Brian Stelter here with the latest on Joe Biden, CNN, Bellingcat, the LA Times, Dubsmash, Geffen Stayhouse, and much more...

A prophetic day

I know I speak for millions of people when I say that Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been a national treasure this year. So let's give him the first and final word today.

"Lately," Dr. Gupta tweeted Monday, "I've been thinking a lot about the beginning of one of my favorite books: 'A Tale of Two Cities' by Charles Dickens. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...' It is so prophetic on a day like today. On the same day that a truly extraordinary scientific feat is realized -- in the form of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine -- we are still experiencing a devastating amount of Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Some of the same hospitals tasked with administering the vaccine are also stretched to the limit with patients."

Then he invoked another Dickens line: "It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness."

"It is true," Dr. Gupta wrote. "We are living through both ages at the same time. Remember, it will take a while for the vaccine to benefit mankind. In the meantime, wear a mask and #BeKind."

Darkness and light

In a day full of dark and light juxtapositions, this one stood out: The Johns Hopkins database of Covid cases and deaths, a primary source for many news outlets, surpassed 300,000 US deaths while HHS Secretary Alex Azar was being interviewed about the vaccine rollout on CNN. "I hate to interrupt," Jake Tapper said, "but we just crossed a horrific milestone with more than 300,000 deaths. We've crossed that line. It's now 300,267." That's the darkness of 2020 -- the daily climb of the death toll -- but it also makes the light all the more valuable.

"NBC Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt put this into perspective on Monday night's broadcast. "The vaccines point to a brighter future," he said, "but the here and now only became darker today when we crossed that 300,000 Covid death threshold. If I were to begin reading aloud all the names of those we've lost non-stop, it would be 10 days before I finished."

"We're seeing the light"

Sandra Lindsay, the critical care nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center who was vaccinated live on TV Monday morning, spoke with Anderson Cooper on Monday night. She said she feels great after receiving the vaccine. "I have no fear. I trust my profession is deeply rooted in science," she said. "What I don't trust is getting Covid-19, because I don't know how it will affect me and the people around me that I could potentially transfer the virus to."

Lindsay's overall POV about V-Day: "The light is brighter tonight in the tunnel, we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's certainly not over."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- I found myself agreeing with CNN's Omar Jimenez, who tweeted while Lindsay was being vaccinated, "I never thought watching a vaccination on live TV would be so thrilling, yet here we are. What a moment..." (Twitter)

-- A new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that "more than eight in 10 Americans say they would receive the vaccine, with 40% saying they would take it as soon as it's available to them and 44% saying they would wait a bit before getting it..." (ABC)

-- Chris Cuomo on the "good fortune" of the incredibly fast vaccine breakthroughs: "They're going to write books and probably make movies about it..." (CNN)

-- Sam Vinograd says the US should be on "heightened alert for Russian disinformation attacks" around the vaccine rollout, given the country's "long history of health-related disinfo..." (CNN)

-- "In just the last week Covid killed 17,000 Americans. I fear we are numbing to the numbers," Dr. Tom Frieden commented... (Twitter)

-- How to honor the 300,000+ lives lost? One way is through obituaries. "Families of some who perished have written pointedly about the virus," Julie Bosman writes. "They tell of agonizing final days. They plead for wearing of masks..." (NYT)

A three-screen day

Enough with the split-screen references – sometimes it's not enough! Monday was more like a three-screen day, harkening back to the early months of the Trump admin in 2017, when multiple political fires were raging at the same time. Here's how WaPo juggles all the news on Tuesday's front page: The Electoral College vote at the very top, then a big headline about the vaccination effort, along with an above-the-fold headline about Bill Barr's exit...

Time to "turn the page"

CNN went from state capital to capital on Monday, showing electors gathering to vote, with coverage led by the same team that handled Election Week. "We are watching democracy be stronger than this assault of lies," Jake Tapper said. That was Biden's message, too, in a 7:30pm speech that was carried live by all the major networks. He declared that it is time to "turn the page, to unite, to heal." With that in mind, I'll just point out that Fox Business and One America News did not carry his remarks live. Newsmax showed part of Biden's speech, but cut away for more Biden denialism. The 7pm host Greg Kelly said he doesn't "feel" like Biden is president-elect. However, multiple other hosts on Newsmax did admit the obvious, and pivoted to attack Biden...

Fox sweeps Biden's win under the rug

Oliver Darcy writes: "For weeks, Fox News viewers have been told that the media does not declare the winner of elections, but that the Electoral College does. So it's interesting that when the electors cast their votes and affirmed Biden's victory, the network did its best to brush the story under the rug. Unlike the extensive coverage on CNN, and to some extent MSNBC, Fox largely avoided covering the story in the morning and early afternoon. And when it came up later in the day, segments were often framed around Trump's nonsensical voter fraud claims. Fox did carry Biden's speech live at 7:30, but made sure to have Trump defender Charlie Kirk on right afterward..."

Geraldo's message

He told Kirk that "you have to stop this" while Kirk pushed voter fraud fantasies. He also tried to reach Trump through the TV, saying, "It is over. I want the president and my friend -- the current president, the 45th president -- to understand it is over," and the longer this goes on, "the more we damage the fabric of our democracy." BTW, he said, it also damages Trump's legacy...

All Hunter all the time

Sean Hannity called me a "full-time Fox News psycho stalker hall monitor" on Monday night. I guess he heard that I'm working on a paperback edition of my book "HOAX." (Details to come.)

Hannity objected to my Sunday monologue about Fox's out-of-whack Hunter Biden coverage without constructing a cohesive defense of that coverage. The Hunter probe is serious, of course, but Fox is going way overboard; one of the banners on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" said "BIDEN IGNORES HUNTER SCANDAL DURING SPEECH." As if anyone expected him to talk about a DOJ investigation during a speech affirming his victory?! The name Hunter came up 21 times during Hannity's hour on Monday. And later in the evening, Laura Ingraham led with "PRESIDENT-ELECT LOCKDOWN," which at least is a recognition of Biden's status as prez-elect...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Bret Stephens on the bomb Trump detonated: "Trump has taught his opponents not to believe a word he says, his followers not to believe a word anyone else says, and much of the rest of the country to believe nobody and nothing at all..." (NYT)

-- "WarnerMedia, the parent of CNN and other cable networks, rejected two ads from President Trump's campaign that attacked the election results," Gerry Smith reports... (Bloomberg)

-- WHCA president Zeke Miller spoke out after holiday visitors to the WH were seen without masks: "There are multiple signs in and around the White House briefing room reminding guests that masks are required. It is deeply upsetting that White House tours continue to put journalists — who are there as the eyes and ears of the American people — at unnecessary risk..." (Twitter)

Barr's exit came after relentless attacks

Oliver Darcy writes: "Barr's departure form the Trump administration came after he had fallen out of the good graces with MAGA media. For the last several weeks, Barr has been skewered by prominent right-wing media figures and outlets who believed he had not done enough to advance Trump's baseless claims asserting widespread voter fraud. Lou Dobbs, who hosts one of Trump's favorite shows, has been particularly tough on Barr, suggesting he had joined the 'deep-state' and saying he was 'either a liar or fool or both.' Which is to say that if Trump has been watching these shows, it perhaps helped color his perspective on Barr..."

>> The Drudge Report's headline: "BARR ESCAPES!"

Voting tech company sends legal notices to right-wing outlets

Oliver Darcy writes: "Smartmatic, a voting tech company that has been swept up in baseless conspiracy theories about the election, said on Monday that it had sent legal notices to Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax for participating in a 'disinformation campaign' aimed at damaging it. Smartmatic said the claims pushed by the outlets were not supported with real evidence and could have been easily been debunked with basic research.'This campaign was designed to defame Smartmatic and undermine legitimately conducted elections,' Smartmatic's CEO said. The legal notice sent to Fox included comments made on the network by guests Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, as well as hosts Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo..."

>> Neither Fox nor OAN responded to requests for comment. Newsmax said the network itself "never made a claim of impropriety about Smartmatic," but acknowledged some of its guests have "raised questions about the company..."

Kamala Harris sitting down with Robin Roberts

"'GMA' co-anchor Robin Roberts will sit down with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for her first one-on-one interview since she was elected," ABC announced Monday. The interview will be taped on Tuesday and will air on Wednesday morning...

TUESDAY PLANNER

CNN's next CITIZEN event will be streamed at 10am ET...

Biden will fly to Georgia for a Senate runoff event...

The Center for Communication will present Soledad O'Brien with the 37th Annual Frank Stanton Award...

Barack Obama will be Trevor Noah's guest on "The Daily Show..."

A stunning collaboration

The Russian specialists who trailed Vladimir Putin's nemesis Alexey Navalny before he was poisoned – have been identified. The story is extraordinary, and so is the story behind the story.

"A joint investigation between Bellingcat and The Insider, in cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN, has discovered voluminous telecom and travel data that implicates Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning," Bellingcat's story says.

This was CNN's first full-scale joint investigation with Bellingcat, the pioneering open-source investigative website. The CNN reporting was led by Tim Lister, Clarissa Ward and Sebastian Shukla. CNN's involvement came together after Bellingcat published an investigation on Russian surveillance of Ward's reporting in Central African Republic in 2019.

For this blockbuster report, Ward tried to interview one of the Russians on the "FSB's toxins team," and had the door shut in her face. As Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins tweeted, "confronting Russian intelligence officers involved in assassination attempts on their own territory is extremely brave reporting." Watch for yourself here...

LAT editor steps down

"The Los Angeles Times' leadership transition has accelerated with the departure of Norman Pearlstine, who served as executive editor for two and a half years," the paper's corporate media reporter Meg James wrote on Monday.

LAT owner Patrick Soon-Shiong announced that Pearlstine was transitioning to a senior advisor role, effective immediately, and managing editors Scott Kraft and Kimi Yoshino were now responsible for newsroom operations.

>> Context via Kerry Flynn: "Pearlstine wrote in an October memo that he would step down once his successor was named. But 10 weeks later, the search is still ongoing..."

A 'land grab' in short-form mobile video

While I was putting Sunday night's newsletter to bed, The Information's Alex Heath and Jessica Lessin were breaking the news about Reddit buying TikTok rival Dubsmash. Their story nudged the companies to announce the deal a day early.

>> Here's how Heath framed the deal: "There is a land grab in M&A happening in the short-form mobile video space, as TikTok and bigger companies like Facebook continue to suck up the oxygen."

>> CNN's story noted that Dubsmash's video creation tools "will be integrated into Reddit..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- New from John Koblin and Michael M. Grynbaum: "CNN and MSNBC Fret Over Post-Trump Future..." (NYT)

-- "Sports streaming service DAZN has sold Sporting News, one of America's oldest sports publications, to British family office PAX Holdings. The sale continues DAZN's push to centralize its core business around live streaming..." (Sportico)

-- Apple has started to roll out privacy "nutrition labels" on apps in the App Store, Samantha Murphy Kelly reports... (CNN Business)

-- "The FTC is kicking off a fresh study of how online platforms handle consumer data -- sending letters requesting info from Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube, as well as apps like Discord, Snap and Reddit," Brian Fung reports... (Twitter)

Today's 2020 features

The 2020 look-backs are beginning to land... While I will surely miss some, I'll share a few every day between now and our holiday break...

-- Bloomberg Businessweek's annual Jealousy List came out on Monday...

-- CJR began a week-long series, "The best journalism of 2020," by showcasing Trump coverage...

-- WWD's Kathryn Hopkins asked: "What Did 2020 Do to Print Magazines?" Here are her answers...

-- And this piece by Elin McCoy might have you reevaluating your life choices. Her newest column for Bloomberg is titled "Of the 2,108 Wines I Tasted This Year, These 10 Were the Best..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- Fallout from Nick Kristof's column: "More than 10 million videos were purged from Pornhub on Monday after the company announced it was removing all unverified content from its website..." (BuzzFeed News)

-- "On Monday, the Sun, a U.K.-based tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, pulled its version of a controversial story about a New York City paramedic with an OnlyFans account." But the NYPost's original story stayed online, despite a torrent of criticism... (TheWrap)

-- As for the other News Corp controversy, well, the LAT's Mary McNamara has a message for Paul Gigot: "You ran a sexist essay on Jill Biden. Don't tell us to calm down..." (LAT)

Lowry on 2020's flood

Brian Lowry writes: "2020 will be remembered for a lot of things, but in media circles, it stands out as the year that streaming officially became a flood. That has obvious implications for the media business and studios investing in new services. But it also has broader ripples for consumers, critics trying to make sense of it all and indeed society, as the number of widely shared cultural touchstones continues to dwindle amid a subscription-driven Tower of Babel, as we escape into our own siloed-off bubbles..."

>> Stelter's thought bubble: The dynamic Lowry described makes the "widely shared cultural touchstones" even more valuable, does it not?

>> Related: Frank Pallotta's latest is on the streaming price-hikes...

Geffen Stayhouse presents 'The Future'

Brian Lowry writes: "The Geffen Playhouse had an unexpected virtual hit with magician Helder Guimarães' show 'The Present' -- which was extended multiple times – and now follows that up with 'The Future.' The presentation (under the 'Geffen Stayhouse' label) further refines the interactive nature of the act, with viewers actually voting on questions along the way, in addition to participating in the card tricks. LAT critic Charles McNulty wasn't quite as impressed as the first go-round -- it's tough to generate the same level of discovery -- but I saw the show over the weekend, and it remains one of the most inventive and entertaining uses of the format I've seen since the pandemic shuttered theaters..."