Confronting DeSantis at Barnes & Noble

The 40-year-old Harvard-educated Chew was never going to get a warm welcome from U.S. lawmakers. Even if everything TikTok claims about firewalling U.S. data from Chinese actors via Oracle's Texas-based servers is true, it was evident from Thursday's hearing that lawmakers simply don't buy it.

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"Despite lacking evidence for their belief that TikTok is a spying tool for the Chinese Communist Party, US lawmakers from both parties on Thursday carried out an ugly political theater to advance that narrative," Allison Morrow writes.

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TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas says the hearing "felt rooted in xenophobia."

In Chinese state media, the People's Daily and CGTN used the day to promote stories suggesting a ban on TikTok was opposed by users and could ultimately backfire.

The Reliable Sources A1: Is TikTok's time up? https://t.co/NSYBoAFAC6

— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) March 24, 2023

Pre-Written Field Reports – WASHINGTON POST

• Just because we dined together is no reason to think I am taking his side, as I defend him.

Drew Harwell provided a glowing defense of Chew that would be embarrassingly cloying for most, but he went right ahead and submitted this flattery and backed it up with a lengthy thread promoting his piece.

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I got lunch with TikTok's CEO Shou Zi Chew last month. He's a Singapore-born, Harvard-educated, former Facebook intern: "It’ll be a real shame if our users around the world are not able to hear" U.S. voices anymore https://t.co/rVI4hqakm3

— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) March 23, 2023

Anti-Social Media – ASSOCIATED PRESS

• It's not lobbying, IT'S REPORTING.

While the press has been eager to drag Ron DeSantis into a feud with Donald Trump, the Florida governor has been hesitant to join in. This has led journalists who long called to have Trump silenced to begin quoting him extensively to goad DeSantis into a response.

AP reporter Steve Peoples was so frustrated with this silence that he decided to show up at a DeSantis book signing and ask him directly to respond to his challenge. He was, as expected, met with silence.

Ron DeSantis signs books in Tallahassee. I asked him if he thinks Donald Trump is being treated fairly by prosecutors. Dead silence. pic.twitter.com/AyDTPbjTYz

— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) March 23, 2023

Gilded Reframe - THE NEW YORK TIMES

• "My obliviousness has led to an epiphany."

In a severe dose of delusional revisionism, David Wallace-Wells looks at the current mood of the pandemic and comes to a realization – a realization that a vast majority of the country arrived at years ago. This is the musing of a Covid-devoted journo who is among the last to the party and acts as if he has discovered something most have accepted long ago:

In both the United States and Britain, there is suddenly a front-and-center debate about the very earliest days of the pandemic and how each country responded. Did mitigation measures imposed in the spring of 2020, amid great anxiety and uncertainty, actually work? And considering the costs, were they worth it?

"The epidemiologist @dr_kkjetelina calls this 'a new phase of the pandemic — revisionism.' To me, it looks almost like brain fog, with the deadliest public health crisis in a century already so out of focus in our collective memory..." https://t.co/RcU6keJHgu

— David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells) March 18, 2023

Pulitzer Prize Nomination – BLOOMBERG

• Delivering the important culmination of the meeting between two superpowers.

Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau had a deeply important summit in Canada, and we are pleased to let you know that Brian Platt is on the case to let us know that these two leaders came to a mutually agreed upon decision.

News alert: I can confirm reports that Trudeau and Biden had "friend-chip" ice cream last night from @MooShuIceCream. Maple-flavoured, with chocolate chips and marshmallows.

— Brian Platt (@btaplatt) March 24, 2023