| | | | | When will Trump's first presser be? | | Donald Trump will reportedly name Rex Tillerson as his nominee for Secretary of State on Tuesday. This is a perfect occasion to hold a press conference, but there's no indication the president-elect will do that. To the contrary: on Monday evening team Trump scrapped plans for a Thursday press event about the future of his businesses. Trump had said it would be a "major news conference." Now? Postponed til after New Year's.
Since the 1970s, presidents-elect have held a post-election press conference -- on average -- 3.4 days after being elected. No later than 9 days after. Trump won the election 34 days ago.
As Dylan Byers notes in his story, Trump's last full-blown press conference -- a forum he excelled at during the primaries -- was in July. "The announcement has been rescheduled for next month," Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks told him. Meanwhile, Trump has only granted a few interviews since 11/8.
-- My message on "Erin Burnett OutFront:" What is he hiding? What questions is he trying to avoid answering?
-- The New Yorker's John Cassidy, along with many others, noted that Trump's first press conference will now not come until after next week's Electoral College vote... | | Kellyanne Conway told Anderson Cooper that the presser will be delayed by a "few weeks." So that means... early January? Conway suggested it could happen sooner, were it not for the holidays. More broadly, she said she sees a "very transparent transition and administration." Others do not.
What stood out to me from the interview was Conway's criticism of the anonymous government sources who told the NYT, WashPost, CNN and other outlets about intelligence community conclusions regarding Russia's interference in the election. "Very unfortunate leaks," she called them, saying they "should concern all of us as Americans." MSNBC's Chris Hayes (whose show was on at the same time, but was on tape) reacted: "This is where this goes next: a leak investigation/witchhunt."
-- Related: House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes (R) to National Intelligence Director James Clapper in a letter: "I am deeply concerned that these press reports may contain unauthorized disclosures..." | | | Redstones tell CBS and Viacom to stop merger talks | | Surprise! On Monday morning David Faber broke the news that Shari Redstone was calling off a months-long exploration of a Viacom/CBS merger. Viacom stock closed down almost 10%. CBS stock was basically flat at the end of the day. Another victory for Les Moonves...
Here's what National Amusements said in its message to the boards: "We have concluded that this is not the right time to merge the companies." In short: the Redstones are "very impressed with the forward-looking thinking and strategic plan being pursued under Bob Bakish's leadership." That's Bob Bakish, interim Viacom CEO, who on Monday afternoon was promoted to just CEO. No more "interim." Here's my full story...
-- More: Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw tweets: "Execs at both Viacom and CBS genuinely surprised by Shari's decision, which came with little warning..."
-- Emily Steel's Tuesday lede: "Viacom is going it alone..." | | | Bill Kristol stepping aside | | Dylan Byers emails: Bill Kristol, the founding editor of The Weekly Standard, is stepping down and will be replaced by Stephen Hayes, the magazine's senior writer.
This is the end of an era: TWS has been a leading neoconservative voice for 21 years, as beloved by D.C. neocons as it is loathed by progressives, particularly since Kristol's cheerleading for the Iraq War. (Kristol will continue to write for the magazine and the web site.)
"It's good," Kristol told me. "Here at The Weekly Standard, we've always been for regime change." Separately, Hayes told me he would preserve Kristol's vision: "Readers should expect that we will provide the same independent conservative voice that we brought to the 2016 campaign and that has served the magazine so well since it's founding in 1995." Read more... | | -- John Roberts will be Fox's chief White House correspondent... He'll officially start on Inauguration Day... (Business Insider)
-- Don't miss Jeffrey Toobin's latest: "Gawker's Demise and the Trump-Era Threat to the First Amendment" (The New Yorker)
-- Prior restraint? "A NJ judge has ordered the Trentonian newspaper to stop publishing articles about a child abuse case." Floyd Abrams is paying attention to this case... (NorthJersey.com)
-- Netflix, which rarely "cancels" shows, has cancelled "Marco Polo..." (Variety) | | | A second big story from Dylan: The NYT is building up its White House team ahead of Trump's inauguration, seeking to cast itself as the all-star source for coverage of this historic administration. First: Peter Baker, who was recently promoted to Jerusalem bureau chief, will instead return to DC to continue covering the White House -- a move his wife Susan Glasser (of Politico) seemed to attribute to the need/desire to cover Trump. Second: Glenn Thrush, Politico's senior writer, will join the Times as a White House correspondent. He will join the Times' Julie Davis, Mark Landler, Mike Shear in DC, along with Maggie Haberman, who will cover Trump Tower, aka "White House North." Basically, this is like the Golden State Warriors adding Durant. So long as they can all work together without stepping on each other's toes, it'll be a great 4-8 years for the political desk... | | At the Newsgeist conference last weekend, journos were assured that combating fake news is currently the #1 priority at the highest levels of Facebook, a/k/a, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg's #1 priority.
Wonder if this "Head of News Partnerships" job listing has anything to do with that, anything at all? "Facebook is seeking an experienced news exec to lead Global News Partnerships, serving as the company's leading representative with news orgs worldwide," it says. 20+ years of experience needed. Details via Mashable's Kerry Flynn...
You can apply here... | | | The day's best Golden Globes reaction | | Entertainment editor Megan Thomas emails: Julia Louis-Dreyfus had our favorite Golden Globe nomination reaction of the day. JLD tweeted: "Huge thanks to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Russian hackers that made our nominations possible."
Here's how other stars reacted... Scroll down for more Globes coverage... | | -- Perhaps Monday's most-shared piece of media writing: "An Open Letter to Fellow Minority Journalists" by Jay Caspian Kang (Medium)
-- Alex Koppelman emails about this Craig Newmark Foundation donation: "Guy who inadvertently helped to kill local newspapers gives $1 million to fund chair in journalism ethics..." (Poynter)
-- "The District of Columbia is locked in a nearly two-year court battle against the student-run GW Hatchet at The GWU over a disputed property tax bill of $17,000, threatening the financial status of the second-oldest newspaper in the city," Scott Nover reports... (MediaFile)
-- More info gleaned from job listings: "Jim VandeHei's startup will have a Silicon Valley foothold, a D.C. newsdesk and an events business," Ben Mullin reports... (Poynter) | | | Russian hacking "did not receive the attention it deserved?" | | In this news-making letter on Monday, John Podesta charged that the Clinton campaign's Oct/Nov protestations about Russian hacking "did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign."
Flashback: On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," Liz Wahl semi-agreed that "we missed the ball." But Julia Ioffe said there was extensive reporting -- "Kremlin has a preferred candidate" -- but that it fell on deaf ears... Watch... | | | What the left is saying about Trump and Russia | | Keith Olbermann on GQ.com: "We are at war with Russia. Or perhaps more correctly we have lost a war with Russia without a battle... We are the victims of a bloodless coup... Permitting Donald Trump to assume the office of president reduces the chance that we will have any future elections! The nation and all of our freedoms hang by a thread... As things stand today," the inauguration will be "the end of the United States as an independent country. It will not be a peaceful transfer of power. It will be a usurpation... He is not a president, he is a puppet put in power by Vladimir Putin..." People who ignore this "are traitors to this country." Here's his six-minute-long video essay...
Hard to follow that up, but here's MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "If Trump have evidence to dispute the CIA finding, he should produce it... Why would an about-to-be U.S. commander in chief ridicule the very intelligence services he's about to command?" | | Bill O'Reilly advising Trump through the TV? He said this Russian interference "happened on President Obama's watch." Trump "is entitled to his opinion" that Russia didn't try to help him win, but "it might be better if the president-elect avoids this issue all together. Mr. Trump has nothing to gain here, nothing... He should sit the whole thing out."
Two hours later, Sean Hannity said practically the exact same thing Trump said on Twitter Monday morning. "Can you imagine if the tables were turned and it was Donald Trump's campaign trying to do this?"
Earlier in the day, on the radio, Rush Limbaugh said "this whole business of Russia hacking our election is fake news with the imprimatur of intelligence agencies and the CIA, and it's brought to us by the same newspapers that took out, tried to take out Richard Nixon." Limbaugh proceeded to call me "Little Brian" and misattribute a Bob Baer comment to me. Whoops. | | | LATimes says these letters to the editor "should not have been published" | | | Check this out from LATimes readers representative Deirdre Edgar: "Many Times readers have taken issue with two letters in this week's Travel section, which criticized a Nov. 27 article about National Park sites that address issues of race and ethnicity in America's history. The letters employed cultural stereotypes to suggest that the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was justified, and sought to minimize the hardships they endured. Davan Maharaj, EIC and publisher of The Times, said the letters did not meet the newspaper's standards for 'civil, fact-based discourse' and should not have been published..." | | "This was supposed to be the information age. Instead, we find ourselves in a swamp of disinformation, rumor, innuendo and fake news..."
--Newseum CEO Jeffrey Herbst in this WSJ column... | | | Anderson Cooper interviews a "fake news" writer | | Paul Horner, who told the WashPost that Trump was elected thanks to fake news sites like his own, told Anderson Cooper on Monday night that he's just writing "satire," and if people are too gullible to get the joke, that's their fault. "I do it to try to educate people," he asserted. Here's the interview... Media Matters also posted a transcript...
After the interview, I told Cooper that I thought Horner is being incredibly cynical. Oh, and Horner's claim that he's making $10,000 a month through Google ads, plus more money through other ad networks? That means he's making a lot more money than many hard-working journalists who are writing real stories... | | Lisa France reports: "La La Land" is the early darling among contenders for the 74th Golden Globe Awards. On Monday the movie pulled in seven nominations, including best picture, best director and best actor and actress nods for its stars, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Stone called it "a great way to start a Monday..."
-- More: "Manchester By The Sea" and "Moonlight" were nominated for best movie, drama, along with "Hacksaw Ridge," "Hell or High Water" and "Lion..."
-- TV: "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story" led with five nominations, including for best limited series or TV movie. It will compete against "American Crime," "The Dresser," "The Night Manager" and "The Night Of..." With its 14 nominations for such hit series as "Westworld" and "The Night Of," HBO fared the best among networks, followed by FX with nine...
-- Best TV series nods went to "The Crown," "Game of Thrones," "Stranger Things," "This Is Us" and "Westworld." "Atlanta," "Blackish," "Mozart In The Jungle," "Transparent" and "Veep" were nominated for best television series, musical or comedy... | | | "Rogue One" reviews coming Tuesday! | | | Brian Lowry emails: Sign of the times: Disney confiscated phones at its "Rogue One" screenings, an increasingly common security measure in connection with such hotly anticipated movies. The review embargo is set for Tuesday at noon ET, but the trades have somewhat skirted that by publishing social-media reactions from the early screenings. | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Lisa France reports: "Flip or Flop's" Tarek and Christina El Moussa are now a house divided. The popular HGTV stars have split...
-- Sandra Gonzalez emails: I spoke to Rita Ora about being the new host of "America's Next Top Model," which premiered on its new network home, VH1, Monday night...
-- Chloe Melas emails: Amy Schumer slams body-shamers for saying she's too curvy to play Barbie in the upcoming Sony movie... | | | ICYMI: Highlights from Sunday's "Reliable Sources" | | | | Bernstein says Trump is a more egregious liar than Nixon | | Carl Bernstein did not hold back: He said on Sunday's show that the President-elect "lives and thrives in a fact-free environment."
"No president, including Richard Nixon, has been so ignorant of fact and disdains fact in the way this President-elect does," said the Watergate chronicler. "And it has something to do with the growing sense of authoritarianism he and his presidency are projecting." CNN's Alexandra King has a full story here... | | | Ex-RT anchor Liz Wahl said on "Reliable" that the ultimate goal of Russian disinformation is to "undermine democracy, to undermine faith in our institutions, like the media." She argued that Americans "didn't really take it seriously" until now. Mediaite's Justin Baragona wrote up the comments... | | | About the anonymously-sourced stories of Russian meddling: "When we write these stories, we're not telling you that we endorse their findings… What we're telling you is what conclusions THEY are telling the American leadership and presumably also telling President-elect Trump," NYT's David Sanger said on Sunday's show. When speaking with sources, Sanger said "we certainly are" pressing them to make more evidence PUBLIC. "As we learned in the Iraq experience, intelligence is never a black and white thing," he said, noting that we need to hear dissenting views as well as the official conclusions. Of course, Sanger would love for these sources to go ON the record, but they can't. He talked more about that in the interview, here's the video... | | -- Sean Spicer, when asked if he ever looks at his phone and thinks, "I can't believe Trump just posted that on Twitter:" "Oh, look, I think there's never a boring day... But that's why he's so authentic..."
-- Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord: "What I see is basically a late 20th century media trying to struggle with a 21st century president..."
-- Poynter's Kelly McBride: Newsrooms rush to report that "he said something outrageous on Twitter, but we don't bring the context up as quickly as we should..." | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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