EXEC SUMMARY: Good evening from the CNN Heroes all-star gala in NYC. Scroll down for our week ahead calendar, new scrutiny of CBS, a nod to the series finale of "Silicon Valley," the new "Wonder Woman" trailer, and more...
Honoring "Sesame Street"
"Television is often the problem, but sometimes it's the answer, too."
I know many people who work in the television business can relate to those words.
WaPo's Hank Stuever wrote 'em the other day while reflecting on the worldwide impact of "Sesame Street."
Stuever said the show "can feel deeply personal to just about anyone under the age of 55. It taught us to read and count, but it also taught us about kindness and acceptance." These days is "brighter, faster and somehow zippier... yet the sense of belonging remains. 'Sesame Street' was inclusive before anyone really knew what that meant, the first safe space. It is a friend to everyone, which has a lot to do with why it's the first TV show to receive Kennedy Center Honors."
Yes, the Honors -- the ceremonies are being held in Washington on Sunday night -- and "Sesame Street" co-founders Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett are there to accept the award. | | If any TV show deserves the Kennedy Center's recognition, it is "Sesame Street." So it's worth taking a moment to appreciate what shows like "Sesame Street" can achieve... and as Stuever wrote, how television can be the answer rather than the problem.
And on the same day as the Honors...
Remembering the original Big Bird
CNN's Alaa Elassar reports: "Caroll Spinney, the puppeteer who brought beloved 'Sesame Street' characters Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch to life, died on Sunday, according to Sesame Workshop. Spinney passed away at his Connecticut home after battling dystonia, a common movement disorder. He was 85." Spinney stepped down from his puppeteering roles last year.
>> From the archives: The Globe and Mail and The New Yorker penned lovely features about Spinney, and the documentary "I Am Big Bird" is available via VOD and rental sites...
Other Kennedy Center Honorees
This year's other honorees are Earth, Wind & Fire, Sally Field, Linda Ronstadt and Michael Tilson Thomas. Past presidents usually attended the DC tradition, but Trump is skipping the Honors for the third straight year. Of course, as the AP's story noted, some past honorees talked about possibly boycotting the event if Trump was in attendance...
Ronstadt's message for Pompeo
During Saturday's State Department dinner for the honorees, Mike Pompeo invoked Ronstadt's 1975 hit "When Will I Be Loved" by saying to her, "And I will say my job, as I travel the world, I just want to know when I will be loved?"
"Later, when Ronstadt had the opportunity to take the microphone, she delivered her response," Variety's Paul Harris reported. "In front of more than 200 guests, Ronstadt, who has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, stood up and looked straight at Pompeo's table and said, 'I'd like to say to Mr. Pompeo, who wonders when he'll be loved, it's when he stops enabling Donald Trump.'"
Media week ahead calendar
Monday morning: Golden Globe nominations will be announced at 8am ET...
Monday: Nancy Pelosi and Jared Kushner will be interviewed at the WSJ's Newsmakers event in DC...
Tuesday: WSJ's Newsmakers continues with Mick Mulvaney, Bill Barr and more...
Tuesday: Pelosi and Lara Trump will speak at Politico's Women Rule Summit...
Tuesday evening: Trump will hold a rally in Hershey, PA...
Wednesday morning: TIME's Person of the Year will be announced on the "Today" show...
Wednesday: The Screen Actors Guild Awards noms will air at 10am ET on TNT, TBS, truTV...
Friday: "Jumanji: The Next Level," "Richard Jewell" and "Uncut Gems" open nationwide. "Bombshell" hits theaters in L.A. and NY ahead of its wide release on Dec. 20, Brian Lowry notes...
Friday: Per Kerry Flynn, we'll learn the results of NBC News digital unionizing push...
Full week of investor presentations
UBS's tech, media and telecom conference gets started in NYC Monday morning. It continues through Wednesday. (Here's a PDF of the agenda.) Two of the very first speakers on Monday are the CEO and CFO of Peloton, so that should be interesting....
Split-screen Monday?
Well it won't be a literal split-screen, but the the DOJ IG's much-anticipated report is expected to drop while the House Judiciary Committee holds its next impeachment hearing on Monday. The IG will testify before the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Most polarizing TV interview of the day: Ted Cruz on "Meet the Press." As a friend said to me, "Half my feed is people saying that Ted Cruz interview was horrible for him and half is saying it's horrible for Chuck Todd."
-- I think Todd deserves a lot of credit for challenging Cruz's assertions about Ukrainian meddling... As Justin Baragona wrote here, Todd "forcefully confronted" Cruz and "reminded the Texas senator about the lengthy smear campaign Trump launched against him in the 2016 GOP primary..." (Beast)
-- On "SOTU," Jerry Nadler told Dana Bash that if the Dems' case against Trump was presented to a jury, there "would be a guilty verdict in about three minutes flat." (CNN)
-- One of the headlines from the "Axios on HBO" interview with Joe Biden Sunday night: "Biden: Stuttering not to blame for verbal screwups" (Axios)
-- Dan Balz looks ahead: "Impeachment in some form or another will be on the ballot next year..." (WaPo)
Top eight takeaways
From Sunday's "Reliable Sources:"
-- As journalists, "there's a lot of new information that we ought to be seeking, particularly about the president's relations and conversations with Vladimir Putin" and other leaders, Carl Bernstein said...
-- We also talked about Trump's hypocrisy re: anonymous sources...
-- Big picture: Bernstein argued that "there is no indication, thus far, that the Republicans are willing to engage in a real fact-based debate about the conduct of Donald Trump and his obvious, evident, demonstrable corruption."
-- Harvard professor Thomas Patterson explained how "motivated reasoning" is at work in the impeachment inquiry...
-- David Frum took on Tucker Carlson and the Russification of the GOP...
-- Was James Rosen's "hate" Q to Nancy Pelosi fair or unfair? Irin Carmon said Rosen can "ask whatever he wants, but I also think that this is about facts and not about feelings..." | | -- Carmon and Olivia Nuzzi criticized Michael Bloomberg's dismissal of the concerns among his news outlet's own reporters...
-- And how is all of this news being consumed? Damon De Ionni of Revealing Reality told me about his studies that show how smartphones reshape how we all perceive and process information. "It doesn't matter how smart you are or your politics," he said, "we're all going to be kind of ending up in a little bit of a bubble one way or another, and we have to work hard to get outside of that..."
My old-fashioned message
Summing up my open to Sunday's "Reliable:" Rudy Giuliani's dirt-digging is getting a lot of news coverage. And I understand why. But here's an old-fashioned idea: How about those of us in the reality-based press evaluate what he's doing; see if his claims make any sense; and THEN decide whether he merits media attention?
Trump and his allies rely on the media to repeat their misinformation and conspiracy theories. But lies and smears and diversions are not automatically newsworthy. Our job is to report what is true and then... to the extent that what's untrue or unproven or un-sourced is affecting the public debate... our job is to explain who's pushing that stuff and why and how we know it's unreliable. We in the press have to keep putting the facts front and center...
The messaging war
One of my Q's on Sunday's show: Republicans are attacking Trump "haters" and Rudy G. is off in Ukraine taping a TV show with OANN while the Democrats take over daytime TV for lengthy hearings, so which side is winning the impeachment messaging war? "We're all losing," Olivia Nuzzi quipped. "It's hard to look at it that way." It's not a sporting event, she rightly said -- and "it's like comparing a Ken Burns documentary to 'The Wizard of Oz.' One side is dealing with facts. One side cares about what actually happened and that is what they're talking about. And the other side is kind of throwing things at the wall, seeing what will stick, and deflecting left and right."
During the same segment, David Frum argued that the Dems need to do a better job of communicating: "Americans are hearing from the president that he is not getting a fair process. They need to hear back from the House that the president is sabotaging the process..."
Politicians using the courts to punish the press?
On Sunday's show, I discussed the phenomenon of politicians using the courts to challenge reporting, focusing on Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, who is suing several individuals and news outlets, including CNN. One of the people he is suing, Republican political consultant Liz Mair, joined me on Sunday's show, and said that Nunes is "using litigation in an attempt to cudgel and stifle my free speech." Nunes did not respond to my interview request, but the request stands...
Three ways to catch up on Sunday's show
Listen to the episode via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full episode via CNNgo or VOD...
Trump complained about Fox...
...Briefly, in between lots of tweets and retweets showering Fox News with support. His complaint, as usual, was about dissent on the network: "Don't get why @FoxNews puts losers on like @RepSwalwell (who got ZERO as presidential candidate before quitting), Pramila Jayapal, David Cicilline and others who are Radical Left Haters?" Everyone who works in media does get why -- those lawmakers are big newsmakers as the impeachment inquiry moves forward. But, as Oliver Darcy tweeted, "Trump clearly doesn't view Fox as a news organization..."
>> So far on Sunday, Trump has tweeted or retweeted 99 times... mostly retweets of The Daily Caller, Mark Levin, etc...
LA Times, Boston Globe editorial boards call for impeachment
Numerous papers have backed the impeachment inquiry, and now some are explicitly calling for the House to vote for impeachment. The LA Times published its editorial board's conclusion on Saturday: "We've seen enough. Trump should be impeached." The Globe's came out a couple of days earlier.
As I noted here, the Sunday edition of "Fox & Friends" responded to the Times and Globe pieces with an on-screen banner, "MEDIA DECLARES TRUMP SHOULD BE IMPEACHED." Who's writing those banners?!
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Condolences to the WFSB family: Longtime Channel 3 journalist and anchor Denise D'Ascenzo died on Saturday... (WFSB)
Harassment and discrimination claims at CBS-owned TV stations
Atop Page One of Sunday's LAT: "One year after Moonves' exit, CBS TV stations also face harassment and misogyny claims."
Meg James reports: "More than two dozen current and former employees of KCBS and KCAL described a toxic environment where, they said, employees encountered age discrimination, misogyny, and sexual harassment — and retaliation if they complained." And, she says, "discrimination complaints have also surfaced at CBS-owned stations in Chicago, Dallas and Miami." There's a lot to this story, so read on...
>> CBS TV Stations prez Peter Dunn responded with a statement...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Kerry Flynn emails: Emma Goldberg chronicles the "heyday of feminist blogging" in the wake of some of those sites closing this year. Feministing, launched in 2004, plans to shut down in the coming weeks... (NYT)
-- Read Julia Wick on the demise of OC Weekly: "Orange County was once a battleground for an epic newspaper war. Now, journalism is fading fast..." (LAT)
-- Along with big-budget short shows, the makers of Quibi are signing up "social media stars for the kind of casual, low-commitment programming that could make Quibi a daily habit," Nicole Sperling reports... (NYT)
Facebook's plans to label state media are complicated -- and delayed
Hadas Gold emails: In October Facebook announced plans to start labeling "state controlled" media in November. But it's December and there are no labels yet. FB won't explain the delay and says the labeling is coming "soon" -- but what might be delaying the company is the complexity in identifying which media outlets are state controlled. One outlet caught up in this is Al Jazeera. The Qatari-funded outlet has been notified it will get the label and it's fighting back -- arguing in a legal letter sent to Facebook that the standards for identifying state media are opaque. Here's why Al Jazeera is a complex case...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Rapper and singer Juice WRLD has died in Chicago, Kelly McCleary reports. His label, Interscope Records, said "Juice made a profound impact on the world in such a short period of time." Read the remembrances here... (CNN)
-- "Juice WRLD was an artist on the come up," Leah Asmelash writes. "The 21-year-old rapper and singer was remembered Sunday for his talent and promise..." (CNN)
-- "René Auberjonois, a sought-after character actor whose hundreds of roles included a governor's officious assistant in 'Benson,' an alien security officer on 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,' a managing partner in 'Boston Legal' and a con man who gets Huck Finn into hot water in the Broadway musical 'Big River,' died on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 79." (NYT)
| | "Parasite" takes top honors in L.A.
Brian Lowry emails: If you think critics groups influence awards voting (and I'm skeptical), "Parasite" received a boost toward becoming the first South Korean film to secure an Oscar best picture bid, taking top honors from the LA Film Critics Association on Sunday for both the movie and its director, Bong Joon Ho...
Critics Choice Award noms are out
Here are all the film and TV results. Scott Feinberg says "the clear winner of the day is The Irishman, which, on the heels of best picture nods with the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle, landed a field-leading 14 Critics' Choice nominations." Read on...
The new "Wonder Woman" trailer is here
Yahoo! Movies' Erin Donnelly writes: "On Sunday, the first trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 — the sequel to the 2017 blockbuster and origin story starring Gal Gadot in the title role — was aired for the first time during the CCXP 2019 convention in Brazil. Gadot joined director Patty Jenkins to introduce the preview..."
"Simon Cowell Lawyers Up..."
That's Variety's headline: "'America's Got Talent' executive producer Simon Cowell has set his legal representation for an investigation into the NBC competition series, which was announced by the network this week after a lengthy meeting with ousted judge Gabrielle Union," Variety's Matt Donnelly reports. "Cowell has hired Larry Stein, a longtime litigator in Hollywood and media spaces, multiple individuals familiar with the matter told Variety. Stein is expected to advise Cowell and participate in a probe regarding complaints of a toxic culture at the show, raised by staffers including Union. The complaints included numerous accusations of racial insensitivity and excessive critiques of the female cast. " More...
Saying goodbye to "Silicon Valley"
Brian Lowry writes: "Silicon Valley" wasn't the showiest of HBO series, but it was a consistently smart look at the tech industry and the corrosive, lampoon-worthy influence of money surrounding it. Yet it actually found a rather profound way to wrap up its run with Sunday's series finale, which — aside from one particularly brilliant visual gag — offered a cautionary tale about the dangers of the high-tech world, and a moral dilemma for those responsible for it. I'll have a full review later on CNN.com... | | | Thank you for reading! Email me here. I'll be back tomorrow... | | | |
