Brian Stelter here. Emotions are running high. Biden supporters are overjoyed and relieved right now. Trump supporters, some of them, anyway, are disappointed and alienated. Now we're heading into a new workweek. I hope you've been able to catch up on sleep...
"Hold him accountable"
Coming soon: A restoration of normal relations between the president and the press corps?
Well, President-elect Joe Biden is not going to call the media the "enemy of the people," that's for sure.
Biden went to church and spent time with his family on Sunday – a purposefully low-key day after Saturday morning's projections by the networks and Saturday night's victory event in Wilmington. Several of his aides fanned out on the Sunday shows to say, as deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said on "Meet the Press," that "the work starts right away." On "State of the Union," senior adviser Symone Sanders said no one from the White House has called about a concession phone call yet, but "a number of Republicans from the Hill have reached out" to the president-elect. She also emphasized that Biden's team is moving forward.
On "Reliable Sources," I interviewed the campaign's national press secretary TJ Ducklo, and I was struck by his statements about the role of the fourth estate. He said things like "the media has an incredibly important job to do" – words that would be uncontroversial at practically any other time in American history, but are newly important now, after four years of venomous attacks against the media by the commander in chief.
"President-elect Biden believes that the media is a critical piece of our democracy; that transparency is incredibly important," Ducklo said. "You'll remember we opened all of our fundraisers this campaign, opened to press so that folks could see what was going on and what was being said."
Ducklo said Biden also believes "that the media's job is to hold him accountable. He is there to do the people's work. And, you know, he welcomes that relationship. He welcomes their role, the media's role in our democracy. And I think it will be, frankly, the polar opposite what we have seen the last four years." A reset is about to begin...
"They voted for truth"
I also asked Ducklo about the poisoned political information environment -- think QAnon, InfoWars, Gateway Pundit, etc -- and asked how Biden can possibly "heal" the nation and restore trust when this conspiracy culture is so prevalent.
"Well, look, that's our job. It's our job to bring the country together," Ducklo said. "It's our job to help the country heal." He also commented, of Biden's record number of voters, "they voted for truth. They voted, as the VP likes to say, on the stump, they voted for truth over lies. It is our job to continue to stand up for truth, to continue to stand up for facts..."
The transition team should hold regular press briefings
During the general election campaign, Trump was widely accessible but wildly dishonest, spreading lies through the media's megaphones. Biden was less accessible but more truthful, though gaffe-prone and vulnerable to out-of-context attacks. So what now? How accessible will the president-elect be? On "Reliable Sources," ABC chief WH correspondent Jon Karl said this:
"One symbol that I think would be very powerful and very important is for the Biden transition to begin immediately to hold regular press briefings. They haven't done that as a campaign. It should happen now. It's the media's job to show that we ask tough questions of whoever is in power. We have certainly done that with Donald Trump. Now it's certainly time to do it with President-Elect Biden." Karl pointed out that "steps need to be taken to be sure everything is done safely" due to the pandemic, but it's doable...
Will Biden make a 'strong public commitment' to press freedom?
Media law professor and CJR press freedom correspondent Jonathan Peters wrote on Twitter:
"There's a variety of things any administration can do to shape press freedom and journalism practice (FOIA implementation, leak investigations, subpoenaing journalists, etc.), and they're all important. But what I really hope the Biden-Harris administration does, early on, is make a strong public commitment to journalism and press freedom -- to say emphatically that a free press, however imperfect, is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy. One in which journalists work in good faith to inform their communities and to enable democratic participation. This kind of commitment would go a long way toward helping to restore respect for the norms that underlie press freedom and its exercise."
My two cents
I've been saying this for a while on TV and in speeches but I don't think I've written it down in this newsletter before. So here: The media's adversarial approach that you've seen during the Trump years -- demanding truth from power, calling out lies, criticizing indecency -- that approach serves us well no matter who holds high office. If Biden says the blue sky is red, the media must call it out. Of course, different degrees of deception deserve to be treated differently. A slip of the tongue must not be equated with a smear campaign. But in all cases, the media stay on the side of the truth...
On any other week...
On any other week but election week, the resurgence in Covid-19 cases would have been the lead story in the United States. "States across the country continue to report daily surges in the virus' spread, along with diminishing hospital capacity," per CNN's team. I suspect that it WILL become the lead story again on Monday when Biden speaks about the virus crisis...
MONDAY PLANNER
Biden and Kamala Harris "will receive a briefing" from "the transition COVID-19 advisory board" in the morning, and then Biden will "deliver remarks on his plans to beat COVID-19 and build our economy back better," per a press release...
So far Trump does not have any public events announced...
The WH says that VP Mike Pence will leading a meeting of the admin's coronavirus task force for the first time since October 20...
Cindy McCain is booked on "The View..."
Stacey Abrams is on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert..."
DON'T LOSE SIGHT OF THIS FACT...
The system is working
Election Week was unusual. And stressful. And grueling. But "all in all," Abby Phillip told me, "the media handled itself very responsibly in this process. And the public, they were with us. I think everybody understood what was going on... Despite what's going on with the president, the majority of this country accepts what is happening and that is, I think, a testament to the system working in a good way."
>> One asterisk: Fox's Tuesday night projection that Biden would win the state of Arizona is looking worse and worse. Biden's lead in the state is shrinking and shrinking. He is still likely to win the state's electoral votes, but Fox was far out on a shaky limb with that call...
Has Trump's spell on the media been broken?
Trump's tweets and comments are getting a whole lot less media attention now that he is the projected loser of the election. "The salience of this administration goes down by the day," Jeffrey Goldberg said on "Reliable." He said the key question for journalists now is, "what is the Biden administration going to do to vanquish the virus?
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- On Sunday's show, the aforementioned Jon Karl confessed that he has turned off notifications for Trump tweets on his phone, prompting me to do the same... (CNN Business)
-- Rep. Ilhan Omar on "Inside Politics" with John King Sunday morning: "We're all relishing in the fact that darkness over our country has been lifted..." (CNN)
-- Ben Smith's Monday NYT column is a profile of his colleague Maggie Haberman. He says she was particularly well-suited for the Trump beat "because of her sheer relentlessness and hunger, and her lack of smug self-satisfaction. She seems to need to prove herself every day..." (NYT)
-- Stay for the kicker of Margaret Sullivan's Monday column: "The media never fully learned how to cover Trump. But they still might have saved democracy." (WaPo)
Waiting in line to buy a newspaper
This was the scene midday Sunday at Pasadena's beloved bookstore Vromans. When I saw the photo on social media, I called the store, and a staffer at the newsstand confirmed that people have been queuing up all day to buy The New York Times (before it sold out), the Los Angeles Times, and other papers with BIDEN WINS headlines. The staffer said he's never had a line of customers like this before. Photo via Paul B. Castillo:
>> Many front pages carried Biden's "time to heal" message. Poynter has a gallery here...
>> The NYT will be selling copies of Sunday's print edition through its online store...
>> And so will the LA Times...
CNN more than quadrupled Fox's ratings
"CNN has been the most-watched network for continuing coverage of the 2020 presidential election, and that sterling performance culminated on Saturday, as the network earned by far the most viewers" during Biden's victory speech, TVNewser's A.J. Katz wrote.
CNN averaged 13.6 million viewers during the live coverage; MSNBC averaged 8.5 million; and Fox News had just 3 million. This is a pattern that we've seen with Fox for some time -- the network fares very well as the "voice of the opposition" to Democrats, but when Dem leaders are speaking live or celebrating something, Fox's audience fades...
>> Quoting from CNN's press release: "Election Week 2020 was CNN Digital’s best series of days in history, far outpacing anything on record with five of the six all-time best days ever in unique visitors and the top three days on record for live video viewers."
"Goodbye Trump" articles lift Slate to record high
Saturday was Slate's best traffic day of all time. The website's "Goodbye" package, a collection of articles bidding farewell "to the Trump officials and family members who have made the past four years so difficult for so many people," has had over 13 million page views over the weekend, and the number is still climbing. Sunday was the site's "second highest traffic day ever," per a Slate spokeswoman, and trial subscriptions to Slate Plus also hit an "all time high..."
The top podcasts this weekend...
According to the Apple Podcasts chart, the #1 episode is the "We won" episode of "Pod Save America." Friday's edition of "The Daily" is #2, a recent Joe Rogan interview is #3, "The Coming Democratic Collapse" episode of Ben Shapiro's show is #4, and the "Squeaker" episode of "This American Life," about Americans experiencing election week, is #5...
Parallels to 2008
Seeing the lines for newspapers and the web traffic records, I had flashbacks to Barack Obama's election in 2008. One of the other similarities is obvious: The US was in the grips of an economic crisis at the time. Now, in 2020, Obama's VP is facing both an economic crisis AND a health emergency...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- "This was NOT an especially close election," Larry Sabato tweeted... "You want close? Look at 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, among others. NETWORKS -- Stop feeding this false storyline." (Twitter)
-- "Despondent Trump supporters say they can't accept Biden-Harris win..." (LAT)
-- "Trump supporters, like their leader, refuse to face reality..." (Rolling Stone)
-- EJ Dionne notes all of the 2016-2020 attempts to understand "the Trump voter," then says "there is no clamor for Republicans to get to know 'the Biden voter,' no call on conservatives to be more in touch with the country they live in..." (WaPo)
-- That issue is getting a ton of traction on social media. For every call to have sympathy for the voters who feel like they've lost, there's a reminder that "liberal tears" were a signature goal of the MAGA movement...
-- McKay Coppins ended his most recent piece by noting that Trumpism "won't be vanquished by Trump's impending defeat alone -- if anything, his most devoted supporters may be further radicalized." That's what I am perceiving, too... (The Atlantic)
Election Denialism
You've heard of climate change denialism. Medical denialism, too. Now something new is emerging: Election denialism. CNN's Pamela Brown and Sarah Westwood reported Sunday night that Trump's campaign is "planning a messaging blitz to fuel its argument -- unsupported by any evidence to date -- that the president's second term is being stolen from him through corrupt vote counts in battleground states..."
Fox News is still enabling Trump's delusions
Pro-Trump media outlets and some of Fox's biggest stars are enabling Trump's Last Stand. They are creating content for an alternative reality where Biden is not president-elect, where Democratic voter fraud is rampant, where Trump's legal crusade is courageous, and where the Supreme Court may intervene to ensure that Trump will remain president. Many of these claims are being carried on Fox and amplified by Fox. It's as if there is a tug-of-war going on within the Murdoch media universe: The WSJ and the NYPost are running op-eds urging Trump to stop the "stolen" election rhetoric and step aside gracefully, while some Fox stars are telling him to keep fighting...
>> At the same time, some Fox fans are furious with the network for calling Biden the president-elect and, in their minds, betraying Trump. For more on that, let's go over to Donie...
What Donie heard in Pennsylvania
Donie O'Sullivan writes: "I'm on the road, heading back from Pennsylvania, after spending the weekend with Trump supporters who are protesting and saying the election is rigged. As I asked them what evidence they have for that belief, some of them cited viral social media posts that have already been proven false (and some that have already been fact-checked by CNN) including a video that purported to show ballots for Trump being burned that was shared by Eric Trump. The video was false."
>> The headline on Donie's report: "Misinformed through social media, Trump supporters take to the streets to challenge election result"
>> Donie adds: "Traveling to Trump rallies over the past few months, I've heard from a lot of Trump supporters who say they are losing faith in Fox News -- though most of them say they still like Tucker Carlson. But a couple of people I spoke with in PA said Fox calling Arizona early for Biden was the final straw. Who do they like? Dan Bongino, OAN, and Newsmax, to name a few..."
A question for the deadenders
Brian Lowry writes: "Remember the popular vote? A fairly obvious question of the Trump-was-robbed deadenders venturing into mainstream interviews isn't being asked enough: Setting the electoral college aside for a moment, do you dispute that he lost the popular vote by a wide margin? Remember, Trump never accepted the notion that Hillary Clinton surpassed him by nearly 3 million votes, a figure that is expected to more than double this time."
Murtaugh admits he spread 'fake news'
Oliver Darcy writes: "The Trump campaign's efforts to pretend Biden is not the president-elect are getting more ridiculous. Campaign spox Tim Murtaugh on Sunday tweeted an image showing a Washington Times front page that declared Al Gore to be president, contending the media 'doesn't select the president.' The problem? The front page was fake. The conservative paper was forced to correct Murtaugh, tweeting that the images he shared showed 'doctored' front pages. Murtaugh eventually deleted his tweet, but did not issue a correction. When I texted him for comment, Murtaugh conceded he had tweeted 'fake news' (his words to describe it, not mine). Murtaugh didn't answer a question about why he never issued a correction..."
WaPo: Hannity expressed worry about faltering campaign
Oliver Darcy writes: "Sean Hannity might have gone on-air and, like the good propagandist he is, championed Trump's campaign, assuring viewers it was running smoothly. But he was apparently not convinced. According to this WaPo story Sunday from Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Matt Viser, and Michael Scherer, Hannity warned Jared Kushner and other top GOP officials the campaign was faltering. WaPo reported he urged Trump to prepare for the debates and had 'additional concerns about the president's standing and campaign strategy.' Too bad Hannity never leveled with his audience like that..."
Parler is #1 in the Apple app store
Oliver Darcy writes: "Parler once again surged in the App Store as conservatives vowed to abandon Twitter and Facebook for a social media app that bills itself as a home for uncensored free speech. The campaign to convince people to join the self-described 'unbiased' Parler come as Twitter, in particular, gets more aggressive on cracking down on election-related disinfo/misinfo. The labeling of Trump's tweets, in addition to those of other top conservatives, has angered many on the right..."
>> Darcy adds: "While the app has risen to the top of the App Store, I wouldn't expect people to actually stop using Twitter and Facebook. When Trump and other top personalities decide to join Parler and stop using Twitter, then we can talk..."
"Disputed" vs "false"
Oliver Darcy writes: "While Twitter deserves credit for having aggressively cracked down on the lies tweeted by the president, the platform could perhaps be clearer in its labels. Currently, when Trump tweets election disinfo, the Twitter label says the 'claim about election fraud is disputed.' As BuzzFeed's Tom Namako tweeted, 'It's time to change the words 'disputed' to 'false.' Namako is right..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- "QAnon Anonymous" podcast co-host Travis View: "Most Q followers are still deep in denial. And they're probably going to stay there until Trump concedes and/or on inauguration day. Maybe even beyond then honestly. Soon we're going to discover the resilience of the QAnon milieu in the face of powerful disconfirmation." (Twitter)
-- Mark Levin publicly bashed Chris Wallace on Sunday, tweeting he was "way out of line" for a comment Wallace made on his show. Fox did not respond when asked if the network was OK with Levin trashing an anchor colleague... (Twitter)
-- BTW, it is a testament to the normalization of Trump's narcissism that there is so much commentary about how he's feeling and what it's going to take for him to concede... (Twitter)
-- How is Biden's team handling Trumpworld's denialism? By conveying a "sense of inevitability" and refusing to get "drawn into the invention of a dispute" where none exists, Evan Osnos said on "Reliable" Sunday morning... (CNN)
Next stop, Trump TV?
When I introduced Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy as a Trump friend and potential future competitor, he suggested I should call him a future Trump business partner instead. Ruddy is trying to build up Newsmax TV as a rival to Fox News, though the channel lags very far behind in the ratings. Ruddy is tapping into Trump's frustrations with Fox and positioning Newsmax as a friendlier media outlet. He said he would "love to have Donald Trump on Newsmax a lot, whether he is president or not. I think he is great television." Ruddy also said he spoke with Trump recently, and Trump talked about why he's "disappointed" in Fox...
>> I also challenged Ruddy for airing completely bogus claims of mass voter fraud... Here was the exchange...
Catch up on Sunday's show
Watch the videos on CNN.com, catch the entire episode via CNNgo or VOD, or listen to the podcast edition via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app...
The Gritties!
Rudy Guiliani's desperate Philly press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping -- not to be confused with the Four Seasons hotel -- spawned thousands of jokes on social media on Saturday, and even more on Sunday. Commenters are crying out for more information on how the heck it happened. Did they intend to hold the presser at the hotel? Jake Tapper tweeted: "We’re going to need to create special journalism awards for whomever best captures this story in print, audio, television. (Perhaps The Gritties?)" Here are a couple of nominees so far:
>> WaPo's Dan Zak and Karen Heller: "It began on a gold escalator. It may have ended at Four Seasons Total Landscaping."
>> This lead by the Philly Inquirer's Jeremy Roebuck, Maddie Hanna and Oona Goodin-Smith: "What began five years ago with the made-for-TV announcement of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions from the escalator of his ritzy Manhattan high-rise ended Saturday with his aging lawyer shouting conspiracy theories and vowing lawsuits in a Northeast Philadelphia parking lot, near a sex shop and a crematorium."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- LAT columnist Lorraine Ali wrote Sunday: "Exhale. Unclench teeth. And yes, even sob like Van Jones. Those of us targeted by Trump and the bigotry he emboldened among his followers just woke up to a new day." (LAT)
-- Last night, I ran a headline from a Queens newspaper... here's another local angle, this time from Ireland, where Trump invested in Doonbeg: "West Clare hotelier loses out in US Presidential election." (The Clare Echo)
SNEAK PEEK
"TIMES CHANGE"
New York magazine is coming out with a close-up look at the NYT in the Trump era and beyond. Reeves Wiedeman writes: "For the sake of the country — and the business model — the New York Times evolved during the Trump years: less dispassionate, more crusading. This has sparked a raw internal debate over the paper's mission and future." Wiedeman goes inside the Slack channels... His article will be online Monday at 6am ET...
Quartz is becoming a startup again
Two years after Quartz was acquired by the Japanese financial data and media company Uzabase, the site is being sold "to Quartz's co-founder and chief executive, Zach Seward, in a management buyout that would make it private once again," the WSJ's Lukas Alpert reported Sunday night. "Editor in Chief Katherine Bell will take a minority stake. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The company said that the site would seek new investors. As part of the deal, Uzabase CEO Yusuke Umeda will make a personal loan to Quartz, 'demonstrating his continued belief in the value of the Quartz business,' Uzabase said. Read on..."
Alex Trebek, 1940–2020
Alex Trebek made television smarter. And he made America better. He died early Sunday morning after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was "the host with all the answers and a reassuring presence in the TV game-show landscape for five decades," CNN's Brian Lowry and Dakin Andone wrote...
"We miss him already"
CNN's Ana Cabrera interviewed "Jeopardy!" executive producer Mike Richards on Sunday afternoon. "We love him, and we miss him already," Richards said.
Richards said he sent Trebek a final note on Saturday. It was personal: "I wanted to thank him for showing me how to be a better man at work and even more importantly a better man with my family and my wife. He was really that great."
Trebek's final episodes
When the producers of "Jeopardy" announced Trebek's death, they also revealed that he produced new episodes of the game show up until the end of October, just a week and a half ago. Cabrera asked Richards: "Did you know it was going to be the last?" Richards said no, but "he was in pain and we knew it. He'd had surgery. I couldn't believe he was already back from the surgery that he'd had just two weeks before that. I had chills the entire tape day. That first show of that final week, which is, unbelievably, [scheduled to air] the week of Christmas, he gives a speech talking about togetherness, how important family is, and it will resonate even more now. It was so beautiful."
Richards added, "He was at the top of his game, even though clearly he was very ill."
Chappelle's 16-minute monologue
"On the same day the US got a new president, 'SNL' host Dave Chappelle served up a biting monologue that hit the lowlights of the year, including coronavirus and the rage and tension the country has felt," CNN's Alanne Orjoux wrote.
PETS OF THE DAY:
Getting an early start
CNN chief business correspondent and "Early Start" co-anchor Christine Romans tweeted a photo of this trio, including a little Maltese in the middle. "Current status," she wrote Sunday evening. "See you tomorrow at 4 am ET with Laura Jarrett on 'Early Start.'" The news never stops...
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