| | | | | Matt Lauer re-ups at 'Today' | | Breaking news via Page Six...
Matt Lauer has re-upped with NBC's "Today" show for $20 million a year.
The deal, reportedly signed months ago, will keep Lauer at the morning show for at least two more years, putting to rest speculation that he may have been headed for the exits.
Page Six also reports that Noah Oppenheim, the show's top executive, "is weighing re-signing his own contract, which is ending in early 2017." | | | Welcome to Tuesday night's edition of Reliable Sources, where we're still wrestling with how to cover President-elect Donald Trump... This is Dylan Byers in for Brian Stelter... | | | Trump-Media Feedback Loop Pt. 1 | | Monday: 9:05 p.m.: CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports on Trump's baseless claim that there were "millions" of illegal votes cast in the election. ... 9:14 p.m.: Trump starts retweeting supporters' attacks on Zeleny and CNN.
Tuesday: 6:25 a.m.: "Fox & Friends" runs a segment about college students who allegedly burned an American flag to protest Trump's victory. ... 6:55 a.m.: @realDonaldTrump: "Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!"
Meet your President-elect: A disgruntled cable news junkie who tweets his grievances...
"It appears that, at times, Trump may be behaving like so many other Twitter users and simply responding emotionally to what he's watching on television," Tom Kludt reports. "In at least six instances since Election Day, the subject of Trump's tweets has pertained to a segment that had just aired on TV."
This may be coincidence, but if not it translates to one TV-related tweet or rant every three-and-a-half days... | | Trump-Media Feedback Loop Pt. 2 | | When Trump tweets, the media responds with breathless coverage, and more important stories get played down.
Trump "understands the value of tension," Newt Gingrich told Fox News today. "He understands the value of showmanship. And candidly, the news media is going to chase the rabbit. So it's better off for him to give them a rabbit than for them to go find their own rabbit. ... I think from his perspective, that's terrific. It gives everyone something to talk about. He does not think of this as chaos. He thinks of this as creativity."
Which brings us right back to where we were 24 hours ago... | | To chase, or not to chase... | | Margaret Sullivan: "Not everything Trump says or does deserves the same five-alarm level of outrage, or coverage. ... Rule of thumb: Tweets should get less attention. Actions should get more. Deep digging, even if not by one's own news organization, should get more still."
Jack Shafer: "We shouldn't take his bait, but that's not the same as ignoring him. The context in which the press dresses his tweets is paramount: If Trump makes an unsupported claim... it is news; but the news is not the claim but the fact that he's advancing a wildly unfounded claim."
Aaron Blake: "This is the president-elect of the United States. ... Everything he says reverberates. It doesn't matter if he says it on Twitter or at a news conference; either way it's going to be consumed by tens of millions of people, and the media has an important role to play when it comes to fact-checking and providing context."
My take: The media should and will cover every aspect of Trump.... If you're a reader, read what you care about... If you're a reporter, cover stories that matter... If you're an editor, prioritize what's important...
... and if you're a publisher, spend money on a crack investigative team. | | | A threat to the White House press | | Two influential Trump supporters endorse curbing press access...
Newt Gingrich (to USA Today): "The news media so totally disgraced itself in this election, if I were Trump I would just say no [to press briefings]... And if the White House Correspondents Association doesn't like it, I'd say, 'Fine, disband.'"
Sean Hannity (to Breitbart News): "People don't need them any more. They're done. I suggested the other day that if any of these organizations were involved in collusion with the Clinton campaign, why do they get a seat in the White House press office? Why does Donald Trump need a White House press office? He doesn't. You know, you can have a pool person that's standing by if, God forbid, there's any bad news about the president that the country needs to know, but his own staff could tweet it out, for crying out loud." | | | An appeal for transparency | | Andrew Ross Sorkin has called on Trump to voluntarily appoint a "corporate monitor" who can "provide regular reports to the public about any possible instances of conflicts."
The appointment would "suggest that you take the conflict issue seriously, not only to the American public but also to the rest of the world, which has long looked to the United States as a model of democracy," Sorkin wrote in an open letter to the President-elect. "If your administration even raises the specter of corruption in the White House, that would undermine the entire country, as well as our economy..."
Read the full letter. | | | Mika Brzezinski at Trump Tower | | MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski was spotted at Trump Tower today...
An MSNBC spokesperson told me Brzezinski was there "for a meeting with Ivanka Trump," the President-elect's daughter... a Trump spokesperson said they were discussing "an interview opportunity" ...
Perhaps Brzezinski's visit wouldn't elicit so many raised eyebrows if she and her co-host Joe Scarborough didn't spend so much time cheerleading for Trump and boasting about their friendship with him...
Our colleague Chris Cuomo described them today as "transition spokesmen"... | | -- Time Magazine has hired Eben Shapiro as deputy editor as part of a broader restructuring of its top editorial ranks... The magazine announced a number of internal promotions as well. (Politico)
-- Business Insider COO Julie Hansen is leaving to become the CEO of an as-yet-unnamed tech startup. (Politico) | | Trump has chosen Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker and Hollywood movie producer, as his Treasury secretary, our colleague Chris Isidore reports.
The view from (The) Hollywood (Reporter): "From losing millions in the failed Relativity studio (and stepping down as co-chairman weeks before bankruptcy) to backing Warner Bros. flops and hits with high-flying producers Brett Ratner and James Packer, the former Goldman Sachs banker has done business with Donald Trump (and been sued by him) and had a cameo (with his actress fiancée) in Warren Beatty's new movie."
His IMDB page: "Mnuchin's Dune Capital Management has invested in about 80 films, including record box office hit 'Avatar' in 2009 and several X-Men movies," Isidore previously reported. "Mnuchin himself is listed as a producer or executive producer of 34 films in recent years, including two still in production. ... His most successful credits as a producer were 'Suicide Squad,' ($746 million), 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' ($378 million), and 'The Lego Movie,' ($469 million).
Along with Steve Bannon, that's two Hollywood vets in Trump's cabinet.... Go figure. | | | How Trump is changing Hollywood | | Speaking of, check out all the Trump talk from Monday night's 26th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards, via Vanity Fair (h/t Megan Thomas):
"Annette Bening told Vanity Fair on the red carpet that she thinks independent films have a more important role to play, given this political climate: "They talk about poverty and homophobia, racism, sexism; we have more of a responsibility than ever to open people's hearts, and open their minds a little bit." ...
"Manchester by the Sea director Kenneth Lonergan told V.F. he is grappling with making art in this post-election moment: "Sometimes it seems a little frivolous, with all these very serious developments in the world, [and] also not knowing how serious they're going to get. On the other hand, I think [art can provide] real ways for people to see the world from a point of view other than their own, which seems to be something we're very much in need of at the moment."
"Queen of Katwe's David Oyelowo said he thinks this "period of time we're going into is actually going to be great for art, because . . . people are going to feel a need to express themselves and they're going to feel a need to give voice to grievances." | | From Lisa France:
-- "Moonlight" is the darling of Gotham Awards. The movie about a man growing up black and gay in a rough Miami neighborhood took home best feature, best screenplay, the Gotham Audience Award, and a special jury award for ensemble performance.
From Sandra Gonzalez:
| | | Should Facebook fact-check? | | | Jessica Lessin, founder and CEO of The Information, says 'No"... "[T]here's a big difference between the editorial power that individual news organizations wield and that which Facebook could. Such editorial power in Facebook's hands would be unprecedented and dangerous. "We can all agree that Facebook should do much more to make sure that blatantly fabricated claims that Donald J. Trump won the popular vote or received the pope's endorsement don't spread and are, at a minimum, labeled fakes. ... "But hiring editors to enforce accuracy — or even promising to enforce accuracy by partnering with third parties — would create the perception that Facebook is policing the "truth," and that is worrisome." | | | Bonus: How the sausage gets made... | | | Fun one from The New York Times insider, in which sixteen journalists recount their work on Fidel Castro's obituary, first drafted in 1959... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We'll be back next week... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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