| | | | Standing room only meeting of White House correspondents | | The White House Correspondents' Association holds a town hall for members every year. Normally a few dozen reporters show up. This year: One hundred.
"I've never seen the room this packed. It was PACKED, which is heartening, you know," a longtime member told me after Thursday's meeting. WHCA president Jeff Mason confirmed the attendance figure, noting that the prior record was about 45 attendees. "People were very interested and attentive and engaged," Mason said in a phone interview Friday night. Another member, USA Today's Gregory Korte, said it was standing room only.
The association is best known for its annual WHCA dinner in the springtime. But "nerd prom" didn't even come up during the meeting, Korte told me. Mason seconded that: "I have joked to some people that normally the dinner would be at the top of my list of things to work on in January of a WHCA school year. But we have a lot of priorities right now." Communicating with the incoming administration. Preserving access. And "maintaining and increasing press corps unity." That's at the top of the list, Mason said... | | | "There's a lot of anxiety..." | | There was a spirited discussion about Jim Acosta's exchange with Donald Trump earlier this week. Mason said "we don't weigh in on who the president should call on," but "we would certainly weigh in if any White House tried to exclude outlets from events," a/k/a by denying credentials the way Trump did during the campaign.
National, local, domestic, foreign, legacy and digital outlets were all represented at the meeting. "There's a lot of anxiety about the transition to Trump because we know they want to shake things up and maybe even have some briefings off camera," Washington Blade W.H. reporter Chris Johnson told me via email. "But at the same time, there's a great sense of solidarity…" And vigilance, another member added... | | | Defining press corps "unity" | | Mason has been emphasizing "unity," which he defined to me as "not allowing the divisions of the press corps to be exploited."
"Wires need to be looking out for print; print needs to be looking out for radio; radio needs to be looking out for TV; TV needs to be looking out for still photographers," he said.
During the town hall, Mason also urged patience… And said the traditional reception for W.H. correspondents and incoming administration aides is in the works… | | | Saying Trump is not legitimate -- "crossing a line?" | | Chuck Todd's "Meet the Press" interview with Rep. John Lewis had been in the works for days. When the two men sat down for a pre-tape on Friday, Todd was not expecting Lewis to say Trump is illegitimate.
Todd's question was: "Do you plan on trying to forge a relationship with Donald Trump?" The Congressman responded by saying "It will be hard. It's going to be very difficult. I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president." Sensing a big news story, NBC News immediately circulated the video and transcript...
-- On CNN Friday night, Erin Burnett asked if these kinds of comments from Democrats are "crossing a line..." Video here via Mediaite...
-- Related: As Red State noted Thursday night, CNN's original anonymously-sourced report about the Trump briefing has been corroborated by government officials and numerous other news outlets. On Friday Erik Wemple scrutinized an NBC report that cast doubt on CNN, and called it "absurd hair-splitting..." | | | Obama presser on Wednesday | | | "President Barack Obama will hold his final news conference Wednesday afternoon in the White House briefing room," CNN's Kevin Liptak reports... | | | "Reliable Sources" guest list | | | BuzzFeed EIC Ben Smith live in-studio... Plus Margaret Sullivan, M.Z. Hemingway, Jeffrey Goldberg, and David Zurawik... See you at 11 a.m. ET Sunday... | | | Casey Affleck hosted "SNL" back on December 17... The show has been on a holiday break since then... But it'll be back on Saturday with first-time host Felicity Jones. Will Alec Baldwin be playing Trump? Unclear... He told "Extra" he will be on the January 21 show, one day post-inauguration, but didn't mention this weekend... | | | Michael Lynton leaving Sony! | | NYT's Brooks Barnes had the news first: "The chief executive of Sony's underperforming entertainment division, Michael Lynton, announced Friday that he would step down to focus more intently on the popular messaging service Snapchat, where he was an early investor." Lynton will step halfway down on February 2... but serve as co-CEO for six months... while Sony Corporation CEO Kazuo Hirai becomes the other co-CEO, spends time in Culver City, and picks a permanent successor.
Lynton has been on the board of Snapchat for years... Now he'll be the chairman of the board. Frank Pallotta has more here... | | | "Essential parts of Sony" | | | THR's Kim Masters writes: Lynton's move "has set the Hollywood rumor mill ablaze that Sony might be in play as a possible acquisition target. One possible suitor is CBS Corp, which recently called off merger talks with sister company Viacom, home of Paramount Pictures." Hirai tried to douse the blaze by saying in the announcement that "we see our entertainment businesses as essential parts of Sony..." | | | "Robert Iger's Pay As Disney CEO Dips Slightly in 2016 to $43.9 million" | | ...That headline from Variety tells the story.
Details from CNNMoney's Jackie Wattles: "Iger saw his income dip by $1 million in 2016 -- but don't feel too sorry for him. He still made $43.9 million. In a public filing released by Disney on Friday, the company said Iger's pay dipped due to lagging growth. Disney shares dipped 0.8% in 2016, marking the company's first net drop since 2011..." | | | WashPost hiring 30 people for video unit | | Last month Ken Doctor said the Washington Post newsroom headcount "will grow by more than 60 jobs — or 8% — an astounding number in this day and age." On Friday we found out that video is a big part of this expansion. Micah Gelman, director of editorial video, told me that it's "the biggest single area where we're growing this year." Here's my full story...
-- What the Post is doing: NOT a pale imitation of cable news. Gelman will be hiring hosts for shows ("more in the YouTube vein than in the cable news vein") and producers for scripted video op-eds and other formats...
-- Bottom line: The Post needs to give users more reasons to tune in, especially on Apple TV/Roku/etc...
-- For now the business model is preroll-centric, but Gelman said Jeff Bezos "has pushed us on, 'What is a better advertising experience?' We've got a really aggressive ad team here that's working to find what the next model is..." | | -- The new season of "Lockup," starting this weekend, will be its last on MSNBC. TVNewser's Chris Ariens reports that ten "MSNBC Originals" staffers are leaving, and the producers of "Dateline NBC" are taking over MSNBC longform... (TVNewser)
-- "Time Inc. will begin discussions with potential acquirers after holding a board meeting earlier this week about the future of the iconic publisher," Alex Sherman reports... (Bloomberg)
-- A worrisome story by Digiday's Lucinda Southern: "Publishers see short-form video views on Facebook cut in half" (Digiday) | | | CNN poaches Kate Bennett and Hunter Schwarz | | Newsletter news! IJR's Kate Bennett and Hunter Schwarz "are leaving the right-leaning viral news site for CNN, where they will launch a new newsletter and work as reporters for CNN Politics' White House team," Politico's Hadas Gold reports.
Schwarz and Bennett start on Monday. "Their new newsletter, which has not been named yet, will launch in the coming weeks." Ed O'Keefe quote plus more info here... | | | CNN spin-off possibility? | | Earlier this week the NYPost's Claire Atkinson quoted Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett saying "if AT&T had to spin off CNN to get the deal approved, I suspect they would be willing to do so." Given the uncertainty about how the Trump administration will treat the AT&T-Time Warner deal, there is certainly (see what I did there?) speculation about a spin-off.
On Friday Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche brought it up in a research report: "While we expect there likely will be concessions (possibly a CNN spinoff, and continued infrastructure investment by AT&T), from a legal standpoint, we note that if denied this deal would be precedent setting given the fact that no vertical merger in the TMT space has been denied." Drudge picked up on the spin-off reference, further stirring (spinning?) the pot... | | | Representing Trump voters | | Brian Lowry emails: This is an interesting Callum Borchers piece about media outlets seeking voices to represent Trump voters. With Trump endeavoring to delegitimize many of those traditional news sources, the question is what the goal is: To attract people being egged on by the President-elect and others to see these conduits as discredited, or merely to help explain them and their views to those who are more receptive and less antagonistic? Put another way, does hiring Greta Van Susteren – or in CNN's case, Jeffrey Lord – make those networks more palatable to those who are eager to dismiss them?
Lord recently re-upped with CNN... | | | Scottie Nell Hughes and CNN parting ways | | Mediaite's Lindsey Ellefson writes: "Have you been wondering where Scottie Nell Hughes went? The conservative pundit and on-air commentator hasn't appeared on CNN for a few weeks... A CNN source has confirmed to Mediaite that her contract will not be renewed when it expires at the end of the month..."
Hughes told The Hill's Joe Concha that "I was under no illusion it was going to continue" past January and that she has "several opportunities being presented in media and otherwise..." | | | Friday on #ElevatorCam... | | | Four TV boldface names visited Trump Tower on Friday: Steve Harvey... Fox's Jeanine Pirro and Geraldo Rivera... Anthony Scaramucci... (hat tip to Howard Mortman) | | | The lineup for pre-inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial | | Toby Keith, 3 Doors Down and Lee Greenwood will headline a Thursday pre-inauguration concert, Chloe Melas reports. Trump's inaugural committee announced the lineup on Friday. Other performers include Jennifer Holliday, The Piano Guys and The Frontmen of Country. Jon Voight will make an appearance.
The Piano Guys are pretty great... Jamie and I saw them up at Tanglewood in 2015. But this lineup is a serious contrast to the Obama pre-inaugural concert in 2009, when Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, U2, Usher, Stevie Wonder, Denzel Washington, and Tom Hanks, among others, were all in attendance... | | -- ICYMI: Carol Costello's sit-down with Gretchen Carlson... (CNN)
-- Martha MacCallum's 7 p.m. show on Fox starts on Monday... She told Cynthia Littleton that "this show is very much about accountability and truth and holding Trump to the things he said he wanted to do..." (Variety)
-- I was on "The Insider" Friday night talking about the latest buzz about a Megyn Kelly/Kelly Ripa competition at 9 in the morning... Per Don Kaplan, the official word is still that "nothing has been decided yet" about Kelly's time slot... (NY Daily News) | | | Happy 65th birthday to the "Today" show! | | On January 14, 1952, NBC invented "morning TV." Dave Garroway was the anchor of "Today" and Sylvester "Pat" Weaver was the founding producer. Weaver envisioned an "electronic newspaper..." He believed the show would be "a milestone in the social history of this country..." And he was right.
Despite the naysayers -- "there was an almost universal belief that no one would watch television right after they got out of bed," Weaver recalled later -- "Today" became one of America's best-known brands and a profit center for NBC. Matt Lauer and co. celebrated the anniversary on Friday's show.
I loved looking back at old "Today" episodes while researching my 2013 book about morning TV. The chapter about Garroway and the creation of "Today" had to be cut from the final manuscript, so we've posted the "lost chapter" on CNNMoney... Check it out here... | | | Nintendo Switch links to the past but feels like the future | | Frank Pallotta emails: Nintendo opened up pre-sales for its highly anticipated new console, the Nintendo Switch, on Friday.
I, being blessed in a past life, was lucky enough to get a sneak peek. What's interesting about Switch is that it's a mobile and at home device all wrapped into one. Nintendo has had to deal with big competition from rivals like Xbox and PlayStation as of late, so the company is trying to capture the pixelated hearts of both the casual and hardcore gamer.
Luckily for Nintendo, Switch is really a blast and has all of the company's popular IP, from Zelda to Mario, so it connects to the past, but feels like something brand new. It hits stores and my bank account on March 3 for $299... | | | Brian Lowry reviews "The Young Pope" | | Brian Lowry emails: Reviews on HBO's "The Young Pope" are all over the place -- there is a certain Trump-ian quality to Jude Law's unpredictable title character -- but I found it pretentious. Put another way, if you can only watch one new show premiering Sunday about a leader who wears a funny hat, pick PBS's "Victoria."
Read Lowry's full review here... | | | "No plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher's performance" | | "On Friday, Lucasfilm has shot down rumors that future Star Wars films will use digital recreations of Carrie Fisher, who died last month," EW's Derek Lawrence writes.
The statement said "we want to assure our fans that Lucasfilm has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher's performance as Princess or General Leia Organa..." | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Is "Deadpool" an Oscar contender? Frank Pallotta asks if the foul-mouthed superhero has what it takes to strike Oscar gold...
-- Lisa France emails: Outraged fans have gotten their wish. Britain's Sky Arts has pulled the Michael Jackson episode after backlash over white actor Joseph Fiennes portraying the late superstar...
-- Via Chloe Melas: Lady Gaga, Bono, Meghan Markle and more celebrities have teamed up with the ONE Campaign to fight for women's education equality. Read their open letter here...
-- More from Chloe: Taylor Swift's first new music video in two years is about to drop. The singer teased the video with this pic... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. See you Sunday! | |  | | 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. | | | | | |
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