EXEC SUMMARY: George Sondland is about to testify. Scroll down for the latest headlines from the impeachment hearings... Plus THR's Spotify cover story, Emily Ramshaw and Amanda Zamora's new venture, Joshua Jackson's new anchor job, Kevin Mayer's admission, and much more...
More pain at papers across the country
"This week marks a major turning point in the already-churning U.S. daily business," news industry analyst Ken Doctor told me on Tuesday night.
"As the year, and woeful decade, close, financial players have taken control of much of the daily press. This week, GateHouse closed on its acquisition of Gannett, creating a single company of 256 dailies, and 18% of the press -- and it is controlled by PE Fortress Investment Group. McClatchy, looking at default on its pension plan funding obligations, faces either financial restructuring, or bankruptcy -- and its primary shareholder and debtholder Chatham Asset Management is in the driver's seat. Then, this afternoon, the industry's bete noire Alden Global Capital shocked the industry by buying out the quarter share of Tribune Publishing owned by (almost equally disdained) Michael Ferro's ownership group."
Doctor's overall point: "At a time when local news is needed more than ever, it is the bankers who are deciding what will be defined as news, and who will be employed to report it."
So let's take these stories one by one...
The New Gannett
Kerry Flynn writes: Gannett and GateHouse officially combined on Tuesday. Is the merger going to cause local journalism to suffer? That was my first question when I met with Gannett execs Paul Bascobert and Mike Reed at USA Today's office in Midtown Manhattan on Monday. It was blunt, but it's the real fear media reporters and advocates have been writing about now ever since the deal was announced in August. It's what employees are talking about.
Bascobert's hard-to-believe answer was "no." He elaborated, "At the starting point, there's some economics associated with combining two companies together. There's duplication of expenses." So... Yes?
Reed jumped in to argue that if this merger hadn't gotten through, more journalism jobs could have been lost.
But there WILL be layoffs. Soon. Florida Times-Union reporter Emily Bloch tweeted a bleak TikTok, highlighting that a FAQ sent to employees acknowledged the impending cuts. The full FAQ says "Yes, there will be changes that will involve a reduction in our workforce after thoughtful review."
But it remains to be seen where the cuts might fall. Reed told me he did see some overlapping coverage in reporters' beats but he imagined those journalists could be "redeployed into other things." Here's my full story...
Coming on Wednesday...
Kerry Flynn adds: Changes to Gannett's leadership team are expected to be announced on Wednesday. The execs wouldn't comment on the matter to me, though Bascobert did note, "Paid circulation is another key priority for us. You'll see us consolidating under a strong leader around circulation and pushing that hard." I'll be looking at the diversity of the leadership, especially given the identical gender and ethnicity of Bascobert and Reed...
McClatchy is so "weighed down..."
McClatchy is so "weighed down by pension obligations and debt" that it "could file for bankruptcy within the next year, according to analysts," Bloomberg reported on Monday.
The company's stock, which had been trading between $2 and $3, has fallen off a cliff in the past five days. It closed at 40 cents on Tuesday. Doctor has all the needed context in his much-read piece about McClatchy here...
Tribune staffers are newly on edge
Ferro's sale means that Alden Global Capital -- already the controlling shareholder in Digital First Media and its 200 papers -- is now Tribune Publishing's biggest shareholder. And this is being interpreted as very bad news by staffers at Tribune's papers. "Alden has a well-established history of harming media institutions and journalists," the Chicago Tribune's guild said in a statement.
Nico Savidge of the San Jose Mercury News Guild observed that "reporters at Alden-owned papers in the Bay Area held a protest over the gutting of their newsrooms and dismal pay" just a couple of hours before the Alden-Tribune news hit. This photo is from the protest: | | >> Flashback to Joe Nocera's column about Alden last year: "Imagine If Gordon Gekko Bought News Empires..."
What now?
"As part of the purchase, Alden is in discussions to add two seats to Tribune Publishing's six-member board," the Chicago Tribune's Robert Channick reported.
Alden's Digital First Media wanted to gobble up Gannett, but failed. Now it seems a deal with McClatchy is quite possible. Doctor reported last week that "McClatchy and Tribune executives are talking about merging their two companies."
However, given what's happened to McClatchy's stock in recent days, "Tribune seems more likely to wait out McClatchy's drama and see what comes out on the other side," Doctor wrote Tuesday. "The idea: Let McClatchy reorg itself, even via bankruptcy, and tidy up its balance sheet by shedding debt. Then merge..."
Bottom line
"There has been some bad days in journalism, but this day is especially noteworthy," Jon Harris, a business reporter at the Tribune-owned Morning Call, wrote on Twitter. He brought up Knight and Gallup's recent survey that said "greater awareness of the financial struggles of local news organizations can lead to a greater willingness to help them stay solvent." And he asked: "Is there a better time than today to familiarize readers with our struggles?"
--> ICYMI: Knight's Jennifer Preston joined me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" and hit some optimistic notes... She talked about new structures for local papers, like non-profit status, and a donation program called NewsMatch.org...
WEDNESDAY PLANNER
The impeachment hearings resume at 9am ET...
President Trump will visit the Apple manufacturing plant in Austin...
The next #DemDebate will start at 8pm...
#DemDebate night
Yes, it's that time again... MSNBC's special coverage will begin at 7pm ET Wednesday... And MSNBC and the WaPo website will both carry the debate live at 8pm. Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell, Kristen Welker and Ashley Parker will moderate -- a rare all-woman panel of moderators. That's all the more notable in light of this next bit of news...
Four candidates urge Comcast to conduct an independent investigation
HuffPost's Emily Peck had this scoop on Tuesday: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris signed on to a letter to the DNC -- coordinated by UltraViolet -- urging NBC's parent company Comcast "to conduct an independent investigation into sexual misconduct at the news network."
The letter stopped short "of threatening to pull out of the Democratic debate if Comcast declines to investigate." And NBC declined to comment on Tuesday. The NYT's Michael Grynbaum has more here...
A big moment for Tyler Perry Studios
Lisa Respers France writes: Tyler Perry's sprawling development in Atlanta opened last month. And now it's the site of a Dem primary debate. I had the chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at Tyler Perry Studios -- which is the first major studio owned completely by an African American. Here's my full story...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Emily Ramshaw and Amanda Zamora are leaving The Texas Tribune to launch "a new national nonprofit news organization aimed at giving women the facts, tools and information they need to be equal participants in democracy and civic life..." (Texas Tribune)
-- Ben Smith's newest must-read is about the "campaign for executive editor" at the NYT. But Dean Baquet is not going anywhere anytime soon: A.G. Sulzberger told Smith that "I hope and fully expect he will stay in his role as long as possible, which means any succession decision remains a long way off..." (BuzzFeed News)
-- Margaret Sullivan's latest column: "I don't know what to believe' is an unpatriotic cop-out. Do better, Americans." (WaPo)
THE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS
The marathon
What began at 9am ended around 8:20pm. On Fox, Tucker Carlson was dismissive, saying "the circus train of impeachment remains stalled on the tracks." Others saw a crisis rather than a circus. On CNN, Jeffrey Toobin said "today was a graveyard for Republican talking points."
Here's Chris Cillizza with eleven takeaways from the marathon day. And here's the headline on Page One of Wednesday's NYT: "Two Top Officials Testify Call Was Inappropriate; One 'Couldn't Believe' It." | | "I watched all 10 hours of impeachment testimony and I can't imagine that made sense to anyone who hasn't followed it religiously," WaPo's Greg Jaffe tweeted. "I've followed it religiously and until Schiff's closing remarks at 8:25pm it felt like an incomprehensible fog of meetings, texts, dates and times."
The NYT's Charlie Warzel made a similar point -- he said these recaps by John Heilemann and John Battelle's new venture The Recount "are very well done" -- Warzel said "I keep thinking that, given the length and depth of the impeachment hearings, the recapping will probably be more crucial than the live coverage for non-news obsessives to formulate their opinions on it all..."
'Co-conspirators of Trump's crime'
I asked CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju for his top takeaway from the day. Here's what he wrote: "The House Intelligence Committee used to be one of the most bipartisan in Congress. That was before Trump became president. Starting with Devin Nunes briefing Trump during the Russia probe in 2017, which led to his decision to step aside from running his panel's inquiry last Congress, relations have grown increasingly tense to the point where private shouting matches are not uncommon."
"Sometimes," Raju continued, "they spill out into the public, like last week when Rep. Mike Conaway -- a mild-mannered Republican who used to be friendly with Chairman Adam Schiff -- berated him as the first impeachment hearing closed because Schiff didn't want to entertain debate over issuing a subpoena to the whistleblower. 'What are you afraid of?' Conaway asked as Schiff left the room. But Democrats are tired of GOP antics, pretending to be ignorant about the rules about the hearings' procedures, painting themselves like victims, going after the whistleblower and falsely accusing Schiff of coordinating the whistleblower's complaint. As one Democrat told me, his colleagues see Republicans on the committee as 'co-conspirators of Trump's crime...'"
Red Bull, energy bars, chips for reporters
"Politico sent a care package to our Congress team this week," reporter Melanie Zanona told me. It included Keurig pods, Red Bull, energy bars, and chips.
"A few of us took a much-needed break from impeachment hearings today to go watch the John Boehner portrait unveiling," she said, "which was a very bipartisan, feel-good moment that felt like a bygone era." Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Chuck Schumer, and former speakers Paul Ryan and Newt Gingrich were all in attendance...
Meme of the day
It had to be McClatchy's Emma Dumain chugging a massive cup of coffee during the morning session: | | So Slate's Heather Schwedel interviewed her... Check it out here...
Turns out Dumain had the exact same kind of morning I did: "We have a 19-month-old, and she got up a little bit before 6... I went into her room and tried to get her back to sleep on me. We kind of went in and out of sleep for another 45 minutes." Yep...
"It was a very disorienting morning where I didn't have my coffee at home," Dumain said. "Usually by 9 a.m. on a weekday, I'm onto my second cup, and there's a lot less urgency to gulp it down. That's kind of the story I want to put out there: I'm just a tired workin' mom trying to do it all."
How C-SPAN is keeping up with all the action
"This is a long day," C-SPAN's Jon Kelley told me, "but we staff accordingly since it is the high profile event" of the moment.
C-SPAN is the "pool," providing seven camera angles for all the networks and other news outlets that want access to the footage. "We staffed this hearing with 6 times the staff we would use for a regular hearing (24 people vs. 4 people)," Kelley said. "In addition, we have great experience on our crew covering this and they know how to get the shots and tell the story. Many of the people on our crew have been here for 20, 25, 30 or more years of the 40 years C-SPAN has been in existence. They are simply the best at covering these high profile hearings."
--> One of the day's only hiccups: "One of our small cameras focused on the witness table got bumped by a still photog, and we had to wait until the break to fix it," Kelley said...
Keep it simple for viewers!
Oliver Darcy emails: Observing coverage of the impeachment hearings, I've noticed a tendency among some chyron and headline writers at various news organizations to assume that viewers and readers know who the key players are. BUT I would suggest that is perhaps not the case. While the public might be familiar with the contours of the Ukraine scandal, I would wager that most people are not familiar with each and every witness.
When writing chyrons and headlines, my humble suggestion would be to keep it simple. Refer to Tim Morrison as a former White House aide. Refer to Jennifer Williams as a former Pence aide. Viewers who casually tune in will probably be more concerned with the witness' position and how they fit into the story versus their name...
Schiff's poor timing?
NBC's Garrett Haake tweeted: Adam Schiff "is as angry/worked up giving his closing statement as I can recall ever seeing him. Says Republicans aren't upset about POTUS conduct -- they're upset that he got caught."
I was struck by his closing statement too... and by the timing. Schiff was only speaking to the news junkies who were watching on cable. The broadcast networks had cut away from the hearings hours earlier. Perhaps his remarks would have been more effective at 9am?
Sondland speaks on Wednesday
"I think there is an enormous amount of anticipation going into Gordon Sondland's testimony," Carrie Cordero said on CNN Tuesday night, "because he was in touch with the president AND he was working with Rudy Giuliani AND he was working with the State Department."
Sondland is all by himself at 9am. Then Laura Cooper and David Hale will testify starting at 2:30pm.
Here's Marshall Cohen with WHAT TO WATCH FOR on Wednesday:
-- Sondland's turn in the hot seat
-- Reckoning with "Biden" versus "Burisma"
-- Did Trump undermine US policy for political gain?
-- A closer look at US military aid for Ukraine.
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Pam Bondi, a new addition to the Trump W.H. handling "impeachment messaging," was on Sean Hannity's show Tuesday night, and will be on "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday...
-- The other day Trump tweeted that "Pam Bondi is a great womem!" and corrected the typo later... (USA Today)
-- Matt Fuller and Arthur Delaney's headline: "Republicans Will Never Be Convinced Trump Did Something Wrong." They say "it seems the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress are never going to accept that the president acted improperly..." (HuffPost)
-- BuzzFeed's Ryan Broderick quipped: The opening statements by Devin Nunes "have actually been a really useful way to catch up on the Fox News talking points my older relatives will ask me about at Thanksgiving next week..."
-- Oliver Darcy tweeted just now: "Funny how Fox opinion hosts are denouncing the impeachment hearings as 'boring,' not worth watching, and void of news, while also simultaneously programming all their shows around them!"
Finkelstein stops by The Hill's DC offices
Oliver Darcy emails: Jimmy Finkelstein, the owner of The Hill newspaper, stopped by the outlet's DC offices on Tuesday, according to multiple staffers. While Finkelstein is known to drop by every few weeks, his visit came one day after we reported about his relationship with Trump and that his staff was in "revolt" over how the outlet has handled the fallout from John Solomon's discredited columns. The timing, in the words of one source, "raised eyebrows..."
Fox continues to dodge questions about diGenova's Soros remarks
Oliver Darcy emails: Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott Monday about Joe diGenova, a regular Fox guest, having spread a baseless George Soros conspiracy on the air. Greenblatt noted that Fox had previously taken action against another guest who made similar remarks. "In light of Mr. diGenova's anti-Semitic comments on air, will you follow your own precedent and no longer book him on your networks?" Greenblatt asked Scott. "If you will not, why?"
One day later, Greenblatt told me that he has not received a reply from Scott. Last week, Soros' philanthropy organization, Open Society Foundations, also wrote Scott and did not receive a reply. I asked a Fox spokesperson about Greenblatt's letter and, too, did not receive a reply...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- CNN analyst and former DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur "is joining the new conservative media company The Dispatch as a staff writer..." (Politico)
-- Lydia Polgreen's new piece: "The collapse of the information ecosystem poses profound risks for humanity..." (The Guardian)
-- "Twitter issued a warning after Britain's Conservative Party came under fire for rebranding one of its official Twitter accounts 'factcheckUK' during a debate between its leader, Boris Johnson, and the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday," Vasco Cotovio and Hadas Gold report... (CNN)
-- Spotify has "inked a deal to bring the eight-year-old show 'The Last Podcast on the Left' exclusively to its platform..." (THR)
IN RELATED NEWS...
First look at THR's cover about Spotify
Daniel Ek and Dawn Ostroff are on the cover, above the words "GOD OF PODS:" | | The feature will be up on THR.com on Wednesday morning. "In 2019 alone," the story says, "Spotify has quietly set up more than 30 new podcasts from partners including Jordan Peele, Paul Feig, Mark Wahlberg and YouTube influencer Lele Pons." Plus: "The Obamas' Higher Ground has hired Dan Fierman (late of Grantland and MTV News) to run their podcast operation from L.A..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- This is a fascinating Bloomberg podcast about "YouTube whisperer" Tim Schmoyer, "who advises other YouTube creators on how to adapt to the changing platform..." (Bloomberg)
-- "Joshua Johnson said Tuesday he would step down as host of WAMU and NPR's national radio show 1A to join MSNBC as an anchor early next year..." (DCist)
-- A circuit judge in Arkansas "sentenced a local television reporter to three days in jail Tuesday after he found her in contempt of court for recording a hearing in a murder case." KNWA/Fox 24 acknowledged that the reporter violated the court's no-recording rules and expressed remorse... (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
Kevin Mayer at Code Media | | Disney's Kevin Mayer said the company was "very surprised by the magnitude of immediate demand" for Disney+. He acknowledged that "we had some issues," some customer service issues "that didn't make me feel good," but the tech problems have been "patched..."
In other news from the Code Media conference...
Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch told the audience "that he hadn't made up his mind yet about Apple's news subscription service."
Lynch said he hopes Apple News+ "is wildly successful," but "whether it's good for publishers like us or not is to be determined," per Variety's Janko Roettgers.
When Peter Kafka asked if Conde is thinking about selling a company-wide bundle, of all its publications, Lynch said it's under consideration...
NBCU's new Olympics boss
Variety's Brian Steinberg reports: "Molly Solomon, a veteran sports producer who has been with NBC since 1990, has been tapped as the new executive producer of NBCUniversal's Olympics broadcast, one of the most important production jobs at the Comcast-owned media conglomerate." She's replacing Jim Bell, who abruptly left NBC earlier this month, and she's beginning the new role right away, "with just months to go before NBCU telecast the 2020 Olympics from Tokyo." Solomon "will continue to oversee production of NBC Sports Group's Golf Channel as well, a position she has held since 2012..."
Sony buys AT&T's stake in GSN
I missed this yesterday: Sony Pictures Entertainment is buying AT&T's 42% stake in Game Show Network for $380 million, "a deal that will make Sony the sole owner of the U.S. cable channel." The deal "implies a valuation of about $905 million for Game Show Network."
-- "This is another step forward in AT&T's asset sale strategy, with proceeds going towards debt reduction," CFRA's Keith Snyder said in an analyst note on Tuesday. "We believe Game Show Network represented low hanging fruit in AT&T's monetization efforts. We expect to see additional deals of this nature in the future, possibly its regional sports networks..."
-- Fun fact: My very first story for the NYT, in 2007, was about GSN!
| | Spectrum revives "Mad About You"
Brian Lowry writes: "Mad About You" is a throwback, a multi-camera revival of the Must-See TV comedy that picks up where it left off, just 20 years later, as Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt's characters become empty nesters. The most interesting wrinkle is that it wound up on Spectrum Originals, reflecting the way distributors are using original programming as an additional means of seeking to add value in a way that cements their fraying bond with subscribers. Read on...
An "attack on Apple" or...?
Brian Lowry writes: I get it, nobody likes bad reviews. But nothing sounds more defensive than accusing critics of disliking a show or movie based not on the merits but out of a broader vendetta — in the case of "The Morning Show," according to producer/director Mimi Leder, because of some collective grudge against Apple and/or its new streaming service. Leder said at Code Media that the critical reviews "very much felt like an attack on Apple," from "Apple haters." While I'd agree with Steve Battaglio's rather tart assessment of that suggestion, it's simply a bad look...
>> Stelter's disclosure: I'm a consulting producer on "The Morning Show," and am hands-off with items about the show.
The stakes of 'Skywalker'
 Frank Pallotta writes: "All or nothing." Those are the stakes for next month's "Star Wars" film, according to its director J.J. Abrams.
Entertainment Weekly has a great feature about the film (with some exclusive photos) and the writer, James Hibberd, says Abrams was "referring to its high-stakes story line," but that the "same could also be said about the franchise."
"Even if we never see Rey, Finn and Poe on screen again," Hibberd wrote. "'Rise of Skywalker's' popularity will likely make an impact on Disney's next studio moves — guiding like a fallen Jedi or Sith's unseen hand..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Lisa Respers France writes: The Doobie Brothers have reunited with Michael McDonald for a 50th anniversary tour...
-- One more from Lisa: Evan Peters and Halsey aren't telling us anything despite what the pictures look like...
-- "Paramount Pictures is in final talks with Noah Hawley to write and direct a Star Trek film," Deadline reports...
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