Brian Stelter here at 10:29pm ET on Monday, November 29 with the latest on Chris Cuomo, Lina Khan, Twitter, Steve Bannon, Cate Blanchett, Bob Iger, the Gotham Awards, and much more...
CNN's Cuomo review
In the words of the Albany Times Union newspaper's top editor, Casey Seiler, Monday brought an "enormous dump of transcripts and material."
The cache came from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, which led the investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against the state's former governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this year. Some of the most newsworthy documents were about Cuomo's brother Chris, the CNN anchor, who was on the air Monday night.
The document dump "reveals a far greater role for Chris Cuomo in his brother's response team than previously disclosed," Seiler tweeted. That's what many other reporters concluded, as well. Chris had generally acknowledged and defended advising his brother – but the scope of how the anchor aimed to help his brother was more considerable than previously known. And he was more intimately involved than anyone on the outside appreciated. For example, texts between Chris Cuomo and Melissa DeRosa indicated that Cuomo sought to use his connections in the press to help prepare the then-governor's team as accusers started to make their stories public.
Monday's revelations prompted CNN to initiate a review. "The thousands of pages of additional transcripts and exhibits that were released today by the NY Attorney General deserve a thorough review and consideration," a CNN rep said in a statement. "We will be having conversations and seeking additional clarity about their significance as they relate to CNN over the next several days." Oliver Darcy, Sonia Moghe and I filed this report for CNN.com...
Under oath
Monday's document dump included Chris Cuomo's sworn testimony to investigators. He acknowledged that he did attempt to learn more about a forthcoming story by Ronan Farrow and defended the practice as conventional: "The idea of one reporter calling another to find out about what's coming down the pipe is completely business-as-usual."
He also said under oath what he told CNN viewers earlier this year: That he "never influenced or attempted to control CNN's coverage of my family." He testified, "If I had tried to influence any of the reporting at CNN or anywhere else, I guarantee you people would know, and so would a lot of others..."
>> Cuomo made no mention of the controversy on his Monday night show. For what it's worth, when he addressed his actions on the air back in August, he said "this will be my final word on it," and he hasn't addressed the matter on TV since...
>> Flashback to what I said during a lengthy on-air report about the Cuomo brothers in August: "This has been a conundrum for CNN that has no perfect answer, no perfect solution." I think those words remain true today...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- The headline on Tuesday's story in the NYT's print edition: "Brother Played Big Role in Defending Cuomo..." (NYT)
-- At one point in Chris Cuomo's testimony, he said he was focused on protecting his brother when he "probably should have been thinking more about how I protect myself..." (Twitter)
-- "These Cuomo texts/transcripts are such a vivid lens into parts of his world that longtime operatives/advisers/New York reporters understood... but much of the rest of the world did not," Josh Dawsey commented... (Twitter)
-- Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Andrew Cuomo, called the release of documents a "manipulated release" designed to "damage political opponents..." (NYDN)
And now we wait...
Here's the latest with Covid in a single sentence: "Americans face at least 2 weeks of uncertainty as scientists work to answer 3 key questions about the new Omicron variant." That's the headline on Ralph Ellis and Susannah Cullinane's wrap piece for CNN.com. In the meantime, here's the most pressing issue: "There are still more than sixty million eligible Americans who have not yet received any shots..."
>> The Daily Show's joke: "What makes the Omicron variant so dangerous is that nobody knows how tf to say it..."
>> Charlie Warzel is right about this: "Uncertainty is one thing that humans — and the internet we've built — don't do very well..."
>> This is your brain on Fox: On Monday night Lara Logan "compared Dr. Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Or at least, that’s what people are telling her, so she says, Mediaite's Michael Luciano wrote...
TUESDAY PLANNER
President Biden travels to Minnesota to promote the infrastructure deal...
New releases include "Atlas of the Heart" by Brené Brown, "All About Me!" by Mel Brooks, "Laptop From Hell" by Miranda Devine, and "Brothers And Wives" by Christopher Andersen...
"La Brea" has its season finale on NBC...
DOJ wants to restrain Bannon media circus
Oliver Darcy writes: "The DOJ is attempting to get the Bannon media circus under control. CNN's Katelyn Polantz reported on Monday that prosecutors have asked a judge to limit documents pertaining to the case that the 'War Room' host can disseminate to the public. The DOJ is arguing that Bannon could essentially engage in 'witness tampering' by releasing info that would 'expose witnesses to public commentary on their potential testimony before trial.' Bannon's lawyers, as one might expect, are fighting the DOJ's request. Details here..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Craig Silverman and Isaac Arnsdorf are out with a brand new investigation into "how Steve Bannon has exploited Google Ads to monetize extremism..." (ProPublica)
-- Donald Trump "has a new plan to get back on TV," Philip Bump writes. "Trump wants a debate over his election nonsense." But he's been losing that debate for a year, and "some arguments aren't worth broadcasting..." (WaPo)
-- Greg Sargent, following up on my recent "Reliable" segment with Jon Karl about the prospect of covering a Trump 2024 campaign, wrote about the debate that "has begun to simmer in newsrooms: How can the press avoid the pitfalls in covering Trump that bedeviled 2016 and 2020?" (WaPo)
-- Here's a classic example of a right-wing frame on nonpartisan news: "White House Christmas decorations revealed as Biden faces host of crises..." (NYPost)
Newsmax insists Covid isn't the issue with Cortes
Oliver Darcy writes: "Newsmax wants everyone to know that former Trump adviser Steve Cortes was not fired over a recent requirement that employees be vaccinated or submit to weekly Covid tests. The network said in a statement that any such claim is 'completely false.' The statement came after The Daily Beast, which was first to report Cortes was out, noted that the MAGA host had publicly vowed not to comply with 'any organization's attempt' to enforce Biden's vaccine-or-test requirement and said it 'may' have been the 'final straw.' Given the anti-vaccine sentiment among many on the right, Newsmax has a strong interest in signaling to its conservative viewers that it would not fire a host over refusal to comply with Covid precautions related to them..."
>> Big picture: Cortes is on the way out at Newsmax. He was absent on Monday night, and his co-host Jenn Pellegrino was joined by Lyndsay Keith instead...
NYT probe prompts Pentagon action
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has ordered "a new high-level investigation into a U.S. airstrike in Syria in 2019 that killed dozens of women and children" in the wake of a New York Times story that showed how the "catastrophic strike" was "concealed" almost every step of the way. Here's the original story by Dave Philipps and Eric Schmitt. Both men also bylined Monday's followup, which said that "Gen. Michael X. Garrett, the four-star head of the Army’s Forces Command, will examine the strike..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Natasha Korecki is leaving Politico to join NBC News as a senior national political reporter... (Twitter)
-- Zachary Petrizzo and Lachlan Cartwright spoke with 22 current and former Politico staffers about a "series of burgeoning conflicts," including within Playbook... (Beast)
-- Judd Legum wrote about the types of thefts that make the news and the ones that do not. He used two different stories about Walgreens to illustrate his point… (Popular Information)
-- Eric Boehlert pointed out that Chris Christie's book failed to make the best seller lists despite ample media attention... (Press Run)
All eyes on BuzzFeed's SPAC
Kerry Flynn writes: "We're likely a week away from BuzzFeed's stock market debut. Shareholders of 890 Fifth Avenue Partners vote Thursday on the merger of the SPAC with the media company, which would then merge with Complex. Its performance will be a bellwether for future media SPACs. BDG CEO Bryan Goldberg 'may be the most anxious,' The Information's Sahil Patel and Jessica Toonkel wrote in a new report analyzing BuzzFeed's projections, Big Tech's impact and other SPAC talks. In a recent interview with Insider's Claire Atkinson, Shane Smith explained Vice's failed SPAC talks: 'The board and the management team said, the SPAC market has shit the bed, and we shouldn't be doing this. If the timing comes along and we're planning blistering 2022 and traffic and events do what we think they're going to do, then the sky's the limit.' CEO Nancy Dubuc told Atkinson that Vice expects to turn a profit for all of next year..."
Dorsey steps down
CNBC's David Faber had the market-shaking scoop Monday morning: Jack Dorsey was stepping aside as Twitter CEO. The sun wasn't even up on the West Coast yet. Nearly two hours later, Dorsey confirmed the news and celebrated his successor Parag Agrawal, the company's CTO. The conventional wisdom about the move: Dorsey needs to tend to Square...
Twitter's new CEO instantly has his old tweets dug up
Oliver Darcy writes: "Immediately after Agrawal was named as the new CEO of Twitter, some of his old tweets were dug up. Right-wing media focused particularly on a 2010 tweet from him that said, 'If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists.' But as CNN's Andrew Kaczynski pointed out, Agrawal's tweet was a direct quote of a 'Daily Show' segment. As Kaczynski summed up, 'It's a joke about absurd stereotypes, not a factual statement.' But that critical context didn't stop many of the right-wing warriors, who purport to stand against cancel culture, from trying to use the tweet to essentially cancel Agrawal..."
>> So in other words, Agrawal experienced one of the worst tendencies of Twitter mob mentality on Monday...
>> Good point from Ryan Mac: It's "wild that Twitter didn't wipe or at lest spotcheck its new CEO's past tweets considering how often old (and usually contextless) tweets get resurfaced on here to derail someone recently thrust into a position of power or fame..."
TECH TALK
-- Frances Haugen will testify at a House hearing on Wednesday morning... (House)
-- In an interview with Steven Levy, Haugen says, 'I think we need a lot more people working inside Facebook to fix Facebook's problems. I strongly encourage people to work at Facebook..." (Wired)
-- Meanwhile, Nicole Wetsman points out that "despite the fact that TikTok now has over 1 billion users, public health researchers know very little about the health effects it might be having on the platform’s (mostly young) users..." (The Verge)
-- Tim Peterson reports how ESPN and other publishers access the performance of TikTok videos... (Digiday)
-- Timothy Lloyd wonders: "Will the Metaverse unlock a new virtual universe of cybercrime?" (TNR)
-- Three former Googlers are suing the company, alleging it violated its 'don't be evil' motto... (NPR)
"The Simpsons" predicted this would happen
Jordan Valinsky writes: "Fans have noticed that an episode of the Simpsons that features a scene in Tiananmen Square is missing from Disney+ in Hong Kong. In the 2005 episode... the Simpsons clan stops in Beijing's Tiananmen Square where they find a sign that says, 'On this site, in 1989, nothing happened,' a biting joke about the 1989 event where pro-democracy protestors gathered for several months."
And now the episode is missing from the Disney+ catalog. So, in the words of this Daily Beast headline, "Disney+ proves point of 'Simpsons' joke by leaving out Tiananmen episode in Hong Kong..."
Coming soon?!
"The Chinese province of Henan is building a surveillance system with face-scanning technology that can detect journalists and other 'people of concern,'" the BBC's James Clayton reported Monday. "Documents seen by BBC News describe a system that classifies journalists into a 'traffic-light' system - green, amber and red." Read on...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Monday's must-read by Sheelah Kolhatkar: A profile of FTC chief Lina Khan, who said in an interview that she wakes up thinking about "the merger surge, and what we’re going to do about it..." (New Yorker)
-- Related: "Biden's antitrust squeeze may grease the wheels for TV deals," Cynthia Littleton writes, sizing up "speculation in the market" and identifying investors who are "waiting to pounce..." (Variety)
-- "The European Commission plans to introduce rules next year to prevent a few large media groups from acquiring smaller rivals and to thwart government interference, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on Monday..." (Reuters)
Bob Iger, Suns co-owner?
"It's crunch time for Bob Iger if the outgoing Disney executive chairman wants to announce another gig before he leaves the company," Puck's Matthew Belloni writes. "Several options are still on the table, I'm told, but one potential scenario could be particularly interesting: NBA owner. Iger has told at least a couple friends that he'd love to front a bid for the Phoenix Suns if the hoops team were to become available, which it just might in the next couple months." Right now Adam Silver is waiting on the results of an investigation into Suns controlling owner Robert Sarver. Read on...
Gotham Awards time
The Gotham Awards are underway in NYC right now, "back in their usual prime slot at the start of the awards season," as IndieWire's Ryan Lattanzio wrote. The site is running a live-updating list of the winners as they happen...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- "West Side Story" premiered at the Rose Theater in NYC Monday night, so some Twitter-sized reviews will be popping overnight...
-- Nothing is official yet, but Amy Pascal says Marvel and Sony are "planning more 'Spider-Man' beyond 'No Way Home...'" (THR)
-- Stars, they're just like us? "Cate Blanchett makes sure her kids 'checked the sources' When getting news from social media..." (People)
"Gucci Family Hits Back"
That's the lead headline on Variety's website now. "The heirs of Aldo Gucci, who was chairman of the Gucci fashion house from 1953 to 1986, have issued a statement saying they are 'a bit disconcerted' about what they claim is their inaccurate portrayal in Ridley Scott's 'House of Gucci' film," Nick Vivarelli writes...
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Here's the complete winners list from Sunday night's Soul Train Awards...
-- Elliot Page shared an impressive six pack on Instagram...
-- Joy Behar is facing backlash for some Thanksgiving coming out advice...
-- Mariah Carey is proving, once again, that she's the undisputed queen of Christmas...
-- And speaking of the holiday season, here’s just a sample of some of what’s streaming in December...
SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...
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