EXEC SUMMARY: Hey there, this is Oliver Darcy in your inbox, filling in for Brian Stelter, who is under the weather.
Scroll down for Sinclair's response to Nancy Pelosi, the tell-all piece an ex-InfoWars employee wrote about Alex Jones, what NYT's editorial board is calling on Pete Buttigieg to do, and The Guardian's fascinating study about news consumption. But first...
"Today was quite historic" | | "Today was quite historic." That's how Nancy Pelosi put it toward the end of CNN's town hall with Jake Tapper. But Pelosi also described it as a "very sad day, I think, for our country." Hours after she announced that she had asked for the drafting of articles of impeachment, Pelosi said, "It's something that I would have hoped we could have avoided. But the President's actions made it necessary. You cannot violate the Constitution in full view."
"The facts are clear. The Constitution is clear. The President violated the Constitution," Pelosi added. "And so I think it is important for us to proceed. If we were not to proceed, it would say to any president ... that our democracy is gone, the President is king, he can do whatever he wants in violation of the law, ignoring the acts of Congress, undermining our system of checks and balances."
>> Missed the special? Here are the key lines from Pelosi's town hall...
Fox stars mock
No surprise here. Fox stars Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham spent the evening mocking Pelosi for moving forward with articles of impeachment. Carlson went after Pelosi for invoking the founding fathers.
Hannity and Ingraham went another route. They attempted to portray Pelosi as unstable. Hannity's show featured a graphic claiming Pelosi was "SEETHING WITH RAGE." Ingraham's chyron read, "PELOSI UNHINGED."
Friday's NYT A1: "Pelosi Declares House Will Begin to Draw Up Impeachment Charges"
| | Eyes begin to move toward Senate
"With his impeachment now all-but-certain, President Donald Trump and his allies are beginning to look past the House of Representatives, shifting their sights to the Republican-led Senate where the President will face trial," CNN's Jeremy Diamond, Pamela Brown and Kaitlan Collins reported Thursday.
Diamond, Brown, and Collins reported that Trump and White House officials "are now signaling they will mount a robust defense in the Senate and look to turn the tables on Democrats during the President's trial -- including by digging in on the President's unsubstantiated claims of corruption leveled at former Vice President Joe Biden."
Napolitano's prediction
So what will happen at a possible Senate trial? Judge Andrew Napolitano predicted on Thursday that Trump will testify. "I think it will be the most dramatic, legal political event in the history of our era," Napolitano said. "With the president of the United States testifying under oath in front of the chief justice and the full Senate and 200 million people watching on television."
FRIDAY PLANNER
-- Mike Bloomberg's first TV interview as a candidate for president will air Friday on "CBS This Morning." In it, he tells Gayle King that he believes Trump should be impeached...
-- The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its November jobs report at 8:30am ET. Read CNN's detailed preview...
-- The White House is up against a Friday deadline to decide if it will participate in future impeachment hearings...
-- Joe Biden will hold three campaign events in Iowa as his bus tour approaches the finish line, and will be joined by former Sec. of State John Kerry following his endorsement. Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar will also be campaigning in Iowa...
Pelosi jabs Sinclair
At CNN's town hall Thursday night, Nancy Pelosi criticized Sinclair and its reporter James Rosen. Rosen had earlier in the day asked Pelosi if she hates Trump. Tapper asked Pelosi about the moment between her and Rosen, and Pelosi replied, "Was that a reporter? Was that what reporters do?"
When Tapper said Rosen works for Sinclair, Pelosi replied, "Yes, Sinclair -- is that a news source?" Pelosi then said she views the word hate as a "terrible word," adding, "So for him to say that was really disgusting to me."
>> Of note: This isn't the first time that Pelosi has rebuffed Rosen. Back in November, Pelosi called Rosen "Mr. Republican talking points" when he asked a question about the anonymity of the whistleblower.
...Sinclair responds
In a lengthy statement provided to me, Ronn Torossian, a spokesperson for Sinclair, responded to Pelosi's attacks. Torossian said "no disrespect" was meant to Pelosi by the question, saying Rosen "believed that the question was legitimate as these concerns have been voiced by a prominent Member of Congress."
"We have reviewed the incident and based on the video, this was clearly not meant to be an inflammatory question and, further, this gave Speaker Pelosi the opportunity to clarify her own views, something that only strengthens positive dialogue," Torossian told me in his statement. "Again, both Sinclair and James Rosen respect Speaker Pelosi and hope we can continue the dialogue."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Who started the Ukraine conspiracy theories? "Judging on the basis of public evidence, the narrative about Ukraine was propagated first and foremost by Americans, not Russian disinformation puppeteers," writes Johns Hopkins professor Thomas Rid... (The Atlantic)
-- WaPo's Sarah Ellison took a "look inside Trump's anti-impeachment spin factory..." (WaPo)
-- Chuck Todd breaks down the history of McCarthyism... (MTP Daily)
-- "We took a Thanksgiving break from our comprehensive counting of the President's false claims," writes CNN's Daniel Dale and Tara Subramaniam. "We returned to find a hefty backlog of nonsense." Per Dale and Subramaniam's story, Trump made 96 false claims in the last two weeks... (CNN)
-- Some NBC News Digital employees started an effort against unionizing. The effort included an Instagram account and the posting of flyers around the network's offices, THR's Jeremy Barr reports... (THR)
-- Andrew Pantazi, a reporter for the Florida Times-Union, which is owned by the new Gannett, tweeted that the newspaper company had started layoffs which have been anticipated after the Gatehouse-Gannett merger... (Twitter)
NYT editorial board calls on Buttigieg to "explain what he did at McKinsey"
The NYT editorial board on Thursday called on Pete Buttigieg to "explain what he did at McKinsey," a consulting firm at which he previously worked for nearly three years. As CNN's DJ Judd reported in his story, the move comes "after the paper reported the consulting firm advised ICE on cost-saving measures, including food for detained migrants."
"The thing is, Mr. Buttigieg has said precious little about his time at McKinsey," the editorial board wrote. "He has not named the clients for whom he worked, nor said much about what he did. He says his lips are sealed by a nondisclosure agreement he signed when he left the firm in 2010 and that he has asked the company to release him from the agreement. It has not yet agreed to do so. This is not a tenable situation."
House Intel spox: Investigators didn't subpoena records from Nunes, Solomon
Trump defenders have expressed outrage this week over the release of phone records showing calls from Devin Nunes and John Solomon. But The Daily Beast learned from the House Intel Committee that investigators never subpoenaed records from either individual. A spokesperson for the committee told Sam Stein that they "did not subpoena call records for any member of Congress or their staff... or for any journalist."
McCarthy snaps at reporter for Trump-Putin question
Kevin McCarthy went after a reporter who asked about leaked audio that revealed he once said he thought Vladimir Putin pays Trump. "It was a joke, and you took it to the extent that's not," McCarthy told Andrew Feinberg, adding, "That's embarrassing that you would even ask that."
>> Context: The 2016 audio had revealed McCarthy had told some colleagues, "There's two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump…[laughter]… Swear to God."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- "TikTok's leader, Alex Zhu, is set to pay his first known visit to Capitol Hill next week, meeting with lawmakers in an attempt to combat concerns that the company's Chinese origins pose serious privacy, security and censorship risks," WaPo's Tony Romm and Drew Harwell report... (WaPo)
-- The "Peloton husband" speaks out: "My 5 seconds of air time created an array of malicious feedback that is all associated with my face. My friend texted me today declaring that I'm 'a symbol of the patriarchy...'" (Psychology Today)
-- Everyone was talking about this story from The Verge Thursday about the "toxic work environment" at the Instagram-famous luggage company AWAY... (The Verge)
-- Related: LA Times' Matt Pearce tweeted, "I think probably one of the more genuinely frustrating things to entrepreneurs is that journalists are some of the few entities they encounter that they can't strike deals with to help make something painful go away..." (Twitter)
Ex-InfoWars employee writes tell-all piece
A former InfoWars employee wrote a must-read tell-all piece in The New York Times Magazine on Thursday criticizing the fringe media organization's founder, Alex Jones, and revealing how staff would craft stories to fit a preferred narrative. The ex-employee, Josh Owens, wrote that he was drawn to work for InfoWars while "vulnerable, angry, and searching for direction" at the age of 23. But he said that after four years of working for him, he saw the "virulent nature of his world."
>> As you read: Keep in mind Trump has praised Alex Jones, saying he has an "amazing" reputation...
Exposes Jones' disturbing behavior
People know a lot about how Jones behaves on camera. But what is he like off camera? Judging by what Owens wrote, he's just as volatile. Owens recalled one incident in which Jones told an employee to hit him. When the employee did, Jones struck back.
"They traded a few more punches, each time seeming less playful," Owens wrote. "Jones became wild-eyed, spit flying from his clenched teeth as he exhaled. On his last hit, the sound was different. Wet. I thought I could hear the meat split open in the employee's arm."
In another instance, Owens wrote that he was provided a hard drive with videos to edit. On the hard drive was one video that showed a "blood-covered floor in what looked like a garage" filled with "dead animals scattered about." Another video, Owens recalled, showed Jones shooting a Bison with a handgun.
"Jones began firing at the bison, tufts of hair flying with every hit. The animal remained standing as Jones shot round after round," Owens wrote. "Finally, the hunting guide yelled at Jones to stop and handed him a high-caliber rifle. Jones took a moment to make sure the cameras were still recording and fired a few more rounds as the animal finally collapsed."
"We ignored certain facts, fabricated others and took situations out of context"
Owens used one assignment Jones had given him and another employee to illustrate how the sausage was made at InfoWars. Owens said that Jones once told him and the other employee to visit Muslim communities and investigate.
But when Owens and his colleague were met with information that contradicted their preferred narrative, Owens said they fabricated claims out of thin air. "The information did not meet our expectations, so we made it up, preying on the vulnerable and feeding the prejudices and fears of Jones's audience," Owens wrote. "We ignored certain facts, fabricated others and took situations out of context to fit our narrative."
Jones leaves Mediaite voicemail attacking story
The website Mediaite asked Jones for comment on Owens' story. Jones expounded by sending a voicemail attacking the story. Jones called it a "compendium of lies, disinformation, and half-truths" and claimed it showed "the desperateness of the establishment to try to discredit independent populist voices."
Big picture: InfoWars' model has infected right-wing media
While Jones' platform has dwindled since being removed from social media platforms, his style of "journalism" lives on. Much of the right-wing media has adopted InfoWars-like tactics. They promote conspiracy theories, show little regard for the facts, and attempt to discredit information that contradicts their preferred worldview. Jones' personal influence might have diminished in recent years, but the genre of media he engineered is arguably more powerful than ever.
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Linda Douglass, the former White House official who became Bloomberg Media's global head of comms, snubbed Mike Bloomberg and endorsed Pete Buttigieg Thursday... (CNN)
-- "Why liberal satire and conservative outrage are both responses to mainstream media — but with very different powers..." (NiemanLab)
-- The editors of Multichannel News announced their "2020 Women to Watch" on Thursday. Among those on the list were WarnerMedia's Johnita Due, Google's Julie Sterling, and Fox Business Network's Lauren Petterson... (MultiChannel)
Karen McDougal sues Fox News
| | File this under things I didn't expect to happen Thursday: Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump before he became President, filed a lawsuit against Fox News alleging host Tucker Carlson intentionally defamed her. The lawsuit said Carlson showed a "reckless disregard for the truth" when he suggested on a December 2018 episode of his show that she extorted Trump.
Carlson had said it was an "undisputed" fact that two women (he showed pics of McDougal and Stormy Daniels in the segment) "approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family" if he didn't provide them money. McDougal's lawsuit said Carlson's statements were "completely untrue" and accused Carlson of having made them "knowing it was untrue." Here's my full story...
Fox's response
In a short statement provided by a Fox News spokesperson, the network said it would "vigorously defend" Tucker Carlson. The statement called the claims made in the lawsuit "meritless."
The Guardian's fascinating study
Hadas Gold emails: The Guardian on Thursday published the results of a fascinating study that studied how people consume news – by recording participant's phone screens.
"Charlie in Sunderland consumed much of his election news through memes on lad humour Facebook pages, spending more time looking at posts of Boris Johnson using the word 'boobies' than reading traditional news stories. Fiona in Bolton checked out claims about Jeremy Corbyn's wealth by going to a website called Jihadi Watch before sharing the far-right material in a deliberate bid to anger her leftwing friends. And Shazi in Sheffield followed the BBC leaders' interviews purely by watching videos of party supporters chanting the Labour leader's name outside the venue."
Even though many millions still read mainstream news sources, the participants were often reading content out of context. "They also often failed to distinguish between material posted by established news outlets and obscure Facebook groups," the researchers found. Increasingly people are reading and paying attention on political issues to influencers like comedians, commentators or Facebook groups.
>> Bottom line: "The case studies suggest that real story of the 2019 online general election campaign could be in the general chaos of users' smartphones and social media, where memes compete with rolling arguments in local Facebook groups and content from traditional outlets."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Katie Pellico:
-- You may have noticed Spotify users sharing personalized, app-generated recaps of their listening habits on other platforms. The Verge's Ashley Carman argues the "Wrapped" year-in-review feature is "a big win for Spotify and a loss for Apple Music, particularly because Spotify is beating the famously exclusionary company at its own game..." (The Verge)
-- Spotify's own recap "reveals the payoff from podcast investments" this year, The Drum's John McCarthy points out. Spotify said that "it now has more than 500,000 podcast titles available and its podcast listeners have grown by more than 50% since the start of 2019..." (The Drum)
Pulitzer Prize Board adds new prize category: audio
The Pulitzer Prize Board announced on Thursday a new award category: audio reporting. "The renaissance of audio journalism in recent years has given rise to an extraordinary array of non-fiction storytelling," Pulitzer Administrator Dana Canedy said in a press release. "To recognize the best of that work, the Pulitzer Board is launching an experimental category to honor it." The press release added that the new prize will be given "for a distinguished example of audio journalism that serves the public interest, characterized by revelatory reporting and illuminating storytelling.''
| | A double delivery from Amazon
Brian Lowry emails: The weekend brings a pair of Amazon projects -- the third season of its Emmy-winning dramedy "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," which, despite its breezy charms, looks like its act could use some fresh material; and "The Aeronauts," which is receiving a theatrical release in advance of a streaming date, starring Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne as balloon-trip pioneers in the 1860s -- a fact-based movie that never entirely gets off the ground.
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Leonard Goldberg died Wednesday at the age of 85. He was known for projects such as "Charlies Angles," "The Simpsons," and "Starsky and Hutch..." (THR)
-- R. Kelly was accused on Thursday by federal prosecutors of bribing an Illinois gov't employee to obtain a fake ID so he could marry the singer Aaliyah at age 15... (NYT)
-- Meanwhile... Kelly's girlfriend Joycelyn Savage says an online account denouncing him was fake... (CNN)
Disney teases "Mulan"
Frank Pallotta emails: In case you've been living on another planet this year, Disney has had a big 2019. However, over the past few days the studio has been previewing its 2020 slate with trailers for Marvel's "Black Widow" and "Mulan."
The film will be another live action remake of one of the studio's animated classics. The studio has had two big hits with the brand this year thanks to "Aladdin" and "The Lion King," which both made over $1 billion globally. Will "Mulan" follow in those successful footsteps? We'll find out in March of 2020.
Eclectic roster for this year's Writers Guild TV awards
Brian Lowry emails: There was an eclectic roster of nominees for the Writers Guild of America's TV awards, with HBO, Netflix and Hulu accounting for all the comedy and drama series nominees (although FX did nab one of the new series bids for "What We Do in the Shadows").
"Watchmen," "PEN15" and "Russian Doll" were all double nominees, as new programs and in their respective categories. PBS, meanwhile, swept the documentary categories. The film nominations are still to come, with the awards to be presented Feb. 1. You can find the full list -- including news and new media -- here...
| | | Thank you for reading! Email me your feedback or connect with me on Twitter. I'll be back tomorrow. See you then! | | | |
