least 20 minutes, Vulture reported. He made explicit jokes about trans people’s bodies and referred to trans people as “transgenders,” among other comments, Vulture said.

These weren’t the first jokes Chappelle had made at trans people’s expense. But he delivered them in New York after drawing some backlash for earlier comments.

“That joke and others in this section suffer from the same problems as those from his specials – they are rooted in disgust and generalization,” Vulture wrote of a Chappelle joke about ISIS fighters being horrified by transgender soldiers. “They’re just not good.”

August 26: Netflix released a stand-up special, “Sticks and Stones,” in which Chappelle performed more material about trans people, including some content from his Radio City shows. In an epilogue to the special, he brought up his friend Daphne Dorman, a trans comedian, whom he said laughed hardest at his jokes about trans people.

October 5: Netflix released Chappelle’s special “The Closer.” In it, he goes on an extended tangent about transgender people and makes several jokes at their expense. He misgenders a trans comedian, once again makes explicit jokes about trans women’s bodies and defends TERFs, or trans-exclusionary radical feminists.

He also referred to trans people as “transgenders,” states that “gender is a fact” and later says that Dorman died by suicide shortly after she was criticized by other trans people for defending Chappelle after “Sticks and Stones.”

At the time Chappelle’s special was released, at least 33 states had introduced anti-transgender legislation, much of it aimed at young trans people.

October 13: Amid calls from LGBTQ advocates, fellow comedians, Netflix employees and social justice organizations to pull the special, Netflix stood by Chappelle.

In a letter obtained by the Verge and Variety, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos told employees that the special will remain available to stream.

“We don’t allow titles on Netflix that are designed to incite hate or violence, and we don’t believe ‘The Closer’ crosses that line … Some people find the art of stand-up to be mean spirited but our members enjoy it, and it’s an important part of our content offering,” Sarandos wrote.

Netflix suspended three employees for attending a virtual meeting of directors to discuss the special without notifying the meeting organizer in advance. Among them was Terra Field, a trans senior software engineer who had publicly criticized the special and Netflix. Her suspension was later reversed.

October 19: Sarandos told Variety he “screwed up” his communications with Netflix employees but reaffirmed he did not believe the special qualifies as “hate speech.”

October 20: Around 65 demonstrators, including Netflix employees and trans advocates, participated in a walkout in protest of Netflix’s support of “The Closer.” The demonstrators called on Netflix to hire more trans and non-binary executives and fund more trans and non-binary talent.

October 24: Three trans stand-up comics told CNN they were disappointed by Chappelle’s jokes, even though all three said they once considered the celebrated performer as a comedy inspiration. While all of them agreed that jokes about trans people aren’t inherently offensive, they said Chappelle’s set was infused with the same hateful rhetoric and language used by anti-transgender critics.

“When he talks about the trans community, he’s not talking about them, he’s speaking out against them,” comedian Nat Puff told CNN. “And that’s the difference between saying something funny about the trans community and saying something offensive about the trans community.”

A fourth comic, Flame Monroe, one of the only trans comics whose material is streaming on Netflix, told CNN she believes Chappelle should be allowed to joke about trans people, even though she initially was taken aback by some of his comments.

October 25: Chappelle addressed critics at a show in Nashville, appearing alongside Joe Rogan, the podcast host who’s been criticized for dismissing the effectiveness of vaccines and using racial slurs, among other controversies.

Chappelle released videos on his official Instagram account from the set, in which he seemingly addressed the trans employees at Netflix who participated in the walkout over “The Closer.”

“It seems like I’m the only one who can’t go to the office anymore,” he said.

“I want everyone in this audience to know that even though the media frames it as though it’s me versus that community, that’s not what it is,” Chappelle went on. “Do not blame the LBGTQ (sic) community for any of this s—. This has nothing to do with them. It’s about corporate interest and what I can say and what I cannot say.”

“For the record – and I need you to know this – everyone I know from that community has been nothing but loving and supportive. So I don’t know what all this nonsense is about.”

July 12: “The Closer” was nominated for two Emmys, including “outstanding variety special (pre-recorded).” Adele later won the category.

July 21: A Minneapolis venue canceled Chappelle’s sold-out show hours before its doors were set to open, apologizing to “staff, artists and our community” after receiving criticism for hosting Chappelle.

“We believe in diverse voices and the freedom of artistic expression, but in honoring that, we lost sight of the impact this would have,” wrote First Avenue, the venue famous for being featured in Prince’s “Purple Rain” film.

November 5: “Saturday Night Live” announced Chappelle would be its post-midterms host. The backlash was swift.

Field joked on Twitter: “Wait I thought I cancelled (sic) him. Is it possible cancel culture isn’t a real thing??”

November 10: After the New York Post reported that several “SNL” writers are boycotting Saturday’s episode, Chappelle’s representatives told CNN there are no issues with writers or cast members. “SNL’s” current staff includes nonbinary cast member Molly Kearney and nonbinary writer Celeste Yim.

Chappelle will take the stage live Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET.



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Technology

Spotify is going to war with Apple after the App Store rejected its big new feature

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New York
CNN Business
 — 

Spotify is looking to give Apple a good bruising in the press.

The music streamer is taking its grievances with the Silicon Valley goliath public, openly lashing out at the company over a dispute that centers on the 30% App Store fee Apple charges for in-app digital services transactions.

“We are talking about this because it is reflective of Apple’s anti-competitive practices across the board,” Harry Clarke, associate general counsel and Spotify’s lead competition lawyer, told CNN in an interview Tuesday.

Here’s the backstory: Spotify

(SPOT) simply refuses to fork over the whopping 30% cut of its business to Apple. That means that the company cannot sell audiobooks, a business it is trying to break into, inside its iOS app. Spotify

(SPOT), instead, came up with three workarounds, which it believed were consistent with Apple’s policies. But they were all ultimately rejected after undergoing reviews for the App Store, forcing the company to essentially abandon offering its customers an avenue for audiobook purchases in its iOS app.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

The effect is clear to would-be book buyers. iOS users who scroll through Spotify’s audiobooks library and tap on a selection are greeted with a message: “Want to listen? You can’t buy audiobooks in the app. We know it’s not ideal.” (Apple, of course, also sells audiobooks via its pre-installed Apple Books.)

While Spotify has no real recourse to compel Apple to accept its app featuring its audiobooks workaround, it is using the skirmish to assail Apple in the media and focus attention on the company’s 30% in-app tax, which has long been criticized by the streamer and others. In recent days, Spotify has issued a blistering press release and participated in a lengthy story about the matter with The New York Times.

“We think it is critical that users, policymakers, and competition authorities really understand what is happening,” Clarke explained when asked about why Spotify is creating so much noise around the issue. “Because we have found that once they do understand what is happening, there is almost unanimous agreement that it is unfair.”

Clarke said it is important for the company to raise the issue in the press because Spotify users might not understand why the audiobooks experience in the iOS app is so cumbersome. “One of the challenges of Apple’s rules is that they effectively put a gag order on us to talk about this in the app,” Clarke said, adding that many users “aren’t aware” of the back-and-forth the company has had with Apple.

Apple, for its part, is not directly addressing Spotify’s PR campaign against it. The company referred CNN to a general statement about the dispute, in which it said that it had “no issue with reader apps adding audiobook content,” but that Spotify’s workaround — its in-app purchase method — broke its rules.

Spotify’s public war on Apple is part of a larger trend lately, with other Big Tech companies taking aim at the iPhone maker. Mark Zuckerberg recently took a shot at Apple’s iMessage security features, arguing that his WhatsApp is more secure. And Google has been hammering Apple for refusing to play ball with Android on texting.

And it’s unlikely these types of pressure campaigns will fizzle out anytime soon. Spotify said that it plans to continue to publicly pressure Apple on the matter. “We are going to continue to amplify this issue,” Clarke said, “to help people understand the negative impact Apple’s policies are having.”

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