Exec summary: "Trump's Enemies" is a bust... Bustle is a possible buyer of Mic... Sundance's lineup is set... And much more... Scroll down to catch up on the past 24 hours of media headlines...
The fall of Moonves
| | You think you know what happened with Les Moonves and CBS? This new NYT story proves that you don't know the half of it.
James B. Stewart, Rachel Abrams and Ellen Gabler's story started one year ago when, in the wake of Harvey Weinstein's downfall, Gabler started reaching out to potential sources about Moonves and rumors of a #MeToo problem. Gabler says she made the first call to talent manager Marv Dauer exactly one year ago Wednesday.
Dauer dodged her calls. But he knew a lot. And he ultimately shared it all with The Times.
Wednesday evening's story contains a revolting new accusation of sexual assault against actress Bobbie Phillips in 1995. But, as @nytimes wrote, it wasn't Phillips' accusation that led to his downfall, "it was his and Marv Dauer's effort to buy her silence."
The Times has the secret text messages to back up that claim -- numerous texts to Dauer that show Moonves dangling possible jobs for Phillips. In his final months at CBS, Moonves "schemed with a down-on-his-luck manager to bury a sexual misconduct allegation," The Times says.
Moonves, for his part, tells The Times "I strongly believe that the sexual encounter with Ms. Phillips more than 20 years ago was consensual." She very strongly disagrees. There is so much detail in this story...
-- NYT media editor Jim Windolf tweeted: "Hard to see how CBS gives Leslie Moonves that $120 million exit package after this story..."
-- Jodi Kantor tweeted: "This story is a primer on how the powerful behave when they think no one is watching..."
What is Shari Redstone thinking right now?
Would any of this awfulness have surfaced if Team Moonves had not challenged controlling shareholder Shari Redstone six months ago?
--> A media exec emails: "If he hadn't sued Shari, he might have left with everything intact. But arrogance and ego were too much to overcome..."
The Chen question
Katie Pellico emails: CBS just confirmed on Tuesday that Moonves' wife Julie Chen will be returning as host of "Big Brother" in January. I can't help but wonder about that now, in light of this NYT report...
No comment from CBS
CBS Corp. declined to comment on the revelations in the NYT. The two law firms retained by the board back in August are still at work, continuing their investigation. So what will the board do? Will Moonves receive his golden parachute?
Wednesday's other must-read about misconduct
"In October 2017, as the #MeToo movement spurred a national conversation about the sexual harassment and abuse of women, the Miami Herald had already begun examining the Jeffrey Epstein case," the Herald says.
Reporter Julie K. Brown started working on it after former Miami US Attorney Alexander Acosta was nominated to be Trump's Labor Secretary. She eventually found that Acosta helped give Epstein, a serial sex abuser, "the deal of a lifetime." Brown and her colleagues found dozens of possible victims and obtained 10 years of public records. The result was Wednesday's story, which will sicken you if you haven't read it yet... Please do...
More to come?
The Herald is still fighting in court to obtain more documents... Details here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- The WSJ, WaPo, Politico: POTUS keeps giving interviews. His latest: The New York Post. He publicly announced that a pardon for Paul Manafort is "not off the table..." (NY Post)
-- Thanks for making last Sunday's "Reliable Sources" No. 1 in its cable news time slot in the 25-54 demo! 🥂
-- TVNewser has the headlines from CNN, Fox and MSNBC's November ratings here... (TVNewser)
-- I wish Barack Obama had said this a few days earlier... It would have been perfect for last Sunday's segment about two Americas living in two news worlds. He says that by the time he took office, Fox News viewers had "an entirely different reality" than NYT readers... (CNN)
-- Will the White House hold its annual holiday party for the press corps? Seems unlikely... (NYT)
-- Rockefeller Center's 86th annual tree lighting ceremony took place on Wednesday 👇 | | Matt Lauer was fired one year ago...
Thursday is the one-year "anniversary" (odd word in this context) of NBC's stunning firing of Matt Lauer. Stunning because the show's staffers and viewers woke up to the news. A small number of people knew that the NYT and Variety were investigating alleged misconduct by Lauer, but most viewers had no idea. Within NBC, no one had any idea how the audience would react to his disappearance. But now we know: "Today" has expanded its lead over "GMA." For the past five weeks, it's been winning in total viewers as well as the demo...
Linda Vester's message
Former Fox and NBC correspondent Linda Vester, who alleged harassment by Tom Brokaw earlier this year, has founded a nonprofit called the Silence Breakers Alliance. She appeared on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Wednesday night, and she has an ad in Thursday's NYT challenging Comcast's board of directors.
The ad says NBC should "hire outside counsel to conduct an independent investigation" into misconduct at NBC News; "publicly disclose" the findings; and end the use of nondisclosures and forced arbitration in these cases...
34 years later, a "Handmaid's Tale" sequel
Margaret Atwood, the acclaimed author of "The Handmaid's Tale," is writing a sequel set 15 years after the original book. The new novel, titled "The Testaments," was announced on Wednesday morning... And it will come out next September.
"Handmaid's" season one on Hulu ended just as Atwood's book ended. But season two was a brand new story. (Season three is in the works now.) So "The Testaments" will be Atwood's version of how Offred and Gilead's story continued... Here's my full writeup...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Edward-Isaac Dovere is writing "You Are Right to Be Concerned: Democrats in Crisis in the Trump Years" for Viking... (Politico)
-- The Atlantic is beginning a year-long reporting project, "The Speech Wars," on its website and through live events... (Atlantic)
-- Max Tani tweeted: "Ivanka Trump and Tim Cook visited an Idaho elementary school and allowed just two outlets to attend under strict conditions. The Idaho Statesman correctly framed its story about their visit around the restrictions..." (Statesman)
-- Here's Farhad Manjoo's final "State of the Art" column... He's moving to the opinion page... (NYT)
-- Pui-Wing Tam has been promoted to deputy editor of the NYT's Business section... She will continue to run the paper's tech coverage out of SF... (NYT)
"Mic.com is in talks to sell to Bustle"
That's Peter Kafka's Wednesday evening scoop for Recode. He says "Mic employs more than 100 people and has raised more than $60 million. Right now, it looks like Bustle would consider bringing in half or less of the Mic staff."
The unfortunate writing has been on the wall. Traffic has been down, and Mic was said to be considering a sale (to some other entity) and other strategic options a few months ago. Kafka has new info on what went wrong. "The sale talks come after Facebook canceled a video series with Mic that had provided an important source of revenue to the publisher," he says.
--> AdWeek's Sara Jerde hears that "mass editorial layoffs" could come as soon as Thursday. "The site and its assets, including its own CMS, could potentially be sold off for parts in what would amount to a sad, media flash sale..."
--> Bustle's non-denial comment: "We have not purchased Mic..."
FIRST LOOK
This week's cover of TIME
| | "This web of wounded souls spans America," Haley Sweetland Edwards and Belinda Luscombe write.
They are parents who have lost a child to a school shooting. They are part of an "invisible network" that is "sustained in part by its tragically ever expanding size."
Seven of the parents appear on the cover. "In a country riven by partisanship, the relationships between those whose children have been taken by bullets transcend the rancor," the reporters write... Their story will be on TIME.com on Thursday morning...
Is Sinclair distancing itself from Boris?
Boris Epshteyn's commentaries contain a simple message: "I love Trump and you should too." Some Sinclair staffers despise Epshteyn and his segments, but they're required to run his rah-rah messages... Even this one, which defended the use of tear gas at the border and went viral for all the wrong reasons.
On Wednesday Sinclair addressed the "concerns" and said "the opinions expressed in this segment do not reflect the views of Sinclair Broadcast Group."
If that was really the case, they'd follow up on his pro-tear gas essay by airing an anti-tear gas commentary... But that's not going to happen. Yet another blow to Sinclair workforce morale...
NAHJ distancing itself from Sinclair
In a scorching statement on Wednesday night, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists said Epshteyn's "propaganda" has the group rethinking its relationship with Sinclair. (Like other station owners, Sinclair often uses NAHJ events to recruit staffers.) "We will have to consider limiting their presence," the group's president Hugo Balta says...
| | What can you say when the president retweets a slavish fan account four times in a row; highlights a meme depicting his enemies, including Rod Rosenstein, "locked up" for "TREASON;" shares a VP parody account's anti-Clinton post; promotes two more anti-Clinton posts that are one month old and shamefully dishonest; and writes, in his own words, "This is our Joseph McCarthy Era!"
So what can you say? Well here are a few options:
Norm Eisen on Erin Burnett's show: "His behavior is a shameful betrayal" of the Oval Office.
Steve Vladeck reacting to the "treason" meme: "I know we've all become inured to this, but we shouldn't be. This is disgusting. It is dangerous. And it is un-American..."
Jake Tapper called the meme "insanity." This "isn't some crazy thing from your uncle at Thanksgiving," he said, "this is from the president of the United States..."
"The foreign media that dare not speak ill of Trump"
Insightful story by Politico's Ben Schreckinger: There's a "widespread belief among foreign rulers that a president who fulminates at domestic outlets he calls 'fake news' might also be stirred to action against nations whose media organs insult him." So "several autocratic regimes with which the U.S. has tense relations — including China, Turkey, North Korea and Russia — have directed their media outlets "not to criticize Trump by name, according to former government officials and regional experts. Instead, these state-controlled outlets find scapegoats other than Trump himself, including his advisers, the 'Deep State' and former President Barack Obama. Or they simply avoid mentioning the president at all, instead complaining about U.S. policy in the abstract." Read on...
"Trump's Enemies" is a bust
Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie's sequel to "Let Trump Be Trump" has enjoyed four straight days of press... including big bookings on Fox, ABC, CNN, and other outlets... but "Trump's Enemies" just isn't selling. I've been watching the book's best seller ranking on Amazon since last Saturday, and I've never seen it get higher than #300. Many pro-Trump and anti-Trump books hit the top 10, at least briefly.
--> To put this into proper context: Other right-wing authors, like Tucker Carlson and Dan Bongino, are firmly in the top 100, and their books came out in October! Are Lewandowski and Bossie past their expiration dates?
At this rate, I might need to start a TODAY IN MUELLER section of the newsletter...
CNN's scoop
Did Roger Stone tell Trump about WikiLeaks? Did anyone tell Trump about Don Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton? Trump nay'ed both these questions in his written response to Mueller, according to a CNN exclusive. One of the sources "said the president made clear he was answering to the best of his recollection." Well he's bragged about having one of the "great memories of all time," so all good, right?
Guardian backing away from its Assange story?
Hadas Gold emails: The Guardian's Luke Harding set off a news explosion on Tuesday when he reported that Paul Manafort had visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. No other news organizations have matched it yet – and WikiLeaks and Manafort have both denied the story. WikiLeaks has started fundraising for what it says will be a lawsuit against The Guardian and Manafort also indicated he'd be open to suing. (Keep in mind lots of people threaten lawsuits, but don't always follow through.)
Here's the thing: In a statement on Wednesday, The Guardian said, "This story relied on a number of sources. We put these allegations to both Paul Manafort and Julian Assange's representatives prior to publication. Neither responded to deny the visits taking place. We have since updated the story to reflect their denials."
--> Oliver Darcy tweeted: "Noticeably missing: A line stating that The Guardian is confident in the accuracy of its story..."
--> Alex Finley's piece for Politico: "Did Someone Plant a Story Tying Paul Manafort to Julian Assange?"
More Corsi drama
Why does Jerome Corsi keep giving interviews while he's under Mueller's microscope? The latest example: A 22-minute interview with MSNBC's Ari Melber. Is Corsi, as Melber said, "auditioning for a pardon?" He denies it.
Oliver Darcy adds: Corsi and Stone knowingly peddled the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, despite privately acknowledging that the emails had been provided to WikiLeaks by hackers, The Daily Beast's Will Sommer reported in his latest story. Sommer was relying on communication included in Robert Mueller's court filing this week against Corsi in which Corsi is quoted as saying that it "appears to be the game hackers are about now." As Sommer documents in his story, Corsi and Stone both "played key roles promoting the conspiracy theory" about Rich. I wouldn't expect an apology from either of them though. Per Sommer, neither responded to a request for comment... | |
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
By Julia Waldow:
-- Daniel Funke interviewed the Jonathan Albright about going beyond content when evaluating misinformation; the role of bad actors in private Facebook groups; and how journalists and fact-checkers should respond to the spread of false news... (Poynter)
-- Remember the food writer who said he "killed" a burger joint after naming it #1? Matthew Singer says there's more to the story... (Willamette Week)
-- Thanks to Spencer Raine for this one: NPR economics correspondent John Ydstie is retiring on Friday. He's had a 44-year-long career in journalism... (Current)
Google's day on Capitol Hill: Next Wednesday
It's official now: Google CEO Sundar Pichai will be testifying to the House Judiciary Committee regarding the company's business practices. December 5, 10am. The GOP-led committee says the hearing will examine "potential bias and the need for greater transparency regarding the filtering practices of tech giant Google."
You'll recall that Google declined an invite to a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing in September...
"Frat-boy billionaires from California" ruining democracy?
Katie Pellico emails: Mark Zuckerberg was "shredded" for his absence at Tuesday's international committee hearing in London, BI reports. Canadian MP Charlie Angus laid into the company: "While we were playing on our phones and apps our democratic institutions, our formal civil conversations, seem to have been upended by frat-boy billionaires from California." After the hearing, British MP Damian Collins said "the buck stops with Zuck..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- ICYMI: NPR has parted ways with critic David Edelstein after his offensive "Last Tango" tweet... (AP)
-- Will "Murphy Brown" continue past its initial 13-episode order? THR notes that it "underperformed" in its time slot, but still "remains in consideration for a renewal..." (THR)
-- Chloe Melas emails: Bruce Springsteen opened up about his battles with depression in a new interview with Esquire... (CNN)
"The Future of the Internet is Indian"
An Phung emails: Global tech companies like Google and Facebook are tripping over each other and competing with local startups to bring the internet to India, a country in which only 30% of its 1.3 billion people are online. That is the upshot to Rishi Iyengar's latest feature for CNN Business. Rishi traveled to a "no network zone" in India to bring us the report, "The Future Of The Internet Is Indian." It's a worthwhile read and it's special because it marks the first time CNN Business translated a report into Hindi.
I asked Rishi about the editorial decision behind this and his answer was simple: "Most of these 800-900 million Indians yet to come online don't speak English, and as the story points out that's leading many of them to engage with the internet in video and increasingly voice, rather than by typing." The idea to translate it came from Programming Editor Michelle Toh, Rishi said...
This year's Sundance selections
Of the 14,529 submissions, here are the 112 features that will screen at Sundance in January... Among the notable selections, "Knock Down the House" is a documentary about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and several other insurgent candidates... And "Untouchable" is a doc about Harvey Weinstein...
| | 'Roma' leads streaming push into Oscar race
Brian Lowry emails: Netflix desperately wants to get into the Oscar race, and Alfonso Cuaron's autobiographical "Roma" — rightfully adored by critics — gives the streamer its strongest contender yet. But as with its assault on traditional TV models, Netflix — which has refused to report box-office totals, in a year in which the academy flirted with a "popular film" category — appears determined to continue playing by its own rules...
--> THR's Kim Masters makes much the same point here, noting that the service is almost seeking to alienate Oscar voters in a piece headlined, "Why is Netflix Waging a Pointless War on the Box Office?"
--> And one footnote from my story: In a sign of the times, "Roma" isn't the only foreign-language period piece, shot in black and white, in Oscar contention from a streaming service. The other, Amazon's "Cold War," is a stark post-World War II love story — from Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, whose "Ida" won the foreign-language film Oscar in 2015 — that I liked almost as much...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- It's that time of the month again. See what's streaming in December!
-- Rita Moreno won an Oscar for her performance in 1961's original production of "West Side Story." Now the 86-year-old actress has joined the planned Steven Spielberg remake...
-- Will Smith posted an emotional tribute to his oldest son in praise of how their relationship has grown...
Thank you for reading. Send me your feedback anytime. See you tomorrow!
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