| | | | | Hello again from Vegas. This was a category 4 media news day... We have 30+ stories for you... Scroll down to get caught on up on everything. | | | Trump asks: Who leaked to NBC? | | Is it just my imagination, or is Donald Trump's tweeting ramping up as we approach inauguration day?
His ongoing tweetstorm against the intelligence community continued on Thursday night with this: "How did NBC get 'an exclusive look into the top secret report he (Obama) was presented?' Who gave them this report and why? Politics!"
Chris Megerian of the LATimes responded with the same question I have: "Given this reaction, what kind of leak investigations will a Trump administration pursue?" -- Related reading: Bloomberg's Francis Wilkinson: "Trump's Systematic Attack on U.S. Institutions..." NYT editorial in Friday's paper: "Donald Trump Casts Intelligence Aside" | | | Report: Trump still wants to block AT&T-Time Warner | | Time Warner stock fell 1.68% on Thursday afternoon after Bloomberg's Gerry Smith and Joshua Green reported that Trump remains opposed to the AT&T-Time Warner deal.
Trump criticized the deal on the very same day it was announced, back in October, and hasn't commented since then. Bloomberg says he "told a friend in the last few weeks that he still considers the merger to be a bad deal, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the conversation was private. Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is also opposed to the deal, another person said."
Time Warner had no comment. The bottom line is that no one knows what the Trump administration will do, despite the fact that past administrations have approved similarly situated deals...
-- Related? If you missed it earlier this week, check out what Jeff Bewkes told Variety's Cynthia Littleton... If the AT&T deal falls apart, "we don't need to do a merger with anyone..." | | | Will Graydon and Trump shake hands? | | Trump will travel to One World Trade Center for an off-the-record chat with Graydon Carter, Anna Wintour, David Remnick, and other Condé Nast editors and execs. CNN's Dan Merica confirms that the meeting is set for Friday at 10 a.m.
Carter called Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian" three decades ago... and Trump remembers... as evidenced by his regular attacks against Carter and Vanity Fair. Politico's Tara Palmieri broke the news of the meeting... | | | Re-live election night... | | | Oral history of November 8, 2016 | | This is embarrassing to admit... but I fell asleep on election night. I tried hard to stay awake, but three days of overnights caught up with me and I dozed off around 10 p.m. So that's the selfish reason why I wanted to produce this oral history of election night news coverage. The other reason is more legit: I wanted to reconstruct what the night was like for political reporters, anchors, editors, and executives. As CNN's David Chalian says: it was like "turning a battleship around."
"We went into the night knowing there was a chance Trump could win," PBS's Judy Woodruff told me. "But all the smart people said it was not going to happen." Radio host Hugh Hewitt told me he voted for Trump but expected Clinton to win: "I didn't see it coming. Anybody who says they did, I think they're lying."
So read all about what happened... Starting at 5 p.m. on November 8, ending at 5:30 a.m. on November 9... According to John Harwood, John Dickerson, Maria Elena Salinas, Sopan Deb, Chris Wallace, Abby Phillip, Ryan Grim, Sam Feist, Dana Bash, Amanda Carpenter, Annie Linskey, Nate Cohn, Michael Scherer, Susan Swain, Steve Scully, Van Jones, Kathleen Carroll, Carolyn Ryan, and David Hume Kennerly… Click here for the feature. | | "Everyone else pretended to mean what they said when they didn't; Trump simply dropped the pretense..."
--Barton Swaim's must-read WashPost column about how Trump has "discovered the phoniness of a myth that holds everyone else in check..." | | | Fox's Tucker Carlson wins 9 p.m. | | Tucker Carlson's 7pm show on Fox News, an out-of-the-box ratings success, will move to 9pm next week, replacing Megyn Kelly's show. Fox announced the move on Thursday morning after Drudge teased it. This makes all the sense in the Fox world. Here's why:
-- Carlson's show works. It presses all of the Fox buttons. He picks topics of interest to conservative viewers; hosts fiery debates with liberals; and constantly criticizes Fox's rivals in the mainstream media...
-- Many of his segments and fights go viral...
-- Unlike Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, Carlson does not have a friendly relationship with Trump dating back decades, but he is open-minded about Trump and doesn't have the antagonistic relationship that Kelly had with him...
-- Carlson is 47 years old, just a year older than Kelly. O'Reilly is 67, Hannity is 55. So he could be in prime time for decades... | | | Rupert "calling the shots" | | | Although Rupert "hasn't been in Fox News' New York headquarters this week, he was calling the shots on how to replace Ms. Kelly, a person familiar with the matter" told the WSJ's Joe Flint... | | | A reminder about Carlson's loyalty | | | Tom Kludt emails: Carlson's promotion is undoubtedly a testament to his success at the 7 p.m. hour, but it could also be seen as a reward for his loyalty. Back in 2014, when he was still the top editor at his web site The Daily Caller, Carlson spiked a column that criticized Fox's coverage of immigration. Carlson explained his reasoning thusly: "You can't criticize the families of the people who work here, and you can't go after Fox... because I work there... That's a conflicted situation, but I don't know what to do about it." | | | Martha MacCallum at 7 p.m. for 100 days | | Carlson's promotion leaves Fox with an all-white-male prime time lineup for the first time in its twenty-year history -- defying the expectations of insiders who thought Fox would replace Kelly with one of the four women who had filled in for her at 9 p.m.
Instead, one of those fill-ins, Martha MacCallum, will take over Carlson's 7 p.m. time slot... for at least a few months. Shannon Bream will replace her in the mornings on Fox. MacCallum's 7 p.m. show, "The First 100 Days," will start on January 16, and presumptively ends in April after Trump's first 100 days. I'd be surprised if she doesn't become the permanent host though.
Two important details in Fox's press release: 1) MacCallum recently signed a new multi-year deal with the network. 2) She will take Kelly's spot on inauguration day, co-anchoring the coverage with Bret Baier... | | | Page Six stirring the pot | | For the second time this week, Page Six is saying that Kelly's arrival at NBC is making other NBC stars nervous... This item reflects internal chatter about whether Kelly is in line to replace Savannah Guthrie on "Today" someday. (Even though Guthrie just signed a long-term deal.)
A "Today" rep responded with a top-notch quote: "No, Megyn is not being 'groomed'; the senior leadership of NBC News expects to be long-retired and sleeping in while Savannah is still rising early and anchoring Today." | | | Greta Van Susteren joining MSNBC | | Two days after Kelly jumped to NBC News, former Fox host Greta Van Susteren joined MSNBC. As Dylan Byers tweeted earlier: "Who ever thought all that Fox News talent would end up at NBCUni?" There's no love lost between the two TV stars, but plenty of room for both of them...
The announcement came out on Thursday afternoon. Instead of hosting Fox's "On The Record" at 7pm, Van Susteren will host MSNBC's "FOR The Record" at 6pm. She'll start on Monday... | | Van Susteren will anchor from MSNBC's North Capitol Street studio... in the same building where she worked at Fox... giving MSNBC an early evening lineup all set in DC (Chuck Todd at 5, Greta at 6, Chris Matthews at 7). On Thursday night Rachel Maddow welcomed Greta to the network... and showed the still-under-construction set in DC...
The Maddow/Van Susteren segment was an implicit response to some of the left-wing criticism about MSNBC hiring a Fox host. MSNBC's corporate POV is that Greta's show will be news/analysis, not opinion... | | | Jesse Watters gets a weekly show on Fox | | | Tom Kludt emails: O'Reilly's trouble-making sidekick Jesse Watters has racked up an impressive enemies list over the course of his career, but he doesn't have many among the millions of people who watch Fox. On Thursday Fox said "Watters World" will become a weekly program, Saturdays at 8 p.m... | | | Two more Van Jones specials | | | The Van Jones show "The Messy Truth" will return on CNN on 1/11 and 1/25... | | -- Here at CES, there are dozens of companies hawking VR and AR products on the show floor... THR has a reporter's notebook all about the buzz around "immersive VR..." (THR)
-- I saw Jon Steinberg at C Space on Thursday, and I told him I underestimated Cheddar. His latest announcement: Cheddar "is teaming up with Vanity Fair and Condé Nast Entertainment for a brand new, live, weekly half-hour series called 'VF Hive on Cheddar...'" (Bustle)
-- Via Abby Livingston: "Matthew Dowd, former W operative and ABC News analyst, tells the Tribune he is mulling a run against Ted Cruz..." (Texas Tribune) | | | Meredith wants Time again? | | Is it on again? Bloomberg's Alex Sherman scoops: "Meredith Corp. has contacted Time Inc. to express interest in a potential merger, according to people familiar with the matter, rekindling a possible tie-up that died in 2013. Other strategic companies and privately held businesses have also been in touch with Time about a possible deal, one of the people said. No talks have yet been held with interested parties..."
Sherman says "Time's board is expected to meet later this month to discuss its options, which include pushing forward as an independent company, the people said..." | | | Torture video on Facebook Live | | Dylan Byers emails: Four people in Chicago bound and gagged a man, then beat and tortured him. What does that have to do with the media? The perpetrators broadcast the whole thing on Facebook Live, allowing people all over the world to watch in real time. That has brought Facebook's reluctance to accept its role as a media company under even more scrutiny. "We do not allow people to celebrate or glorify crimes on Facebook and have removed the original video for this reason," a spokesperson told CNNMoney.
Still, the broadcasts are live, and almost impossible to prevent before they start. Which presents Facebook with a dilemma: Will it simply show everything, or will it acknowledge the responsibilities that come with being a media company and hire editors who can supervise the content and decide in real time what is important and newsworthy and what must be taken down as inappropriate? Read Dylan's full story here... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Sign of the times: "Norway will next week become the first nation to start switching off its FM radio network, in a risky and unpopular leap to digital technology..." (The Guardian)
-- Scott Grogin is taking over communications at CBS TV Distribution, succeeding John Wentworth... (Variety)
-- And Dan Berger is being tapped as chief spokesman for 20th Century Fox... (Variety) | | The difference between ♀ and ♂... | | Dylan Byers emails: Watch that symbol! The cover image on the latest Washington Post Express features people standing in the shape of the Mars symbol, or "Male Sign": ♂. The problem? The article is about the women's rights movement. It was supposed to be the Venus symbol, or "Female Sign": ♀.
"We made a mistake on our cover this morning and we're very embarrassed," Express wrote in a tweet. "We erroneously used a male symbol instead of a female symbol."
We do sympathize. Mistakes happen. But as far as mistakes go, this one's pretty big... | | | Happy birthday, Charlie Rose | | | Rose turned 75 years old today... | | | Chris Berman stepping away from NFL coverage | | Frank Pallotta emails: Chris Berman will no longer be the face of ESPN's NFL coverage. However, Berman will not be leaving the network all together: He will still make appearances on-air from time to time and will "also serve in public-facing roles on behalf of the company," according to Thursday's announcement.
Read more from Frank here... | | | Post-Gawker trial: A.J. Daulerio profiled | | | Tom Kludt emails: Maximillian Potter landed the first major profile of A.J. Daulerio, and it's a must-read. In it, Daulerio discusses the Hulk Hogan/Peter Thiel contretemps, his struggles with addiction and, shockingly, a recently recovered memory of being molested as a child. Whether you like his style or not, nobody can deny that Albert James Daulerio is a warrior... | | | "Reliable" producer Lee Alexander emails: How to cover a "say anything" president just got a tiny bit easier now that factba.se is keeping track of everything Trump has ever said or tweeted. If you are covering Trump for the next four years – bookmark this online database now. It's an invaluable archive of every speech, interview, statement, and Tweet (even deleted) by Donald Trump. | | | Set your DVR for Sunday's "Reliable Sources" | | | We're still firming up the guest list, but it's going to be a good one... with Kristen Soltis Anderson, Glenn Greenwald, Sarah Ellison, and Jim Rutenberg, just to name a few... | | | Conan O'Brien's show going once a week? | | | Tony Maglio's original report on TheWrap: "TBS is planning to retool late-night talk show 'Conan' to a weekly format instead of a nightly one, Turner CEO John Martin told TheWrap. It's not immediately clear when this will occur." Conan's remote shows have "proved a boon both creatively and in TV ratings... Martin also believes one-hour weekly will just prove better for the show. Samantha Bee does exactly that..." | | There was a lot of confusion on Thursday after Maglio's story hit. For now, Frank Pallotta writes, "Conan" is remaining nightly instead of going weekly. But it may not stay that way for long.
After Martin's comments were published, TBS chief creative officer Kevin Reilly told Variety that things are in "flux." "Is going to once a week a possibility? It is. That's going to come from him when he's ready to get his hands around that."
Read Frank's wrap-up here... | | -- Chloe Melas emails: The National Board of Review Awards were held last night and "Manchester by the Sea" won big. Check out the other winners here...
-- Programming note: Chloe will be on "New Day" Friday at 8:50 a.m. with a look ahead at this Sunday's Golden Globes...
-- Brian Lowry says Netflix's "One Day at a Time" gives reboots a good name... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. See you tomorrow! | |  | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
Post a Comment