Oliver Darcy here. Scroll down for details on Jake Tapper's interview with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, three big coronavirus headlines, the challenges vaccines will present social platforms, Politico's all-stars competing against Politico, NBC choosing the tree lighting over the NFL, and more. But first...
Barr bashed
Since he was confirmed as attorney general, William Barr has been somewhat of a hero in the right-wing media universe. He has assailed the Russia probe. He has talked a big game about cracking down on Antifa. He has sharply criticized the news media. On and on it goes.
But his celebrity status took a hit on Tuesday when he undercut President Trump's brazenly false contention that there was massive voter fraud in the 2020 election. Speaking to the Associated Press, Barr said that, "to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."
The statement from Barr, which merely recited a simple fact, not only cut against what Trump has been saying, but also what Trump's propagandists and allies in right-wing media have been feeding their audiences. For weeks, these media personalities have strung their audiences along, suggesting that damning proof of fraud was just around the corner. Which is why the comment from Barr stung so bad.
The comment effectively forced these right-wing stars to pick between acknowledging the reality Barr laid out or continuing Trump's fantasy. Trump's most devoted propagandists chose the latter. And so they started to throw Barr under the bus, just as they've done with every other conservative who has dared to contradict the president. (Think about how former conservative stars such as Jeff Sessions, Justin Amash, Paul Ryan, and others were treated when they didn't blindly oblige Trump's demands.)
Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, whose conspiratorial program is a favorite of the president, attacked Barr in brutal terms on his show. "For the attorney general of the United States to make that statement — he is either a liar or a fool or both," Dobbs said. Dobbs then went further, suggesting Barr was "perhaps compromised." He characterized Barr as having "appeared to join in with the radical Dems and the deep-state and the resistance."
Dobbs wasn't the only one. Newsmax host Greg Kelly, who has risen to fame in right-wing media circles in the last few weeks for suggesting Trump could emerge as the winner of the election, went after Barr on his show. "Some of us are wondering if he is a warrior with the Constitution or if he's just a bureaucrat," Kelly said. Kelly added that he "can't believe" if Barr "looked for voter fraud he wouldn't find any." And Mark Levin said he "regret[ted] to say" that Barr's comments were "misleading."
The far-right blogs were even harsher. The Gateway Pundit, a fringe website which Trump has repeatedly promoted, published a post that said Barr had revealed himself as "totally deaf, dumb and blind." The post went on to say that Barr's "masquerade as someone opposed to the criminality of the Deep State" had been "exposed as a venal lie" and that he was a "fraud." It concluded, "You either fix the damn corrupt system or we will abandon you...Our days of tolerating betrayal are over."
Some hold fire
While Barr faced strong criticism from some notable names in right-wing media, others refrained from attacking him on Tuesday night. Notably, heavyweights Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity didn't skewer the AG. It will be interesting over the next 24 hours if this anti-Barr narrative takes greater hold in the Trump-friendly media, or if it dissipates.
WaPo's A1 spotlights Barr's comments
Will Trump replace him?
Sources told Axios' Jonathan Swan that Trump has been dissatisfied with Barr over a separate matter: having not yet released the report from John Durham. "Trump has been ranting about the delay behind the scenes and mused privately about replacing Barr with somebody who will expedite the process," Swan reported. "But it’s unclear whether he will follow through with that, per sources familiar with the conversations." Swan said that, with the interview Barr gave the AP about election fraud on Tuesday, speculation over his fate grew...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- University of Washington professor Kate Starbird: "Trump didn’t just prime his audience to be receptive to false narratives of voter fraud, he inspired them to produce those narratives (eg Sharpiegate, suitcases of votes, observers denied, etc.) and then echoed those false claims back to them. Participatory disinformation..." (Twitter)
-- Jeremy Barr's latest: "Banished from the Trump legal team, attorney Sidney Powell still finds a guest chair on Fox..." (WaPo)
-- Caleb Encarma writes that Fox News' "moments of forced reality — such as news anchor Eric Shawn debunking the president’s election fraud claims in a weekend segment — are the exception, not the rule..." (Vanity Fair)
-- It seems like Sean Hannity was onto something when he brought up Trump family pardons. The top headline Tuesday night on NYT's homepage reads, "Trump Has Discussed Pardons for 3 Children, Kushner, and Giuliani..." (NYT)
-- Meanwhile, Katelyn Polantz's big story led CNN's homepage: "Justice Department investigating potential presidential pardon bribery scheme, court records reveal..." (CNN)
-- And the Drudge Report featured a photoshopped picture of Trump in a prison jumpsuit... (Mediaite)
Biden intros economic team
Biden on Tuesday held an event announcing key members of his economic team and vowing to not just build the economy back, but to "build it back better than it was before." The event was taken live by CNN and MSNBC. Fox News, however, didn't do so, instead airing coverage of Trump's far-fetched legal challenges. You see, in Fox-world, events like Rudy Giuliani's crazy press conference with Sidney Powell are worth taking live for extended periods of time. But not apparently key events from the president-elect...
>> On Wednesday, Biden will participate in a virtual roundtable with small business owners which will be open press...
Tapper lands first joint interview
Jake Tapper scored the first interview featuring both Biden and Harris. The interview will air Thursday during an hour-long special at 9pm and take place in Wilmington, Delaware. More details here...
Trump, however, remains out of public view
As of Tuesday night, Wednesday is slated to be yet another day without any public events by the outgoing president. That said, he continues to be quite active on Twitter...
WEDNESDAY PLANNER
Bill Gates is talking about vaccines on the "Today" show...
Barack Obama's book tour will continue with stops on Snapchat's "Good Luck America" and Al Sharpton's nationally syndicated radio show...
Discovery will hold a presentation and investor event about its global streaming service plans...
An unusual Wednesday afternoon NFL game will air on NBC... Scroll down for the details from Frank Pallotta...
Chris Krebs is speaking out
His first live TV interview since being canned by Trump was on the "Today" show Tuesday morning. As CNN's story noted, Krebs indicated that "he may take legal action" against Joe diGenova for Monday's "dangerous" comments on Howie Carr's show. Krebs came out with a WaPo op-ed on Tuesday night titled "Trump fired me for saying this, but I’ll say it again: The election wasn't rigged." He will be interviewed by David Ignatius on WaPo Live Wednesday morning. And he is booked on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Thursday...
CNN refers O'Keefe stunt to authorities
Tuesday was a demonstration that the end of the Trump era will not bring an end to hyper-partisan activists trying to portray "the media" as the enemy. Right-wing media personality James O'Keefe interrupted CNN's company-wide morning editorial meeting, which was being held by phone, and claimed to have two months of recordings. He live-streamed part of his stunt on Twitter and later started to release clips of the recordings.
On the recordings of the calls the network holds to discuss its daily coverage plans, Jeff Zucker and others could be heard discussing daily coverage plans. For instance, one tape featured correspondent Jamie Gangel saying, "News organizations have to be very careful and very responsible about not giving Donald Trump too much of a platform on his not conceding." The shock! The horror! Even some of O’Keefe’s followers appeared disappointed by what he released.
CNN PR responded by tweeting, "Legal experts say this may be a felony. We've referred it to law enforcement." A rep declined to comment on what law enforcement entities are involved. O'Keefe later made an appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News show where he hyped the recordings he took as some sort of damning scandal...
>> Of note: O'Keefe ID'd CNN VP Marcus Mabry as having described Tucker Carlson's show as the "white supremacy hour" on Fox News. Carlson then targeted Mabry on his show Tuesday night. But as CNN PR pointed out, it wasn't Mabry who made the comments attributed to him. It was, in fact, CNN general counsel David Vigilante. "We’re certain you’ll want to correct the record and apologize to the Black executive for assuming he was the voice raising concerns over white supremacy," CNN PR tweeted at O'Keefe and Carlson...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Brian Stelter writes: Have you noticed how well-sourced local reporters, not partisan talk show hosts, break the stories that fuel the talk shows? Here's the latest example: Heather Knight of the SF Chronicle revealed that mayor London Breed "had her own French Laundry party — the night after Gavin Newsom's..." (Chronicle)
-- CNN's Cristina Alesci writes about looking at the coronavirus "through the eyes of someone" with Type 1 Diabetes: "I jab myself daily to stay healthy, and people can't wear a mask?" (CNN)
Three big Tuesday coronavirus headlines
>> "Health care workers and long-term care facility residents should get Covid-19 vaccine first, CDC vaccine advisers say..."
>> "Stimulus talks: A bipartisan plan is coming ... but it's unlikely to break the ice as funding deadline looms..."
>> "US sets record for Covid-19 hospitalizations..."
Vaccine presents the biggest test yet for social platforms
Kaya Yurieff emails: "Social media platforms have struggled for years with how to effectively address anti-vaxxer content. With Covid-19 vaccines potentially making their way to some Americans as soon as this month, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others will face their biggest test yet on this front. Covid-19 vaccine misinfo can have real-life consequences. The biggest fear: people won't get the vaccine and Covid-19 will continue to spread. The stakes for platforms to get it right, after years of struggling to combat vaccine misinformation, couldn't be higher. And making a policy is the easy part — enforcing it consistently is where these platforms often fall short."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Craig Silverman's latest: "Ads Inc. shut down, but the tools it used to trick people on Facebook have lived on..." (BuzzFeed)
-- "For the first time, more than half of U.S. advertising spending is set to go to digital platforms such as Google and Facebook, the world’s largest ad buyer said, a reflection of marketers’ strategy shift as the coronavirus pandemic pummeled the industry this year...." (WSJ)
-- Salesforce is purchasing Slack for $27.7 billion... (CNN Business)
-- YouTube is letting more channels fundraise for charities... (CNET)
Politico team plans to compete with Politico
Sara Fischer's scoop for Axios: "Three of Politico's biggest reporting stars," Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan, "will launch a daily newsletter in 2021 as a stand-alone company... In effect, they will be competing against the Playbook franchise they helped create and grow."
Newsletters, newsletters and more newsletters
Kerry Flynn emails: "Another day brings another move to Substack. Libby Watson announced she's leaving The New Republic to start a newsletter about American healthcare. It's an under-covered and important topic, so I'm very much looking forward its January launch. A common question I get asked when people go freelance or make the jump to Substack is how will they afford health insurance? So, case in point, the industry is worth investigating. But the other question is how many Substack subscriptions will people pay for? The hope, from my perspective, is if the product is valuable, people will pay. And there's potential for syndication deals, as Substack writers Alex Kantrowitz and Emily Atkin have done with OneZero and MSNBC, respectively..."
>> Related: Sara Fischer reports Patch created a software platform for local news reporters to publish their own newsletters and sites...
Debate moderators speak out
Chris Wallace, Susan Page, and Kristen Welker opened up about their experiences moderating the 2020 election debates at an event hosted by Frank Sesno. Some highlights...
>> Wallace: “No matter what I did, or Joe Biden did, I certainly realized that at the end of the first segment, the first 15 minutes, that I had a problem..."
>> Page: “If I had to do it over again, I think I probably would have been more aggressive to cut Pence off..."
>> Welker: “I wanted it to be a debate that, yes, if you are in Washington and you're steeped in all of these issues, you felt like you got something from it, but that if you were just tuning in for the first time, you could understand what we were talking about..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Kerry Flynn:
-- Reddit is revealing its daily active user metric, 52 million, for the first time as it courts more advertisers, Sahil Patel reports... (WSJ)
-- Red Ventures is acquiring Lonely Planet after buying CNET Media Group earlier this year... (Skift)
-- The Chernin Group is investing $30M in the surfing media brand Surfline... (Axios)
-- NYT is opening a bureau in Spain and is naming Nicholas Casey as Madrid bureau chief... (NYT)
-- Stephen Colbert is on the cover of Vanity Fair's holiday issue, with a psychedelic portrait by Annie Leibovitz and a profile by Joe Hagan... (VF)
The end of year lists are here...
Kerry Flynn emails: "It's December so it's 2020 list time. On Tuesday, Spotify and Apple both announced their top audio lists. Bad Bunny is Spotify's most-streamed artist of the year. If you consume a lot of TikTok, you may recognize the majority of the popular songs. CNN's Marianne Garvey has the full list here..."
>> For podcasts, "Stuff You Should Know" ranked as the biggest show in the US on Apple whereas "NPR News Now" took the top spot on Spotify's list. Apple named NPR's "Code Switch" its podcast of the year...
>> In other list news, Seventeen released its 2020 Voices of the Year...
>> And arguably the leader of list franchises, Forbes, unveiled the 30 Under 30. Among the media honorees are Omar Jimenez, Astead Herndon, Natasha Bertrand, Adam Harris, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Emily Baumgaertner, Dave Jorgenson, and Brett Murphy...
>> Related: Kayleigh Barber wrote about how 30 Under 30 has become one of Forbes' largest sources of revenue...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Speaking of lists, congrats to Stelter for making NPR's list of 2020's best books. Other titles about the media biz include Margaret Sullivan's "Ghosting the News" and Lisa Napoli's "Up All Night..." (NPR)
-- On Tuesday Sarah Frier won the Financial Times and McKinsey 2020 Business Book of the Year Award for "No Filter," her "deeply sourced inside story of Instagram and its relationship with owner Facebook..." (FT)
-- WaPo announced that Meghan Hoyer will lead the paper's new data journalism department... (WaPo)
-- Looking ahead: The 2021 Oscars, slated for April 25, will not be a Zoom affair: "The Oscars in-person telecast will happen," a rep from the Academy and ABC told Variety on Tuesday... (Variety)
-- One of the craziest stories of the past 24 hours: "A movie shoot at a Los Angeles landmark nearly temporarily shut down a coronavirus testing site, until city officials stepped in..." (CNN)
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST...
Variety is restoring 'Just For Variety'
Brian Stelter writes: "The Hollywood bible ran the 'Just for Variety' column for 60 years. Now it is coming back, as a 'weekly print and digital franchise,' the publication says. The resurrected column will be written by senior culture editor Marc Malkin and 'focus on industry dish from behind and in front of the camera, industry personalities, social and philanthropic activities as well as trends in the creative community.' Malkin will make Army Archerd proud..."
Disney overhauls its TV business
Brian Lowry emails: "Disney has implemented a sweeping overhaul of its TV business, shuffling a number of key execs in the process, and eliminating one of its production labels, Touchstone. Among the key switches, Karey Burke will shift from ABC Entertainment to running the production arm 20th Television, with Craig Erwich expanding his oversight to include ABC as well as the streaming service Hulu. Walt Disney Television chairman Dana Walden said in a statement the reorganization was a case of 'rightsizing our organization' and 'streamlining functions,' amid broad cuts at the studio triggered by the pandemic."
NBC chooses tree lighting over NFL
Frank Pallotta emails: "Dolly Parton and Christmas cheer will get precedence over football this year. NBC's annual broadcast of the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting will air at 8pm Wednesday, a date that gives the celebration prime-time placement over the NFL. The Baltimore Ravens and the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers will face off on Wednesday at 3:40pm on NBC. The network's broadcast of the Christmas tree lighting was 'a factor' in scheduling the afternoon NFL game, a source told me..."
>> ESPN's Adam Schefter summed it up succinctly: "Tree lighting trumped football..."
Meet Elliot Page
Sandra Gonzalez emails: "On Tuesday, Elliot Page, the Oscar-nominated star of movies like 'Juno' and 'X-Men: Days of Future Past,' shared with fans that they are transgender and identify as non-binary, a term used to describe a person whose gender identity is neither man nor woman. 'I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life,' the actor, who was formerly known publicly as Ellen Page, wrote on Instagram. 'I feel overwhelming gratitude for the incredible people who have supported me along this journey. I can't begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self...'"
>> Netflix said Page will continue to play the role of Vanya Hargreeves in "The Umbrella Academy..."
The making of 'The Godfather'
Brian Lowry emails: "Armie Hammer will star in a limited series about the making of 'The Godfather.' The project is being produced for the ViacomCBS streaming service, Paramount+. The studio, of course, owns the original movies, and a revised version of 'The Godfather: Part III' is hitting select theaters this week, in advance of a Blu-ray/digital release. Here's more via THR..."
Amanda Kloots and Elaine Welteroth joining 'The Talk'
Chloe Melas emails: "'The Talk' is getting two new co-hosts next season. CBS announced Tuesday that Amanda Kloots and Elaine Welteroth will join season 11. The women will co-host alongside Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood and Carrie Ann Inaba. It's a bright moment for Kloots, who has had a devastating year with the loss of her husband, Nick Cordero, to Covid-19." Details here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Paul Walker's daughter and co-stars remembered him on anniversary of his death...
-- Fans may want it, but Ryan Reynolds doesn't want a street named after him...
-- See some of what's streaming in December...
LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
Cat of the day!
NBC News senior digital politics editor Gregg Birnbaum emails: "Knite likes to watch birds and in recent months he's been glued to the TV with the rest of us, but he's not available for any interviews."
Thank you for reading. Send me your feedback and tips! We'll be back tomorrow...
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