The Associated Press and PBS ‘Frontline’ won their first-ever Oscars for a film about Ukraine. The Los Angeles Times also won its first Oscar. Email not displaying correctly?
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** OPINION
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** Journalism was a major winner at this year’s Academy Awards
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Mstyslav Chernov accepts the award for Best Documentary for "20 Days in Mariupol" during the Oscars on Sunday. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

“Oppenheimer” was the big winner at Sunday night’s Academy Awards, but it also turned out to be a historic night for one of the world’s most revered news organizations.

The Associated Press, which was around some 83 years before the first Academy Award ceremony in 1929, won its first Oscar on Sunday night.

The AP and PBS’s “Frontline” won an Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film “20 Days in Mariupol.” ([link removed]) Mstyslav Chernov, an AP video journalist, gave a first-person account of the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In his acceptance speech, an emotional Chernov said, “This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history, and I’m honored. Probably I will be the first director on this stage to say I wish I’d never made this film, I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine.”

The Associated Press’ Lindsey Bahr and Christopher Weber wrote ([link removed]) , “Chernov, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and producer Vasilisa Stepanenko arrived an hour before Russia began bombing the port city. Two weeks later, they were the last journalists working for an international outlet in the city, sending crucial dispatches to the outside world showing civilian casualties of all ages, the digging of mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital and the sheer extent of the devastation.”

In his speech, Chernov then spoke about Russia, saying, “I wish for them to release all the hostages, all the soldiers who are protecting their land, all the civilians who are in their jails.”

Chernov added, “We can make sure that the history record is set straight and the truth will prevail, and that the people of Mariupol, and those who have given their lives, will never be forgotten. Because cinema forms memories and memories form history.”

He ended his speech by saying, “Slava Ukraini,” which means “Glory to Ukraine.”

It was the first Oscar nomination ever for The Associated Press. It was “Frontline’s” third nomination and first win.

AP executive editor Julie Pace tweeted ([link removed]) , “Massively proud of the brave and brilliant @AP journalists that brought the story of Mariupol to the world, and our partners at @frontlinepbs.”


** That’s not all …
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The Los Angeles Times won an Oscar on Sunday, too. “The Last Repair Shop” ([link removed]) — directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers and co-distributed by LA Times Studios and Searchlight — won for Best Documentary Short Film.

The Los Angeles Times’ Josh Rottenberg wrote ([link removed]) , “A moving love letter to Los Angeles itself, ‘The Last Repair Shop’ centers on four unsung master craftspeople who service musical instruments for Los Angeles Unified School District students. Working in the largest remaining workshop of its kind in America, the four help oversee the maintenance of some 80,000 instruments, ensuring that the city’s schoolchildren have playable instruments in their hands every day.”


** Make the Oscars great again
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Incredibly, the Oscars broadcast finished ahead of schedule. Typically, East Coast viewers struggle to stay awake well past midnight to get to some of the biggest awards of the night, including Best Picture. But with an earlier 7 p.m. Eastern starting time, the show wrapped up before 10:30 p.m.

Host Jimmy Kimmel, who seems to have this difficult hosting gig down very well, found a way to kill a little extra time at the end. On stage, he pulled out his phone and read a review of his performance that was posted online. The review was savage, asking if there has ever been a worse host. The post went on, criticizing not only Kimmel, but the show itself, calling it “Disjointed, boring and very unfair.”

Then Kimmel got to the end, and read, “Make America great again.”

The crowd full of celebrities erupted in laughter, knowing the bad review came from Donald Trump.

Kimmel then said, “See if you can guess which former president just posted that? Anyone? No? Well, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching, I’m surprised you’re still — isn’t it past your jail time?”

As The Hollywood Reporter’s Kevin Dolak noted ([link removed]) , Kimmel went on the aftershow with Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos and said he was told to not read the Trump post, which came from Truth Social.

Kimmel said, “They’re like, ‘You’ve got a little bit of time’ and I was like, ‘I’m reading the Trump tweet,’ and they’re like, ‘No, no, don’t read that.’ (I was like), ‘Yes I am.’”


** Oscar leftovers
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Host Jimmy Kimmel speaks during the Oscars on Sunday. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Some notable pieces from Sunday’s Oscars worth your time …
* The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis and Alissa Wilkinson with “Torn Between Golden Past and Thorny Present, Oscars Still Had Some Fun.” ([link removed])
* From The New York Times staff: “Best and Worst Moments From the 2024 Oscars.” ([link removed])
* Washington Post chief film critic Ann Hornaday with “Emma Stone’s upset win was for acting at its purest.” ([link removed])
* The Los Angeles Times’ Matt Brennan and Jessica Gelt with “The top 5 takeaways from the 2024 Oscars, according to those who were there.” ([link removed])
* The Hollywood Reporter’s Christy Piña with “Oscars: Eight Things the TV Cameras Missed.” ([link removed])
* The Ringer’s Daniel Joyaux with “The Oscars to Viewers Everywhere: ‘We Are So Back.’” ([link removed])
* The Los Angeles Times’ Alexandra Del Rosario with “John Cena’s nude gag was among the Oscars’ best bits. How he avoided exposing his own.” ([link removed]) (Includes photos by the Times’ Robert Gauthier.)


** Royally controversial
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This Kate Middleton photo story took another odd twist Monday. As I mentioned in Monday’s newsletter ([link removed]) , Kensington Palace released a photo ([link removed]) of Kate, the Princess of Wales, with her three children. It was a big deal because she hadn’t been seen in public since having abdominal surgery two months ago. In fact, she hadn’t been seen in public since Christmas, which has the media and royal followers offering wild speculation about her well-being.

But shortly after the photo came out Sunday, several news outlets, including The Associated Press and Reuters, pulled the photo because they said it had been manipulated. So then Monday, a full day later, Kate posted on social media ([link removed]) that she was the one who edited the photo.

Kate wrote, “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day.”

The story seems unbelievable. Like literally unbelievable, as in it’s hard to believe Kate is photoshopping over tea and crumpets — even though she reportedly does have an interest in photography.

Still, this latest explanation raises even more questions about what’s going on.

And just a quick update. Shortly after Kate sent out her apologies for doctoring the photo, she and her husband, Prince William, were seen in the backseat of a car leaving Windsor Castle. The Daily Mail, which published the photo, reported the couple was headed to a “private appointment.”

In the end, you might ask, “What’s the big deal?” Besides being about the royal family, a constant source of interest for many, there actually is a journalism ethics side to this.

Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton explains it well ([link removed]) : “Of course, the British royal family is not bound by the strictures of high-end photojournalism. But when they distributed that snapshot through wire services, they exposed it to a journalistic standard which prohibits the sort of manipulation that might be okay in other contexts.”

And The New York Times’ Mark Landler added ([link removed]) , “Now the British royal family faces a storm of questions about how it communicates with the press and public, whether (Kate) manipulated other family photos she released in previous years, and whether she felt driven to retouch this photo to disguise the impact of her illness.”


** More Britt fallout
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Just when you thought Sen. Katie Britt’s disastrous State of the Union speech couldn’t get any worse, it does.

First, the Alabama Republican was widely mocked for her overly dramatic speech that drew comparisons to a bad acting class. Then it got worse. Journalist Jonathan Katz noted ([link removed]) how a major anecdote in Britt’s speech was “beyond misleading.” Britt tried to tie the story of a woman who was sex trafficked years ago to Joe Biden’s stance on the border. Katz found that the story Britt told was about someone who went through her horrific ordeal outside of the U.S. and during George W. Bush’s time as president.

Now that woman — Karla Jacinto — tells CNN ([link removed]) that it bothers her when her story is used for political purposes. Jacinto is open about sharing her story and has testified before Congress. But she doesn’t want her story to be used to push a political agenda — something she felt Britt did in her speech last Thursday. Britt met Jacinto at a roundtable discussion early in 2023.

Jacinto told CNN, “I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image. They only want a photo — and that to me is not fair.”

Jacinto added, “I work as a spokesperson for many victims who have no voice, and I really would like them to be empathetic: all the governors, all the senators, to be empathetic with the issue of human trafficking because there are millions of girls and boys who disappear all the time. People who are really trafficked and abused, as she (Britt) mentioned. And I think she (Britt) should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude.”


** Deadspin’s spiral continues
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Let’s face it, Deadspin hasn’t really been Deadspin for a long time. The irreverent sports/pop culture website has gone through several iterations over the years and, these days, it’s just a shadow of what it used to be.

Now it’s not even that.

In news on Monday that should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, Deadspin’s owner, G/O Media, announced it sold Deadspin to European firm Lineup Publishing, a new digital media company. But the news came with a bad aftertaste: Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive of G/O Media, told staff in a note, “Deadspin’s new owners have made the decision to not carry over any of the site’s existing staff and instead build a new team more in line with their editorial vision for the brand.”

He added the new owners want to “take a different content approach regarding the site’s overall sports coverage.”

CNN’s Liam Reilly reported ([link removed]) 11 Deadspin staffers were impacted by the move.

In his note, Spanfeller said G/O Media was not “actively shopping Deadspin,” but that Lineup approached him. He added, “The rationale behind the decision to sell included a variety of important factors that include the buyer's editorial plans for the brand, tough competition in the sports journalism sector, and a valuation that reflected a sizable premium from our original purchase price for the site.”

The Big Lead’s Kyle Koster wrote ([link removed]) , “It's hard to even imagine what the next version of the long-running sports and pop culture site will look like. There isn't exactly a glut of information about its new ownership floating around online, so time will tell. There are a bunch of people who already didn't recognize this version of Deadspin as sharing any DNA with the old but this news does feel like the true end of some of those echos.”

The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona has some extra details ([link removed]) about all Deadspin has gone through over the years.


** Bad analogy
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Sports broadcaster Shannon Sharpe, shown here in 2022. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

OK, pet peeve time for me.

Let me start with Shannon Sharpe, the former NFL star who is now regularly seen on ESPN’s “First Take” after debating Skip Bayless for years on FS1.

Appearing on “First Take” on Monday, Sharpe was talking about quarterback Russell Wilson, who was cut loose by the Denver Broncos before signing with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Sharpe tried to think of an analogy to describe Wilson’s situation and reached into the misogyny file ([link removed]) : “He's on the market. No matter how fine a chick is, no matter how many Birkin bags or Chanel purses she has, if she's on the market, what does that tell you?”

I mean, pretty much everything about that sentence should be wrapped up and shot back in time to the 1950s — not that it was right back then, either, but you get my point.

Unfortunately, host Stephen A. Smith played along, saying, “That tells me that somebody didn't want her.”

As someone who listens to a lot of sports debate on TV, radio and podcasts, I can tell you that this is a far-too-common conversation: comparing athletes and their situations to women in various states of relationships and marital statuses. Way too often, sports commentators compare the relationship between teams and players to that of men and women, with a bunch of references to flirting and breaking up and cheating.

It’s not always sexist, but it is usually lazy. Sharpe’s analogy was both sexist and lazy.


** Media tidbits
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* Speaking of Skip Bayless, his TV ratings are not good. In late February, one episode of “Undisputed” drew an average of a paltry 50,000 viewers. Podcaster Dan Le Batard said on his show, “We’re watching the end of Skip Bayless because his numbers — those numbers — are so bad.” Awful Announcing’s Brandon Contes has more ([link removed]) .
* The conversation between Chris Cuomo and Tucker Carlson aired Monday night on NewsNation. Cuomo asked Carlson why Carlson treated him so badly when Cuomo was at CNN and Carlson was at Fox News. Carlson said, “Because I’m a (jerk) probably” — except Carlson didn’t use the word “jerk.” Mediaite’s Charlie Nash has more ([link removed]) . And here’s even more from NewsNation’s Cassie Buchman ([link removed]) .
* Following up on this from last week. Fox News was the ratings winner for Biden’s State of the Union address. Fox drew in 5.6 million viewers, followed by ABC (5 million) and NBC (4.3 million). Then it was MSNBC (4.2 million), CBS (3.9 million) and CNN (2.5 million).
* Donald Trump was interviewed on CNBC on Monday. The New York Times’ Jonathan Swan, David McCabe and Maggie Haberman write, “Trump Gives Rambling Answer on Why He Backtracked on a TikTok Ban.” ([link removed])
* The New York Times’ Sam Roberts with “William Whitworth, Revered Writer and Editor, Is Dead at 87.” ([link removed])
* The Los Angeles Times’ Thomas Curwen with “Storied presses print L.A. Times for the last time as production moves to Riverside.” ([link removed])


** Hot type
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* In an essay for New York Magazine, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Andrea Long Chu with “The Right to Change Sex.” ([link removed])
* Slate’s Nitish Pahwa with “Did 2020 Ever Even Happen?” ([link removed])


** More resources for journalists
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* Poynter Producer Project (Seminar) (June 4-Sept. 10) — Apply by April 14 ([link removed]) .
* Essential Skills for Rising Newsroom Leaders (Seminar) (May) — Apply by March 26 ([link removed]) .
* Get the edge on reporting on the seven hot topics of the 2024 election with Beat Academy ([link removed]) (webinar series) — Rolling enrollment from now through September. Enroll today. ([link removed])

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .
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