Good evening. Brian Stelter here at 8:05pm ET on Sunday, Dec. 5 with the latest on CNN's firing of Chris Cuomo and all the fallout. Plus: The Atlantic's new cover, BuzzFeed's big day, and much more...
What now?
The 7pm Eastern hour on Fox News has been home to rotating hosts for nearly an entire year. The 11pm hour on MSNBC will soon need a new host due to Brian Williams' exit. Early next year MSNBC's 9pm hour will also need a new host, since Rachel Maddow is stepping back from her daily duties. And now CNN's 9pm hour is suddenly vacant, as well.
This is a seriously turbulent time for the top players in cable news -- and that's even before factoring in business model pressures and streaming wars. Now, here's the latest on Cuomo...
The day-by-day timeline
Saturday's termination of Chris Cuomo understandably caught many people off guard. On Sunday's "Reliable," I spent six minutes laying out the day-to-day timeline, from Monday's document dump through Saturday's decision. Key details: CNN retained the law firm Cravath to review the Cuomo-related documents. Cravath's findings were submitted on Friday and were sufficient for CNN to fire Cuomo.
During that legal review, Debra Katz, an attorney who specializes in harassment and discrimination cases, contacted CNN on behalf of an anonymous client who alleged "serious sexual misconduct" years ago, back when Cuomo worked at ABC. This complaint was the "additional information" that CNN referenced when it said Cuomo was terminated Saturday night.
"Based on the report we received regarding Chris's conduct with his brother's defense, we had cause to terminate," a CNN spokesperson said. "When new allegations came to us this week, we took them seriously, and saw no reason to delay taking immediate action."
The conclusion from my reporting: This was a case of death-by-a-thousand-cuts. Cuomo was continually causing headaches for management and for CNN writ large. And the headaches were certain to continue...
Any more info on the misconduct allegation?
In short, no, not yet. But reporters at The New York Times and other outlets have pursued tips about Cuomo in the past, and the info about Katz's client was first reported by the NYT late Saturday. Katz did not respond to my requests for comment on Sunday. A spokesperson for Cuomo said, "these apparently anonymous allegations are not true."
Jodi Kantor, who co-bylined the NYT reporting, observed that "this means that both Cuomo brothers have lost their positions in the wake of #metoo accusations..."
Media analysts take stock
On Sunday's "Reliable," I asked Mara Schiavocampo, Sara Fischer, and David Zurawik to offer analysis about CNN's decision and the fallout. The prevailing question, Zurawik said, should be, "Who do you serve?" Television hosts "should be serving the public," he said. "That oftentimes puts you at odds with people in power."
Fischer raised questions about "why CNN delayed taking action." But Schiavocampo said CNN's decision to fire Cuomo may reinforce "the public's trust in the media, because they did make the right call on such a clear-cut case here." Watch part one and part two of the conversation on CNN.com...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- CNN president Jeff Zucker "was taken by surprise by the attorney general’s report, and felt Mr. Cuomo misled him," the WSJ's Ben Mullin and Joe Flint report, citing sources...
-- Cuomo said in a statement that he was disappointed by the outcome but proud of his staff and "the work we did as CNN's #1 show..."
-- The producers and staffers of "Cuomo Prime Time" will remain in place and will work on CNN's 9pm ET hour...
-- As previously announced, Cuomo's regular substitute Michael Smerconish will helm the 9pm hour this week. On TV listings the hour is titled "CNN Tonight..."
-- "The network has no immediate plans for a permanent replacement," the LAT's Stephen Battaglio reported...
Right-wing media hypocrites
Brian Lowry writes: "At the risk of stating the obvious, it's possible to think that Cuomo's firing on conflict-of-interest grounds alone would be justified and still have a hard time swallowing those conservative voices celebrating his exit who are completely unbothered by conflicts involving Fox News stars like Sean Hannity -- see Jane Mayer's 2019 New Yorker piece for greater detail -- who don't share a surname with the beneficiaries of their counsel."
Fox remains silent about Lara Logan
She never appeared on the network over the weekend, but the network won't comment on why. I raised a simple question on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" telecast: What happened to Logan? David Zurawik said the answer involves perverse incentive structures: "She's adopted this playbook that Donald Trump used and now Lauren Boebert and people on the far right use of being super transgressive to get attention to themselves." Watch...
Sunday night's headlines
President Biden is attending the Kennedy Center Honors right now...
"60 Minutes" is airing Reality Winner's first TV interview since her release from prison...
At 9pm ET Elle Reeve is helming a new CNN Special Report, "White Power on Trial: Return to Charlottesville..."
In Friday's letter we ran outdated listings for "Sunday Night Football." Sorry about that! Tonight's broadcast is featuring the Broncos versus the Chiefs...
Monday: BuzzFeed meets Wall Street
Kerry Flynn writes: "Monday will be a day of surprises and Internet celebrities at the Nasdaq and at BuzzFeed offices as the internet brand goes public. When BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti rings the bell he will be surrounded by not only other execs, including Complex CEO Rich Antoniello and HuffPost CEO Danielle Belton, but also things that just scream BuzzFeed. I'm told they'll be something purrfectly BuzzFeed at its NY HQ as well. Ahead of the listing, Peretti spoke to the FT about the deal including the lower than expected raise. 'It doesn't change our strategy. I'm not an expert on Spacs, I just see Spacs as a means to an end for us,' he said…"
Media week ahead calendar
With contributions from Brian Lowry and Donie O'Sullivan:
Monday: "The Forever Prisoner," Alex Gibney's documentary about Abu Zubaydah, premieres on HBO...
Tuesday: New books include Amanda Gorman's new poetry collection "Call Us What We Carry," Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel's "Out of Office," and several political titles...
Wednesday: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri testifies before the Senate about the platform's impacts on kids...
Thursday and Friday: Biden's State Department holds a Summit for Democracy...
Thursday: "And Just Like That…," the "Sex and the City" revival, lands on HBO Max...
Friday: The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov...
Friday: "West Side Story" hits theaters, as do two movies in limited release that will surely draw far more eyeballs via streaming: Amazon's "Being the Ricardos," and Netflix’s star-studded "Don't Look Up..."
Saturday: "SNL" features Billie Eilish as both host and musical guest...
Next Sunday: The "Succession" season finale...
A week full of Trump books
There are four Trump-related book releases on Tuesday. Trump is releasing a photo book called "Our Journey Together," circumventing the publishing houses, but right now it's listed as "currently unavailable" on Amazon, so his project may be running into trouble. There are three more traditional releases: Kayleigh McEnany's "For Such a Time as This," Mark Meadows' "The Chief's Chief," and Dr. Scott Atlas's "A Plague Upon Our House..."
SNEAK PEEK
"January 6 Was Practice"
That's the message scrawled across the new cover of The Atlantic. Barton Gellman's article "about a Republican Party still in thrall to Donald Trump — and better positioned to subvert the next election than it was the last" will anchor a special issue "devoted nearly entirely to American democracy in crisis," the publication says. Other contributors include staff writers Tim Alberta, Anne Applebaum, Vann R. Newkirk II, George Packer, and Kaitlyn Tiffany. The cover story will come out Monday morning, along with Jeffrey Goldberg's editors' note...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- In his closing monologue on "State of the Union," CNN's Jake Tapper "lit up the entertainment industry and other corporate behemoths appeasing China rather than calling out the country's authoritarian conduct on the world stage..." (Mediaite)
-- News from the NYT over the weekend, via WaPo's Jeremy Barr: "Wirecutter editor Erin Marquis is 'suspended' while the newspaper investigates her tweet and an assertion that she left a profane voicemail message to a gun rights group in Michigan..." (Twitter)
-- "Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame..." (NPR)
-- Oliver Darcy shares a clarification pertaining to Friday’s newsletter: "I wrote that the NYT ads aired on Fox for ‘several weeks.’ The ads aired for about two weeks, from 11/20 to 12/1..."
What the White House is reading
WH aides, all the way up to chief of staff Ron Klain, passed around Dana Milbank's WaPo column on Saturday. The title: "The media treats Biden as badly as — or worse than — Trump. Here’s proof." Skeptics of the "proof" abound, but Milbank's argument was embraced by Biden allies, including my "Reliable" guest Eric Boehlert. "If I were in the press," he said, "I would stop and think, 'What are we doing here and is this all accurate?'" Watch...
Trump's incredible self-own
Did you see this over the weekend? Donald Trump released a statement about the Big Lie that was actually true. He said "anybody that doesn't think there wasn't massive Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election is either very stupid, or very corrupt," and if you unpack the double negative, he meant everyone who thinks there was massive fraud in 2020 "is either very stupid, or very corrupt." Political corners of Twitter erupted with laughs. Since Trump was actually accurate, "fact checkers' heads are going to explode," David Zurawik quipped...
Dr. Oz's "rude awakening"
Brian Lowry writes: "Joe Ferullo's latest column for The Hill is about the "contagion" of reality-TV-type stars, mostly Republicans, thinking they can follow Trump into politics. Dr. Oz is the freshest example. The political arena can be full of shocks, and 'Oz already is facing some of that rude awakening,' Ferullo writes. I'd only add that the antecedent to Trump was Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful bid to become governor of California in its 2003 recall election..."
Remembering Bob Dole
The news of Bob Dole's death broke while "Reliable" was on the air Sunday morning. We shelved a commercial break and aired an obituary package from Wolf Blitzer.
Dole's hometown newspaper, the Kansas City Star, was also prepared. Bryan Lowry said "multiple generations of @KCStar reporters worked on this obituary..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- This Reuters special report is about the Gateway Pundit: "Pro-Trump news site targets election workers, inspiring wave of menace..." (Reuters)
-- Peter Wehner dissected Tucker Carlson's validation of Alex Jones and explained why it is "poisonous to a free society." After all, "there was a time when someone like Alex Jones would have been too toxic to embrace..." (The Atlantic)
-- Now let's change the subject to real news: Shimon Prokupecz and his CNN crew landed exclusive video of police arresting James and Jennifer Crumbley early Saturday morning. Prokupecz was awake late at night, listening to a police scanner, when he sensed that something was going down. He and producer Carolyn Sung woke up others and they all scrambled to cover the news, becoming the only network on the scene where the parents were apprehended... (CNN)
Time for "modern thinking" at Condé Nast
Kerry Flynn writes: "What’s next for Condé Nast? Anna Wintour and Roger Lynch spoke with the NYT's Katie Robertson about the company's new global strategy and other initiatives. The company expects to be profitable in 2023. 'We have nothing but great respect for the editors that have worked with us for many years,' Wintour said of the recent exodus. 'Some of them decided to move on and weren't as comfortable with the transition as some of the others, but we — you know, it is time to change the company and to have modern thinking.' Wintour deflected when asked if she planned to leave soon. Keep reading..."
The dark side of "streamer" success
Spotify playing hardball with comedians
Spotify "has removed the work of hundreds of comedians, including John Mulaney, Jim Gaffigan and Kevin Hart, amid a new fight over royalty payments," the WSJ's Anne Steele reports. Entertainers are "trying to get paid a royalty on a copyright for jokes they wrote when they are played on radio and digital service providers like Spotify, SiriusXM, Pandora and YouTube." The effort "is largely led by Spoken Giants," Steele explains, and "Spotify took the content down after reaching an impasse with Spoken Giants..."
Quiet box office weekend
Disney's "Encanto" "led the post-Thanksgiving session at the box office, which is always a quiet weekend following the holiday," THR's Pamela McClintock reports. Sony's "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" "followed closely in second place." On Sunday, she adds, "Sony was also celebrating huge presale numbers for its upcoming 'Spider-Man: Far From Home,' which rolls out in mid-December..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- New from John Blake: "Music critics mock Kenny G's 'safe sax.' But a new documentary will change how you see him..." (CNN)
-- "More deaf creators are getting behind the camera and changing the industry," Scottie Andrew reports... (CNN)
-- Adele sat down with beauty vlogger Nikkie de Jager for a tell-all "Power of Makeup..." (CNN)
"The Straight Man"
Michael Schulman's brand new piece for The New Yorker is a profile of the actor Jeremy Strong, a/k/a Kendall Roy in "Succession." Strong says he takes Kendall "as seriously as I take my own life." Schulman writes that Strong does not find the character funny, "which is probably why he's so funny in the role." Read on...
ICYMI: "Tinderbox" author on the RS podcast
James Andrew Miller, author of the new HBO oral history "Tinderbox," interviewed five decades' worth of network executives, stars and producers. He opened up to me on the latest edition of the RS podcast. Tune in via Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app..."
SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...
Pet of the day!
Michael sent in this photo of Rosie on the left, Blu on the right:
Thank you for reading! Email your feedback anytime. My better half Jamie is having neck surgery on Monday, so Oliver will be running the newsletter while I'm offline...
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