Brian Stelter here with the latest on Rudy Giuliani, The Epoch Times, "The Crown," Steve Kornacki, WarnerMedia, "One Night in Miami," and more...
"The classics"
In the same way that "you are what you eat," you are what you read and watch and hear. Your beliefs and actions and bets are all based on your sources of information. That's why I am so interested in presidential media diets.
The past four years have reaffirmed how much these diets matter. President Trump gorged on talk shows that distorted his view of the world. Ultimately this junk food weighed him down and contributed to his defeat in November. But he's still consuming talk shows that are spinning his loss into a win.
This sorry state of affairs made me wonder: What does the next president consume? What is Joe Biden reading and watching? On "Reliable Sources," I asked Evan Osnos, CNN's newest contributor. Osnos is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the new biography "Joe Biden: The Life, The Run, and What Matters Now."
"The President-Elect's media diet is what we would call the classics," Osnos said. "He relies on things like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal. He reads some of The Economist and The New Yorker. A lot of it in print. He also relies on Apple News to help him get headlines from other reputable media sources. What he is not doing, of course, is reading things like Newsmax, he's not watching One America News Network."
"He pays a lot of attention to the columnists," Osnos added, citing Thomas Friedman, who was also on the program...
"I forgot..."
Friedman recently spent an hour on the phone with Biden, and recapped it in this column. In the feedback from readers, Friedman said it was striking to see "how many people said, 'I forgot what it was like to listen to a president who was not entirely self-reverential, not entirely exclamatory, not entirely promoting fake news.' Just a sound, sober, thoughtful conversation about the big issues of the day. 'I forgot!' The other thing that really came through to me is that we are really lucky, I think, to have a president who is just really hard to hate at a time when our politics is so infused with hate. That's one of the things that I think is going to do him and the country well, I hope, in the coming months." For the record, I'm not nearly as optimistic as Friedman. Maybe that's because my media diet contains a lot of far-right, anti-Biden content...
How much does Biden read about himself?
This will be another big difference between the Trump and the Biden years. "One thing I know from experience that's interesting is, [Biden] doesn't parse every word that is written about him," Osnos said. "He doesn't pay all that much attention to it. With one exception: You go back to 1988, it was a great, classic portrait written of him by Richard Ben Cramer in the book 'What It Takes.' It was not altogether flattering. But he took it on board. He then ended up giving a eulogy at Cramer's funeral, in which he said that if somebody tells you something about yourself that's insightful, you have a responsibility to pay attention to it."
The books on Biden's nightstand
I'd like to know more about what books Biden is reading. A copy of David Sanger's 2012 book "Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power" recently appeared in a photo in a Biden newsletter. "If he is reading the book now, his timing is good -- we are headed into another nuclear crisis with Iran," Sanger told me. Biden would also be wise to read Sanger's 2018 followup, "The Perfect Weapon," or watching the accompanying HBO documentary.
One nonfiction work that Biden has talked about is "The Defining Moment," Jonathan Alter's history about the first 100 days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency. The book appeared in a photo of Biden's desk over the summer, and in October he told Brene Brown that he has been "re-reading" it. Biden's takeaway: "There's no such thing as a guaranteed democracy."
"If you read just the first chapter," Biden said, "talk about how guys like Walter Lippmann were telling Roosevelt, 'We have to have a dictatorship to get it right.' ... There's nothing automatic about this. We've got to earn it every single generation. And I used to hear that all the time and think, 'That's not true. We have it permanently.' No, see what's happening now."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- CNN took out a full page ad in Sunday's NYT to note that the network's 25-54 demo winning streak is now more than a month long. The ad's text: "Since the day after the election, there has been a clear winner..." (Twitter)
-- The top takeaway from Sunday's Senate debate in Georgia was Kelly Loeffler's robotic responses, consistently calling her opponent Rev. Raphael Warnock a radical. "I've been watching debates for many decades, and have never seen as stilted and programmed a performance as this one," Jeff Greenfield wrote... (Twitter)
-- Earlier in the evening, at the debate-that-wasn't, the "spectacle" of Jon Ossoff versus an empty podium belonging to David Purdue was a "pretty boring one-man show," Christina Cauterucci wrote... (Slate)
"We're all victims"
Out of every Trump rally, there are one or two memorable lines. On Saturday it was Trump's pronouncement to his fans that "we're all victims. Everybody here, all these thousands of people here tonight, they're all victims, every one of you." He meant it in the context of a "rigged" election, of course, but this explicit appeal to conservative victimhood is yet another example of Trump turning the subtext into text.
Speaking of the victimhood narrative...
Oliver Darcy writes: "Liberal WaPo writer Greg Sargent commented Sunday about a 'huge flaw' in news coverage of the GOP, asserting that journalists have largely treated Trump's demand that GA governor Brian Kemp overturn the election as a 'quandary' for GOP leaders. But, Sargent noted, notable Republicans have 'embraced his claims' and are 'not the victims of the mess,' given 'they helped create it.' VF's Michael Calderone agreed, tweeting, 'It's charitable at this point to frame Republicans as simply guilty of 'cowardice' for not speaking out against Trump's anti-democracy crusade... They're enabling him, and presumably would be fine if Trump was able to overturn the will of voters.'"
Back to the media diets
This undemocratic conduct is clearly connected to Trump's media diet. He and his allies are consuming a feedback loop of fiction. Hours before Rudy Giuliani was checked into the hospital to fight off his Covid-19 infection, he appeared on Maria Bartiromo's Fox show and alleged a sprawling conspiracy led by someone in DC to steal the election. "It is unclear when Giuliani received a positive test for Covid-19," CNN's story noted. But Fox said that Giuliani's Sunday morning live shot was in a remote truck owned by an outside vendor -- which means he was not in any Fox News facilities or near any Fox personnel. All necessary disinfectant precautions are being taken, the network said. The interview aired in the 10am ET hour, and Trump announced Rudy's positive test result via Twitter in the 3pm hour...
A truckload of misinformation. Literally.
Donie O'Sullivan writes: "We've witnessed Newsmax and OANN gain popularity by pushing false claims about the election – but don't forget about The Epoch Times. Thousands of copies of the paper were handed out to Trump supporters in Georgia before and after his rally in Valdosta. The people giving away the paper were running back to a truck that was stacked with refill copies. I was there, and I must have been offered a copy of the paper more than a dozen times."
Donie adds: "The Epoch website's top headline Sunday night continued to push the lie that the election result is in question. 'Election outcome unclear amid pending recounts and legal challenges,' it said. The print edition handed out at the rally included an op-ed from Newt Gingrich with the headline, 'The thieves who stole our election got sloppy.' The Epoch Times is tied to the Falun Gong, and last year Facebook banned it from advertising after it made a huge pro-Trump ad buy. The NYT recently reported that Epoch had used 'aggressive Facebook tactics and right-wing misinformation to create an anti-China, pro-Trump media empire.' Definitely worth keeping an eye on..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- "Privately, President Trump knows he'll be a regular citizen again shortly," Trump pal Bill O'Reilly writes. "But he dislikes talking about it even with close family members. Mr. Trump is still trying to resolve the fact that he received 74 million votes and lost!" (Billo)
-- "Moody and by accounts of his advisers sometimes depressed, the president barely shows up to work," per Peter Baker's story over the weekend. He said Trump is "fixated on rewarding friends, purging the disloyal and punishing a growing list of perceived enemies that now includes Republican governors, his own attorney general and even Fox News..." (NYT)
-- In a now-familiar attack, Trump called Fox's weekend newscasts "not watchable" on Sunday and told his Twitter followers that Newsmax and OAN are "picking up the slack..."
-- This is from Saturday, but it's still worth noting on Monday: WaPo surveyed all 249 Republicans on Capitol Hill. Only 27 acknowledged that Biden won. Two insisted that Trump won. The remaining 220 lawmakers, "nearly 90% of all Republicans serving in Congress," would not answer the question... (WaPo)
-- "Of course," Jim Sciutto noted, "none of them questioned their own elections this cycle..." (Twitter)
The "attention war:" Is Trump winning or losing?
Maybe the answer is... both? The general public seems to be moving on. Google Trends data shows a stark decline in searches for Trump. Yet the crowds in Georgia suggest Trump still has the attention and devotion of his strongest supporters. On "Reliable," Friedman said "I pray to God I never, ever, ever have to write another column about Donald Trump again." But he also acknowledged that Trump is still newsworthy.
>> On a related note, don't miss his NYT colleague Ross Douthat's column about all the "taxonomy" of folks who suspect the election was stolen...
MAGA media attacks on Barr increase
Oliver Darcy writes: "The right-wing media attacks on Bill Barr appeared to increase in intensity over the weekend, with heavyweights Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo questioning the attorney general. 'You, Mr. Barr, are so deep in the swamp, you can't see behind your fellow reptiles,' Pirro said Saturday in a scathing attack, before adding that he was 'not the exceptional leader needed at this exceptional time in history.' Bartiromo kept up the pressure on Sunday morning, asking DNI John Ratcliffe, 'Who got to Bill Barr?' We'll see what Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity say in the coming days..."
Tweet of the weekend
NBC's Mehdi Hasan wrote, "The great divide in American political life right now is not between the left and right but between the hinged and the unhinged. The great divide in the American media are between those willing to call out the unhinged and those who want to pretend they don’t exist."
My reaction: The word "pretend" doesn't belong in the journalistic dictionary. Members of the media just have to keep telling it like it is, no matter how uncomfortable...
The Covid crisis in three quotes
From the Sunday morning shows:
ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "We saw it coming. We were told it would get worse. Too many ignored the warnings, and now the surge upon a surge is here. COVID-19 is the single biggest killer in the United States this week, surpassing heart disease for the first time..."
CNN's Jake Tapper: "The state of our union is suffering. The United States is now in the worst stretch of the pandemic by far..."
NBC's Chuck Todd to Dr. Deborah Birx, after she said the "winter surge" is "the worst event that this country will face:" "I hope your boss also hears the same dire warnings that you're telling the rest of us..."
"Psychic numbing"
"New Day Weekend" co-host Christi Paul drew my attention to this concept, "psychic numbing," which posits that "constant increases in the magnitude of a stimulus typically evoke smaller and smaller changes in response." The concept also came up in this NatGeo story titled "Why our minds can't make sense of COVID-19's enormous death toll." As Dr. Tom Frieden said over the weekend, "The challenge for all of us is to avoid getting hardened to the sheer number of Covid deaths. More Americans have died in just the past two months than in the entire Vietnam War."
This is a real problem -- and I explored it with two guests on Sunday's "Reliable" telecast. "Grief must be witnessed," grief expert David Kessler said, but so many Covid-19 deaths are happening out of sight.
And "even if you could see what we see," in hospital wards, "I think it's not psychologically possible for people to grasp the enormity of this," Dr. Esther Choo said. "And yet we need people to absorb enough of the tragedy that it actually drives their behavior so that we can get to the other end of the pandemic." This requires creative storytelling, careful access to hospitals, and compassionate news coverage. Watch part one and part two of the segment here...
"Why I'm so angry talking about coronavirus"
That's the headline on this column by Jeff Deminski, a radio host in New Jersey. He expressed his frustration with callers who are dismissive of Covid-19's dangers -- and reminded me that local outlets are battling against medical myths every day.
Deminski told me about the "lunacy" and lies: "I never get angry with someone that has a strong opinion, even if I don't agree with them...but to say that masks do nothing, or masks do more harm than good, that's a lie and I can't abide by that." Watch...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- "Headlines Don’t Capture the Horror We Saw:" That's the headline on Kasey Grewe's piece about doctors at a NY hospital... (The Atlantic)
-- Politico media critic Jack Shafer asked: "What's the more compelling story right now? People fighting one another to get the vaccine or people vowing they'll never take it?" (Twitter)
-- Breaking on Sunday night: Biden is expected to nominate Dr. Vivek Murthy "to reprise role as US surgeon general..." (CNN)
Media week ahead calendar
Monday: In a rare public appearance, Trump will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to U.S. wrestler Dan Gable...
Tuesday: Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz's book "Bag Man," expanding on their podcast of the same name, hits bookshelves...
Thursday: Disney's investor day full of streaming news begins at 4:30pm ET...
Thursday and Friday: "In what can only be called Peak Streaming Streep," Brian Lowry says, "Meryl Streep stars in streaming movies dropping on successive days: 'Let Them All Talk' on HBO Max on Thursday and "The Prom' on Netflix on Friday..."
SNEAK PEEK
New awareness campaign to #FreeAustinTice
To be announced on Monday: "The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership, a public service initiative from The Post to promote press freedom worldwide, has launched a new campaign again calling for the safe release of American journalist and Marine veteran Austin Tice, who was detained while reporting in Syria more than eight years ago. The Post will distribute free bracelets with the hashtag #FreeAustinTice to lawmakers, government officials, members of the media and anyone else who wants to show their support for bringing Tice home." Request a bracelet via this form, and when you receive it in the mail, share it on social media with the #FreeAustinTice hashtag...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- "Members of the National Press Club elected Lisa Nicole Matthews of the Associated Press to serve as the Club's 114th president." For the first time, "the Club elected an all-female leadership team..." (NPC)
-- Inside the Barnes & Noble turnaround plan: "The struggling bookseller has laid off once-powerful managers and overturned relationships with publishers in favor of a more local approach," Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg reports... (WSJ)
-- CNN's year in pictures is out! Enjoy... (CNN)
Staying on the side of the facts
On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," I asked The AP's DC bureau chief Julie Pace about the newswire's strong, no-nonsense language describing Trump's unreality. The AP practically defines sober, straight-down-the-middle reporting, so has the Trump coverage caused any tension? Well, Pace said, "The gulf between the president's statements about the election and the reality is so wide. And that is requiring us to be quite assertive in the way that we are describing this, but that is our mission. Our mission is to come down squarely on the side of the facts."
Did BBC land Princess Diana interview under false pretenses?
Martin Bashir's career-making interview with Princess Diana in 1995 is the subject of a new investigation amid explosive claims of unethical behavior. In this report from London, CNN's Max Foster explained why the interview is back in the news. Afterward, I spoke with Andrew Neil, a 25-year veteran of the BBC, who said the new probe could have serious consequences for the BBC's publicly-funded future...
Catch up on Sunday's show
Watch the video clips on CNN.com, catch the entire episode via CNNgo or VOD, or listen to the podcast edition via Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app...
This year's best crossover?
MSNBC wizard Steve Kornacki's star turn on "Sunday Night Football" was a hit. WH senior comms adviser Ben Williamson called it a "contender for this year's best crossover: Steve Kornacki breaking down NFL playoff odds."
Afterward, Richard Deitsch tweeted this: "NBC Sports tells the @TheAthletic that 'there is a high probability' you will see @SteveKornacki on a future edition of Football Night In America after tonight..."
No disclaimer on "The Crown"
The UK's Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden asked Netflix to label "The Crown" as fiction, for those viewers who may not know, but the streaming service is politely saying no. "We have always presented ‘The Crown’ as a drama – and we have every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events," a Netflix spokesperson said Sunday. "As a result we have no plans — and see no need — to add a disclaimer."
Box office update
"This weekend, Universal's DreamWorks Animated title 'The Croods: A New Age' in weekend 2 continued to see the best numbers in the current COVID-19 America, with $4.4M, -55%, crossing $20.3M in its 12th day in release," Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro wrote Sunday.
D'Alessandro said Hollywood is reeling from Thursday's "Warner-HBO Max Windows Bombshell," with theaters, agents, and actors all "still feeling the sting." He wrote, "only time will tell if this move by WarnerMedia is pure financial genius or pure financial insanity," but "it's clear that at this point in time WarnerMedia simply wants to become Netflix (or Disney+). Plain and simple. And that they want that juice and electricity from the stock price as well."
>> Related: Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, Kelly Gilblom, and Scott Moritz are out with a how-it-happened story about the Warner Bros. move, calling it "the latest bold stroke" since Jason Kilar took over as WarnerMedia CEO in May...
Do we really know what consumers want?
Brian Lowry writes: "We've known for a long time what studios want in terms of shrinking theatrical windows, and what theater chains want (or don't) in protecting their exclusivity for as long as possible. As I noted in this column, what we don't know is what consumers will want, and how their behavior might change, either by becoming accustomed to home viewing or, conversely, by feeling pent-up demand to get out as the pandemic recedes. That’s background for Warner Bros.' big move which will surely boost HBO Max, but merits caution in evaluating its longterm impact when moviegoers will get the last word." Read Lowry's full column here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- "First Wonder Woman 1984 reactions hail 'hugely ambitious' sequel as 'beacon of hope...'" (EW)
-- Lucas Shaw says OnlyFans, mainly known now for adult models, "is a billion-dollar media giant hiding in plain sight..." (Bloomberg)
-- Frank Pallotta writes: "SNL" returned with Kate McKinnon playing Giuliani as he tried to overturn the election results... (CNN)
"We need good movies more than ever"
CNN Entertainment editor Megan Thomas writes: "By this point in a typical year, the films and performances in contention for an Academy Award would be widely seen and all but set. But with the 2021 ceremony and eligibility window appropriately pushed to April over the pandemic, and with screenings and festivals moved online, this is not a normal year. So I felt especially grateful for the little glimpse of spring I saw Sunday in a virtual screening of Regina King's feature film directorial debut, 'One Night in Miami.' A promising Oscar-contender written by Kemp Powers, the movie is an historical-fiction account of an actual night when Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Malcom X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) gathered to discuss their work and the battle for civil rights in the 1960s. The film is poignant and timely, and the performances are excellent across the board."
Megan adds: "While the politics, pomp and circumstance of awards season have come under increased criticism in recent years, the celebration of creative collaboration and great storytelling -- like that in 'One Night in Miami' -- shouldn't. At its best, art taps into our common emotions and experiences. It helps us see each other. We need good movies more than ever."
Chadwick Boseman receives posthumous 'Hero for the Ages' award
Chloe Melas writes: "Chadwick Boseman was honored at Sunday's 'MTV Movie & TV Awards: Greatest of All Time.' The 'Black Panther' actor, who died in August, posthumously received the Hero for the Ages award, presented by fellow Marvel stars Don Cheadle and Robert Downey Jr. 'The second you first saw him on screen or had the opportunity to meet him in person, his energy and intensity was undeniable,' Downey Jr. said. 'There was something different and special about Chadwick Boseman.' Read on..."
LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
Pet of the day
Kathrine writes: "Eighteen-year old Bosco can’t do much anymore, but he does sit on my lap every morning while we read your newsletter and watch CNN together. Thanks for providing the country with responsible journalism." Thank YOU for caring!
Thank you for reading! Email me and Oliver your feedback anytime. We'll be back tomorrow...
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