The next war story; reporters in Kabul; Tuesday's front pages; Ida's blackout; tensions rising at 'GMA;' another 'Jungle Cruise'

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Welcome to the end of August. Brian Stelter here at 11:30pm ET on Monday, August 30. Here's the latest on the "COVID commentariat," Shaquille Brewster, "GMA," Jon Stewart, "The View," and much more...

Now what?

On this day of history, with America's war in Afghanistan officially over, I asked a cross-section of journalists and activists to weigh in on what's next. Pretend to be an assignment editor, I said, and answer this question: "With the US officially leaving Afghanistan, what's the No. 1 angle that needs to be covered now?"

Here are the answers:

>> CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr: "Humanitarian relief. I think it's central to everything. We know the Taliban need it to come into the country and it's a potential lever for the new 'diplomatic' agenda for President Biden. And it may be the only way the people survive."

>> Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America: "The plight of the Afghan people. And especially our Afghan allies who are in particular grave danger under the Taliban. They are terrified about being left behind. They are more terrified about being forgotten. Biden may say the war is over. It's not over for them."

>> PBS "NewsHour" special correspondent Jane Ferguson, who flew out of Kabul just a few days ago: "Can the Taliban hold onto control over Afghanistan, or will everything descend into chaotic civil war and failed state? Because if it is the latter – similar to Somalia in early 90s – US troops will be back in some capacity, and a major migrant crisis and humanitarian catastrophe will be the result. What happens with Taliban rule/strength will determine the global implications of the fallout of this drawdown over everything else."

>> Philadelphia Inquirer national columnist Will Bunch, an outspoken critic of America's involvement in "forever wars:" "Whether America can complete a shift away from more than 20 years of failed militarism and reap a peace dividend by curbing Pentagon spending."

>> Commentary associate editor Noah Rothman, an equally outspoken critic of Biden's withdrawal decisions: "I would definitely be focused like a laser on US passport holders trying to get out. But also the Pentagon's effort to gloss over legal permanent residents – people with jobs, families, homes, and bank accounts here. To say nothing of visa holders and visa eligibles. It all adds up to a number the administration hoped to elide, but my suspicion it is in the thousands. And I don't suspect the press will need prodding to cover their stories. My strong suspicion is that they will be too horrible to ignore."

>> The Nation publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, a longtime opponent of the US war effort: "Will media look at next wars, endless, in the world – from Syria to Iraq to Africa? Will there be a new cohort of media-savvy analysts to speak to rethinking of a new security/foreign policy agenda? Also, who is the new Barbara Lee? Where is the new generation of diplomats, especially those with a knowledge of the Middle East? And how will the Biden team challenge The Blob?"

>> Joseph Azam, a lawyer and Afghan-American immigrant who serves on the board of the Afghan-American Foundation: "What happens to the people left behind? Depending on how you cut the data, there may be upwards of 1 million of them. American and coalition allies; at risk individuals and their families; Americans, Afghans, other nationalities. The withdrawal has a large wake, we can't even begin to see what's caught in it, but someone needs to be in the water to tell those stories."

>> Committee to Protect Journalists board chair Kathleen Carroll, former exec editor of The AP: "What will history tell us about the end of this 20-year war and can we see that now? Can we pull back the stick from the chaos and heartache and betrayal on the ground and look for what there is to be learned for us as a society, a nation, a people? Can we only see the important moments long after the fact? Or is there a way to see them when they are happening and explore their meaning in our coverage?"

Tuesday's front pages

Sky News has the FT and other papers here. The NYT's banner headline says "U.S. FORCES LEAVE KABUL; EVACUATION ENDS." WaPo's is three big words: "America exits Afghanistan."

What reporters in Kabul are saying

-- NYT Mag contributing writer Matthieu Aikins: "Good morning, Kabul. The last US troops have left Afghanistan, and the Taliban control the airport. Today is the first day of a new and uncertain era."

-- Al Jazeera's Charlotte Bellis: "Famous Taliban saying changes tense. You had the watches, we had the time."

-- LA Times photog Marcus Yam: Taliban fighters stormed the Kabul airport "wielding American supplied weapons, equipment & uniforms – after the U.S. Military have completed their withdrawal. Fighters celebrated with gunfire & chants through the night."

-- Yam's colleague Nabih Bulos posted video of fighters entering a hangar and examining US helicopters.

-- BBC's Lyse Doucet: "The last American soldier leaves but the last battles aren't over..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Ashley Parker's piece in Tuesday's Post: "For Biden, 'forever war' isn't over, just entering a new, perilous phase..." (WaPo)

-- View from the UK: The "US completes withdrawal from Afghanistan" headline is right next to the "US 'can't dispute' civilians killed in Kabul strike" headline on the BBC homepage... (BBC)

-- In an open letter, "Afghan journalists, cameramen and photographers... called on the United Nations, the international community, human rights organizations and media-supporting organizations to protect them against threats..." (TOLONews)

"Microphones and cameras versus AK-47s"

Oliver Darcy writes: "Will TOLONews survive Afghanistan under Taliban rule? That's the subject of Dan Bilefsky's piece for NYT, in which he notes that whether the channel's 'menu of pop music and female television hosts' will be a 'barometer of the insurgents' tolerance for dissenting views and values.' Unfortunately, as Bilefsky points out, there are already some signs the Taliban is cracking down on media. Former TOLO manager Samiullah Mahdi didn't appear very optimistic. 'Microphones and cameras versus AK-47s,' he said. 'That's a hard battle...'"

On Tuesday's morning show rundowns

Biden prepares to address the American people about the end of the war... Ida's drenching rains move further inland... South Lake Tahoe residents flee the raging Caldor Fire... Entergy says it could take more than three weeks to restore electricity in NOLA...

TUESDAY PLANNER

Biden speaks at 1:30pm ET...

Earlier in the day, Donald Trump calls into "Varney & Co." on Fox Business...

New book releases include WaPo reporter Craig Whitlock's "The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War..."

"Only Murders in the Building" premieres on Hulu...

Brian Lowry writes: "It doesn't premiere until Sept. 7, but look for early reviews of 'Impeachment: American Crime Story' as the embargo lifts..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Ida as a digital-age disaster: "On social media, people posted their addresses and directed search-and-rescue teams to their attics or rooftops..." (AP)

-- Most of the top stories on NOLA.com right now are about the power outages and the consequences of a long-term blackout... (NOLA)

-- Trump "called in to a conservative radio show Monday to gripe about the media spending 'all night long' on Sunday covering the deadly and massively destructive Hurricane Ida instead of his 'great agreement' with the Taliban..." (HuffPost)

-- Rachel Ramirez writes: "Climate change is making hurricanes stronger, slower and wetter. Ida checked all the boxes..." (CNN)

-- On short-term memories, the consequences of a warming climate, and the South: "You'll forget you ever heard of Humphreys County, Tenn., long before the people of Humphreys County have recovered and rebuilt..." (NYT)

NBC crew confronted during Ida coverage

While covering Ida's aftermath live on MSNBC, NBC correspondent Shaquille Brewster was confronted by a man who ran up and started shouting at him to "report accurately." Anchor Craig Melvin quickly cut away from the scene, saying that "there is a lot of crazy out there." It was resolved with the help of Brewster's crew, but was scary nonetheless. MSNBC president Rashida Jones praised Brewster as a "consummate professional" who would not "let someone intimidate him from doing his job." The Daily Beast's Justin Baragona has more here...

>> WLOX reports that "the Gulfport Police Department has identified the man..."

Tensions rising at "GMA"

There was some serious behind-the-scenes tension last week after producer Kirstyn Crawford sued former 'GMA' boss Michael Corn alleging sexual assault. (Corn strongly denies the allegations.) The Daily Beast's Lachlan Cartwright reported Monday that "GMA" host Robin Roberts said on an internal call, "If this happened to someone on my team, I would have burned the place down." As Cartwright explained, "Staffers who heard the remark said it was unsubtly directed at" her AM co-host George Stephanopoulos, "who, according to the lawsuit, had been informed of Crawford's sexual assault allegations almost four years ago and continued to work with Corn."

When Stephanopoulos found out about Roberts' remark, he was "livid," Cartwright wrote. But an ABC News rep claimed that the two "are fine." For what it's worth, that's definitely not what I hear. Roberts is on vacation right now, so the co-hosts aren't interacting on the air, but off the air, this is definitely a contentious situation...

>> Related: "Walt Disney and its ABC unit held unsuccessful mediation talks in June with the two women who have alleged they were sexually assaulted by a former ABC News executive," WSJ's Joe Flint reported Monday...

>> The unanswered Q: Will Disney allow an independent investigation, like news division president Kim Godwin says she wants?

"Vaccine Refusers Don't Get to Dictate Terms Anymore"

This, by Juliette Kayyem, was the most compelling piece I read about Covid on Monday. "Ironically," she wrote for The Atlantic, "by talking as if everyone, given enough time, will eventually choose the shot, public-health agencies may have understated the urgency of the matter and invited the vaccine-hesitant to dwell on the decision indefinitely. Sorry. Time's up." Read on...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- The best news of the day: "Overall effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines has not dropped much yet for most vaccinated Americans, CDC vaccine advisers were told Monday..." (CNN)

-- "Meet the COVID commentariat:" Joe Pompeo's newest piece is about a strange sort of pandemic-era fame... (VF)

-- "The debate around anti-vaccine misinformation hasn't advanced much since the first pandemic lockdowns," Daniel Zuidijk writes. "Often the issue is framed as one of moderation — that if social networks just enforced their own rules, they'd ban the biggest purveyors of falsehoods and things would be fine..." (Bloomberg)

-- Samantha Kelly's latest: "Big Tech failed with contact tracing. Can it do better with vaccine passport apps?" (CNN Business)

Viewing misinfo as a public health crisis

CNN's Cheri Mossburg reports: "A proposal to declare health misinformation a public health crisis, believed to be the first such policy in the country, will be presented to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The resolution, penned by Supervisor Chair Nathan Fletcher, comes just two weeks after a raucous board meeting filled with members of the public railing against the vaccine and making claims against public health directives." Fletcher wants to urge the board to follow anti-misinfo strategies cited by US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

By Oliver Darcy:

-- Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery write about "propaganda" on Facebook: "Vaccine disinformation. The Big Lie. The hate poisoning your community. It all goes back to Mark Zuckerberg's business model..." (Mother Jones)

-- Another exec exits: Facebook's global business marketing VP Mark D'Arcy has left the company, Stephen Lepitak reports... (AdWeek)

-- A major Twitch star, DrLupo, has signed an exclusive deal with YouTube as the Google-owned platform pushes to draw creators in... (WaPo)

-- Happy 26th birthday to CNN Digital! (Twitter)

"The View" to draw upon rotating guest hosts

Cue the Mike Richards jokes! Following the departure of Meghan McCain, ABC says that the now-vacant chair on "The View" will be filled with a rotating cast of conservatives as executives take "a little time" to select a permanent replacement. Mia Love will be the first guest host when the show returns to its studio on September 7. The others named in Monday's press release are Condoleezza Rice, Carly Fiorina, Gretchen Carlson, S.E. Cupp, Eboni K. Williams, Alyssa Farah, Mary Katherine Ham, and Cameran Eubanks. THR's Alex Weprin has more here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

By Kerry Flynn:

-- Emily Atkin questions why NYT still runs ads for the fossil fuel industry. Current and former NYT staffers shared their concerns that "ranged from undermining the Times' own climate reporting, to harming Times readers' health, to aiding industry attempts to mislead the public about the deadly effects of fossil fuels..." (HEATED)

-- Sara Guaglione looks at publishers' retention strategies for subscriptions: "It's not like we are a gas station on one side of the street, worried about the gas station on the other side of the street selling gas three cents less than we are," The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson says of the competition... (Digiday)

-- Sarah Bartlett, dean of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, is retiring next June... (CUNY)

-- Season three of "Succession" can't come soon enough: Here's the Hunter Harris cover story for NYMag, "on location with the cast of 'Succession,'" that we previewed last night... (Vulture)

Mistake of the day

As filmmaker Sarah Sabatke said, "Someone in the 'Today' show graphics department must've had a long morning." Check out the third bullet point in this screen grab:

Personally I find this kind of screwup endearing – a reminder that everyone producing the news is human...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

-- John Ourand's latest is about the "dire long-term picture" for regional sports networks: "'The house is on fire here,' one network executive said, referring to the RSN business..." (SBJ)

-- Flagging this excellent WSJ story for my better half Jamie: "Instagram Stars Make Farm Life Look Delightful — Minus the Manure..." (WSJ)

-- One of the day's buzziest stories: "China has ordered its online gaming companies to further reduce the services they provide to young gamers, in a move intended to curb what the authorities described as 'youth video game addiction...'" (Guardian)

Jon Stewart's premiere date

Frank Pallotta writes: "We now know when Jon Stewart is heading back to the airwaves. Well, the streaming airwaves, that is. 'The Problem with Jon Stewart,' the comedian's new current affairs series, is debuting on Apple TV+ on September 30. Apple also released a trailer that features Stewart putting together his snazzy outfit for the show. However, he becomes spooked by his own reflection in the mirror once he sees his bearded face: 'What the hell happened to my face?' Stewart screams in the teaser..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN

-- Vital reporting by Anousha Sakoui: "Behind Hollywood glamour, an Instagram account highlights darker side for workers..." (LAT)

-- "Drake has confirmed in unambiguous terms that his long-awaited sixth full-length album 'Certified Lover Boy' will finally be out on Friday..." (Variety)

-- "The CW is adding one more new series for the 2021-22 season, ordering the 'Nancy Drew' spinoff 'Tom Swift' to series..." (The Wrap)

-- "Disney is reviving a cult classic favorite, 'The Rocketeer,' with an all new Disney+ movie entitled 'The Return of the Rocketeer...'" (Deadline)

Lowry recommends "Building"

Brian Lowry writes: "Debuting Tuesday, 'Only Murders in the Building' has a fun, very old-fashioned feel to it, even if it's about a trio of Manhattanites (played by series co-creator Steve Martin, alongside Martin Short and Selena Gomez) trying to put together a true-crime podcast, and airing on a new-fangled streaming service, Hulu. It's good fun as long as you don't over-think it."

Read Lowry's full review here...

Setting sail again

Frank Pallotta writes: "'Jungle Cruise' — a film that has made nearly $200 million and was released via streaming and theaters — is getting a sequel, THR's Borys Kit scooped Monday. Why was it a pandemic hit? Disney prowess + The Rock + a shortage of family films at the box office is a pretty good equation..."

Brian Lowry adds: "Kit's story is an interesting demonstration of how little we actually know about streaming economics. Just based on the box-office results, the theme-park-ride-derived movie would have to be deemed a disappointment by the standards of any blockbuster released before the pandemic. Yet Disney must be seeing something it likes in the streaming data to justify setting sail again..."

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...

Pet of the day!

Reader Nancy Louise emails a photo of her two cats, Gracie Joy and Max: "As you can see from their pic, they are attentively listening to me read excerpts from the Reliable Sources newsletter..."