Politico

It’s been more than two months since Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) pulled out of the presidential race. But he’s still bitter at Fox News. On a radio program, Sen Cruz responded to Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who questioned why Sen Cruz was meeting with Donald Trump and had agreed to speak at the GOP convention when he had previously excoriated the presumptive Republican nominee.

"I didn’t watch what she said and If I got dismayed every time somebody on Fox News attacked me, you know what, life is too short to worry about, that is an institution that can express its own corporate opinions, and it has done so at great volume during the course of the primaries. And I’m not going to worry about their attacks. Our country is in an extremely challenging position right now, and there are a lot of people who played an active role in putting us in this position,” Sen Cruz said.

Donald Trump has slashed his regular cable television appearances and is largely restricting himself to "friendlier terrain" on Fox News, according to Howard Kurtz, the channel's media analyst and host of "Mediabuzz." According to Kurtz's report, Trump's staff is not notifying him of every interview request. It's part of an effort to tamp down on the "risk of the candidate making mistakes or fanning minor controversies."

"Several weeks ago, high-level staffers concluded at a meeting that the boss should be limited to no more than three interviews a week, print reporters included. He wound up meeting that quota in just half a day. But aides now vet whether certain reporters can ride on his plane, which used to be a snap decision by Trump," Kurtz reports. Trump's last interview with CNN was June 13. =The presumptive Republican nominee's last interview with MSNBC was in May with "Morning Joe".

The line between news reporting and opinion is blurring in Ferguson (MO) as some national journalists inject their perspective and even themselves into the story.

The conduct of a few prominent members of the press on the ground has drawn the attention of media observers and prompted the wrath of conservatives who see an anti-law enforcement bias in the Fourth Estate.

David Plouffe, the former campaign manager and White House adviser to President Barack Obama, is taking his political secret sauce to Uber in late September as senior vice president of policy and strategy.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said Uber “is trying to win hearts and minds,” adding: “There’s an incumbent … the big-taxi cartel … and we’re the challenger.” Plouffe, 47, will be one of the top few executives at the booming transportation disruptor, in charge of global branding, communications and policy -- as Kalanick put it, Uber’s “campaign manager.”

Forty-eight media organizations -- ranging from the Associated Press to Fox News to The New Yorker and the National Press Club -- sent a letter to law enforcement authorities in Ferguson (MO) to protest the police's treatment of reporters and ask for greater transparency regarding the death of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African-American who was shot and killed by police.

Former Vice President Al Gore and business partner Joel Hyatt have filed a lawsuit against Al Jazeera on charges of fraud and material breaches in their acquisition of Current Media.

Gore and Hyatt, the co-founders of Current Media, say that Al Jazeera has unlawfully refused to turn over tens of millions of dollars currently located in an escrow account. That money is owed to Current Media shareholders per the terms of the $500-million merger agreement made in January 2013, the plaintiffs say.

The complaint has been filed under seal at the request of Al Jazeera, though Gore and Hyatt have filed a motion seeking to unseal it.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable said they are withdrawing financial support for a dinner honoring Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a regulator who is reviewing the companies’ multibillion-dollar merger.

The two companies were both set to sponsor the Walter Kaitz Foundation Dinner in September -- at a cost of $110,000 for Comcast and $22,000 for Time Warner Cable -- where Commissioner Clyburn is set to receive the foundation’s “diversity advocate” award.

Both Comcast and Time Warner Cable said they will instead donate to the foundation at the same level in a more general capacity.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable are sponsoring a dinner honoring Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at a time when the agency is weighing whether to approve a multibillion-dollar merger between the two companies.

Comcast will pay $110,000 to be a top-level “presenting sponsor” at the Walter Kaitz Foundation’s annual dinner in September, at which Commissioner Clyburn is receiving the “diversity advocate” award, according to a foundation spokeswoman.

Time Warner Cable paid $22,000 in May to the foundation for the same event, according to a Senate lobbying disclosure filed at the end of July. The foundation supports diversity in the cable industry.

[Commentary] The national press corps loved former President Richard Nixon, and then they hated him. Understand that, and President Nixon’s implosion makes sense. It’s a media story, in more ways than one.

First there’s the largely forgotten opening chapter: President Nixon’s spectacular rise -- he went from House freshman to the vice presidency in just six years -- was built on exceptionally favorable notices in the press.

In both fueling President Nixon’s early career -- and then destroying him later -- members of the press abandoned professed standards of objectivity. And President Nixon’s innate wariness, in turn, evolved into arrant hatred. In the end, this dysfunctional relationship helped fuel a national tragedy. It put the country on the road to Watergate. Just because President Nixon was paranoid didn’t mean his enemies weren’t conspiring to get him.

[Farrell is an author of a forthcoming book on the life of Richard Nixon]

Amazon rarely shies away from a fight, whether it’s battling publishers to conquer the e-book market or warding off investors who want the company to deliver bigger profits. But Amazon increasingly is shipping those hardball tactics to Washington, where it is fighting agencies and wooing regulators more than ever before.

The company has boosted its political machine, hiring a crop of new lobbyists and writing bigger checks to members of Congress. It recently retained a powerhouse firm in Washington (DC) to lobby the Federal Aviation Administration on delivery drones and has flexed its muscle to win a key government technology contract. CEO Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, raised his Beltway profile through his personal purchase of The Washington Post in 2013.