Too Much TV: CNN Reporter 'Detained' During Live Coverage Of Southern Calif. Protests

And a documentary on Syria that hits a bit too close to home for me.

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, June 9th 2025:

PRODUCTION NOTES
My apologies for the severe lateness of Monday's newsletter. I wish I had some exciting explanation, but the truth is that I fell asleep while working on it and ended up both missing dinner with the family as well as much of my normal work time.

CNN REPORTER 'DETAINED' DURING LIVE COVERAGE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PROTESTS
At the end of day that included at least two more journalists reportedly being shot by so-called "non-lethal" rubber bullets, CNN's reporter Jason Carroll was "detained" Monday evening by law enforcement officials while he was waiting to do a live shot of the protests.

For reasons that still are unclear, Carroll was escorted away from the scene and released. But he was also told if he returned to the site of the protests, he would be arrested.

According to Carroll, "I was called over and the officer told me to put my hands behind my back. I asked if I was being arrested, he said "you are being detained." I was walked out the area and they took down my information."

CNN later reported that, while Carroll and the two members of his camera crew were released, two members of his security detail were arrested.

It's worth noting that arresting the press is currently illegal under California Penal Code 409.7. So arguing members of the press were "temporarily detained" appears to be an effort to get around that law.

FRONTLINE'S LOOK AT SYRIAN DETAINEES RESONATED WITH ME A BIT MORE THAN I WOULD PREFER
On Tuesday, Frontline is premiering Syria's Detainee Files, a film by Sara Obeidat and Sasha Joelle Achilli that is an investigation into the Assad regime’s arrest, torture and execution of detainees during the Syrian war. The film is centered around the recollections of Shadi and Hadi, two brothers who were detained and tortured for nearly a decade. But it also includes interviews with other former prisoners, guards, soldiers and intelligence officials, many of whom are speaking on the record for the first time.

I had the opportunity to speak with both filmmakers on Monday and I'll post the entire interview on Tuesday once I've finished editing it. But I wanted to highlight a couple of things from the interview to give you a sense of what to expect. First is a recounting of how the sudden fall of the Assad regime impacted the production:

Obviously both of you had an idea of what you thought the film was going to look like when it's done. How did that vision change during production? And what was different between what you thought this was going to be at the beginning and what it ultimately looked like at the end?

Sasha Joelle Achilli: We started the film two years before the fall of the Assad regime. And Sara was in the field for our last shoot literally four days before the rebels took Aleppo.

We were basically done with filming. The film was going to be a retrospective. We had filmed a lot of abstract, evocative material, because we didn't have the visuals, we needed to recreate what these prisons would look like. We didn't have any footage of Sednaya (the infamous Syrian prison)

Sara Obeidat: We ourselves didn't know how many of these places looked like, because they were black boxes.

Sasha Joelle Achilli: Exactly. So it was going to be a completely different film. And then when the rebels took Aleppo, we checked in with Shadi. He lives in Southern Turkey and he's not far from the border. His brother, Hadi, was actually living in Northern Syria at the time. And within 24 hours, Sahdi says that he's going to Aleppo. And then 24 hours later, he said "I'm going to Damascus," which is when the rebels took Damascus. And then two or three days later, Sara was in Damascus.

And suddenly we realize, "Now there's this opportunity to find these places, to see what they look like inside." And we have a character, our main character, who is thirsty, desperate to go back. Not only because of his work, but also because of his personal experience. He just wanted to go back to those places.

For him, the biggest, the most important thing was to find and look at the documents you see in the footage, and the preservation of all those detainee files. That's why he rushed back into Syria. And so then the film changed entirely.

Watching the film, I found myself affected in ways that caught me more than a bit off-guard:

One thing that struck me very hard while watching this film is that I realize the United States is not Syria. They have very different cultures, very different political situations. But some of the language being used by former Syrian government officials sounded frighteningly familiar to what I am hearing from some government officials here in recent weeks.

One of the former security intelligence officials you interviewed - who didn't want to show his face - was talking about his belief that if you were against the regime, you were a traitor and deserved what happened to you. And it didn't matter if you were a soldier, citizen, journalist or anyone else. You were the enemy.

And there was also some archival interview footage of Assad pushing back against questions about the mass executions by arguing "Look, everything that's happening is legal, we're following the Constitution. Sure, we're executing people, but it's legal." And some of that resonated a little harder with me than I think I wanted it to.

Sasha: Actually, our editor is American and is based in New York. He told us he felt like that a few times while editing the piece.

This bit that I'm about to tell you is not in the film, but in one of the interviews someone says that, "You have your ideology, I have mine, and only one can win."

I think sometimes we look at places like Syria, and from the West we see it as being very foreign and very far away. And actually, I think we need to look at places like these, and realize that it doesn't take very long for things to change. That it has to do with the leadership and the narratives and the rhetoric that is being used to convince people of the agenda they're trying to push.

Frontline: Syria's Detainee Files premieres Tuesday, June 10th on most local PBS stations.

IT'S MORE LIKE THE CORPORATE DEBT EQUIVALENT OF THREE-CARD MONTE
By now, you've read the news that Warner Bros. Discovery is splitting itself into two separate divisions: CEO David Zaslav will continue to helm the company that includes Warner Bros. Television, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max (including its international sports offering), Warner Bros. Games, Tours, Retail and Experiences, as well as studio production facilities in Burbank and Leavesden.

Current WBD finance boss Gunnar Wiedenfels will run the new cable division called (for now) Global Network, which will consist of the company's legacy cable business, including CNN, TNT, TBS, Discovery and the Food Network. This will apparently also include WBD's global television channels, as well as the streaming service Discovery+, CNN's new subscription services as well as some sports assets.

During Monday's investor's call, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav described the deal as the opportunity to "unlock shareholder value" and yes, that is the exact same language he used when he touted the financial upsides of the merger of Warner Media and Discovery Communications that led to the creation of WBD.

A lot of attention over the next few weeks is going to be spent on parsing the impact of the split on programming and on the company's linear business. But what matters more is that the split is an effort by WBD executives and advisors such as John Malone to get a "do-over" of the merger. And open up the chance to carve out a bit more money for executives as it happens.

While many of the financial details are still not clear, much of WBD's $37 billion debt load - the majority of which is the result of the original merger - will be taken on by the Global Networks company. In fact, a lot of that debt has now been transferred several times for accounting purposes. It originally came from AT&T as part of the deal that made the WBD merger possible. And for all the walk of WBD paying down that debt, most of it remains and this is a way to get it off the books in the most tax efficient way possible.

Global Networks will hold up to a 20% stake in Streaming & Studios, and I've been told the plan is to use earnings from that holding to pay down the Global Network's debt. But the company can also continue to slash content spending for the linear networks, while using the declining (but still substantial) retransmission revenues to pay down the debt.

The tax implications of this split are incredibly confusing. But I've been told that the way the deal is structured, that massive Global Networks debt will be considered an "asset" for tax purposes. And that the company can then essentially sell off part of the debt to a third party, and then book both the sell of the asset as well as any losses in value on the company's taxes. It's legal, but it's all an effort to extract value for investors, even if it eventually leaves Global Networks as a husk of an asset. One which will eventually be sold off to a third party who is interested as much in the company's 20 percent stake in Streaming & Studios as it is the remaining linear TV assets.

ODDS AND SODS
* The four-part true crime docu-series, The Furry Detectives: Unmasking A Monster will premiere Thursday, July 17th on SundanceTV. Here is the official logline: "The Furry Detectives: Unmasking A Monster unpacks the 2018 event known in the Furry community as the “Furry Zoosadist Leaks,” which exposed a horrifying conspiracy of animal abuse lurking beneath the Fandom’s playful exterior. The series follows the pack of dedicated vigilantes who teamed up to bring down the monsters behind the masks. Navigating the line between amateur sleuthing and official police investigation, the Furry Detectives exposed a ring of animal abusers, fought for victims, and defended their community from the evil within."

* The NY Times reports that following the election of Donald Trump, YouTube relaxed its moderation policies and now allows videos that break the platform’s rules up to 50% of their length to remain online if judged to be in the “public interest." That includes discussions on elections, race, gender, immigration, or censorship.

* Famed R&B performer Sly Stone had died at age 82. He and his band Sly & The Family Stone had a string of hit singles from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, including "Dance To The Music," "Everyday People," "Hot Fun In The Summertime," "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," "Family Affair," and "If You Want Me To Stay." He was equal parts talent and chaos and if you're interested in learning more, Hulu is currently streaming the excellent Questlove documentary Sly Lives!

* SAG-AFTRA and the Video Game Employers have reached a tentative agreement on Interactive Media Contract. The next step is for the National Board to review and send on to the union's membership to be approved.

* Disney is paying an extra $438.7 million to Comcast’s NBCUniversal for its share of Hulu, on top of the $8.6 billion it committed in 2023 as part of the deal that allowed Disney to obtain 100 percent of the streamer.

* According to The Verge, Roku is testing a home screen redesign that automatically surfaces your most-used apps and adds new personalization.

* The National Press Club issued a statement on Monday about the proposed cuts to public media funding.

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

MONDAY, JUNE 9TH:
Art Detectives Series Premiere (Acorn TV)
BET Awards 2025 (BET)
Divorced Sistas Series Premiere (BET)
The Creature Cases Season Four Premiere (Netflix)
Virgins Series Premiere (TLC)

TUESDAY, JUNE 10TH:
Call Her Alex (Hulu)
Families Like Ours Series Premiere (Netflix)
Frontline: Syria's Detainee Files (PBS)
Richard Osman's House Of Games Series Premiere (Britbox)
The Gilgo Beach Killer: House Of Secrets (Peacock)
The Kollective Series Premiere (Hulu)
1,000 Lb. Roomies Series Premiere (TLC)
The 1% Club Season Premiere (Fox)
The Snake Series Premiere (Fox)
Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy (Netflix)

SEE YOU ON TUESDAY!