You've made it through the first day of the week! Oliver Darcy here at 10:19pm ET on Monday, Dec. 6, with the latest on Jonah Peretti, Chris Cuomo, Lara Logan, John Stankey, Jussie Smollett, Adele, and more. But first...
Who has the power?
As the senior Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Devin Nunes was next in line to become its chairman should the Republicans take back the House in 2022. Which is to say that Nunes would have ascended to what is widely considered to be the most powerful chairmanship in the House of Representatives.
And all he had to do was stay in Congress.
But Nunes decided to discard the opportunity. Instead, he announced that he had joined Donald Trump's social media venture, Truth Social, as its CEO. Nunes said he was "humbled and honored" to have been entrusted with the job.
The decision by Nunes says a lot about where power in the conservative movement rests – or, at least, where Nunes believes it rests. It's not writing intricate legislation on taxes in Congress. No, Nunes' move signals that he thinks that the power lies in the pro-Trump media.
And Nunes isn't wrong. I've long pointed out that the top personalities in right-wing media — people like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and so many others — have far more influence over the state of the GOP than lawmakers, including powerful figures such as Mitch McConnell.
Lawmakers don't set the narratives inside the GOP as much as they react to their voters acting on those narratives. The people responsible for setting the narratives are the media propagandists that much of the conservative base trusts and turns to for its news and information.
Nunes has indicated for some time that he has understood this, becoming a regular commentator on Fox News over the years. His move to jump ship on Monday shows he is now fully committed down this path...
Red flags
It's also not like Trump's venture is tremendously successful. Yes, Trump says he has secured a $1 billion investment. But Truth Social is still a fledging company that has — in its short time in the public arena — put up some serious red flags.
For one, it has missed its self-imposed deadline to put out a product. When it was first announced, the site was immediately targeted successfully by hackers. And on Monday, it was revealed in public filings that the SPAC taking it public is under investigation by the SEC and FINRA.
In other words, Nunes isn't even exiting Congress for a sure bet on a right-wing platform like Fox News. That makes his move even all the more remarkable...
Big picture
Over at Axios, Sara Fischer and Dan Primack published a must-read story Monday morning about how the right is building its own eco chamber. "Conservatives are aggressively building their own apps, phones, cryptocurrencies and publishing houses in an attempt to circumvent what they see as an increasingly liberal internet and media ecosystem," the duo astutely reported...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Casey Newton: "Devin Nunes, who sued Twitter because someone pretending to be his cow made fun of him there, will now be running some sort of Trump social platform. Excited to read the community guidelines..." (Twitter)
-- Dick Tofel's reference to Nunes' numerous lawsuits against news outlets and writers: "Looking forward to seeing the evolution of Devin Nunes’ views on the laws of libel now that he’s going to presumably be a publisher..." (Twitter)
-- Tim Miller's take: "Growing up every story I was told about politics treated the W&M chairmanship as if it were the height of power and influence. Nunes is taking a pass on it to run Friendster for bigots. Congress’ decline in miniature..." (Twitter)
-- Timothy L. O'Brien: "Who just gave Trump $1 billion? Let's found out..." (Bloomberg)
Chris Cuomo departs SiriusXM show
Fallout from CNN's firing of Chris Cuomo continued on Monday. Cuomo said in a statement posted to Twitter that he will no longer host his daily SiriusXM program. "While I have a thick skin, I also have a family, for whom the past week has been extraordinarily difficult," Cuomo said. "So, right now, I have to take a step back and focus on what comes next. That means I will no longer be doing my SiriusXM radio show..."
"He gave me his word"
WaPo's Jeremy Barr and Sarah Ellison published an in-depth dive into CNN's decision to axe Cuomo, which included comments CNN chief Jeff Zucker made to staff during Monday's company-wide editorial meeting. Zucker told staffers that Cuomo "had been much more deeply involved than we had ever known, and than he’d ever told us." Zucker went on to say that "he gave me his word" about the level of involvement he had advising his brother and "gave repeated, similar assurances" to other execs...
SCOOP:
White House quietly tries to reshape economic coverage
The White House, not happy with the news media's coverage of the supply chain and economy, has been working behind the scenes trying to reshape coverage in its favor. Senior White House and admin officials — including NEC Deputy Directors David Kamin and Bharat Ramamurti, along with Ports Envoy John Porcari — have been briefing major newsrooms over the past week, a source tells me.
The officials have been discussing with newsrooms trends pertaining to job creation, economic growth, supply chains, and more. The basic argument that has been made: That the country's economy is in much better shape than it was last year. I'm told the conversations have been productive, with anchors and reporters and producers getting to talk with the officials...
>> Related: Dana Milbank was on CNN Monday to talk about his column. He told Brianna Keilar that the news media needs to "do soul searching and see what we are delivering to people..."
TUESDAY PLANNER
Joe Biden will speak to Vladimir Putin at 10am via video call in the Situation Room...
The Covid-19 Response Team will brief the press at 12:30pm...
Reporters Without Borders releases a new report titled "The Great Leap Backwards of Journalism in China..."
Amanda Gorman makes the TV rounds to promote her new poetry collection "Call Us What We Carry..."
Remembering Fred Hiatt
The front page of Tuesday's WaPo carries some tragic news: That Fred Hiatt, the paper's longtime editorial page editor, had died at the age of 66. WaPo's obit said Hiatt had cardiac arrest when visiting his daughter on November 24 and that henever regained consciousness. Publisher Fred Ryan described Hiatt as a forty-year veteran of the newspaper who "built friendships throughout the company and made immense contributions as a writer, an editor, and a mentor across the organization." Hiatt leaves behind a wife, three children, and a granddaughter. Read WaPo's full obit here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- In an essay, US Holocaust Memorial Museum director Sara J. Bloomfield calls out Lara Logan, saying the Fox News personality "exploits" the Holocaust "to advance an agenda..." (Medium)
-- Fox Business host Liz Claman also appeared to also call out Logan in a Twitter thread... (Daily Beast)
-- Anthony Fisher explains "how a right-wing 'censorship' culture-war outrage story gets made..." (Insider)
The highs and lows of BuzzFeed's SPAC day
Kerry Flynn writes: "At Nasdaq Monday, Instagram celebrity 'Dude with Sign' stood inside holding his signature cardboard sign. This one read, 'Glad We Didn't Sell To Waystar,' a 'Succession' reference. Though a fictional scenario, it's true that Monday and the coming months are a real test if BuzzFeed made a good decision going public via SPAC and if other media companies should follow. As CEO Jonah Peretti told Bloomberg, 'The big thing digital media needs for consolidation is a strong public company and we wanted to be the first...'"
>> Flynn continues: "The stock jumped by more than 40% but closed down 11%. Of course, it's just day one. Staffers I spoke with Monday said the mood in the NY office was celebratory -- not only due to the listing but from colleagues seeing each other for the first time since 2020 (BuzzFeed doesn't yet have a firm return to the office date). Though in private channels and on Twitter, former staffers expressed frustration and confusion with how to sell their shares. More in my story..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Katherine Miller's newest must-read: "The internet already has your brain. Now it wants the rest of you..." (BuzzFeed)
-- Ayad Akhtar argues that "artificially intelligent advertising technology is poisoning our societies..." (The Atlantic)
-- Cristiano Lima reports that a hate speech lawsuit filed against Facebook by Muslim Advocates has gained a powerful ally: the DC attorney general... (WaPo)
-- "Facebook Gaming wants viewers to hop into the game with their favorite streamers," Taylor Hatmaker writes... (TechCrunch)
-- "Over 2.2 million YouTube videos were hit with copyright claims that were later overturned between January and June of this year, according to a new report published by the company," Mia Sato writes... (The Verge)
Marcus Lamb's death highlights Christian media's vax problem
On Sunday's "Reliable," Brian Stelter interviewed Bob Smietana of Religion News Service about the death of Christian televangelist Marcus Lamb and the dangers of anti-vax rhetoric from Christian media. Smietana's most memorable quote: There's a whole "distrust economy," he said, "where there is a way to attract people both in the political and religious world by feeding on distrust and saying 'they're lying to you, we'll tell you the truth.'"
>> On a related note, Olga Khazan is out with a new piece for The Atlantic about vaccine hesitancy globally, and how "distrust" is the force that seems to drive it...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- It's been one full year: "Haze Fan, a member of Bloomberg News's bureau in Beijing, has been detained since late last year, with no information forthcoming on her case..." (Bloomberg)
-- "Hong Kong has warned the Wall Street Journal that it may have broken electoral law by 'scaremongering' in a recent editorial," Michelle Toh reports... (CNN)
-- "AFP and Google France announced on Monday a fact-checking project to combat false information ahead of the French presidential and legislative elections next year..." (AFP)
-- Reuters and England's Durham U. are establishing the Sir Harry Evans Memorial Fund with "two complementary programs: a fellowship in investigative journalism and an annual, agenda-setting forum..." (Globe & Mail)
-- States Newsroom, a network of nonprofit news outlets, will "double its presence, from its current 25 states to about 40 over the next two and a half years," Elahe Izadi reports... (WaPo)
-- Marc Caputo announced that after seven years at Politico, he will join NBC News... (Twitter)
-- WSJ reporter Alexandra Bruell is now covering publishing, specifically news and magazine companies, after more than a decade on the advertising beat... (Twitter)
Stankey defends Discovery-WarnerMedia deal
AT&T CEO John Stankey is defending the deal between WarnerMedia (CNN's parent) and Discovery after 33 Democratic members of Congress wrote AG Merrick Garland on Saturday to "express serious" antitrust concerns over the transaction. Stankey said at the UBS Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on Monday that he believed what had "been articulated in those letters" to be "really unfounded." Stankey also noted that "having been through a number" of such deals in his career, getting "letters from members of Congress is not unusual." THR's Etan Vlessing and Georg Szalai have more here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Speaking of the UBS conference: "Verizon is happy with the customer response to content partnerships with the likes of Disney+, Discovery+ and Apple Music that it has offered certain subscribers for free for certain periods of time, its CEO said," Georg Szalai reports... (THR)
-- "Google TV is adding yet another cord-cutting option to its live TV tab," Catie Keck reports. This time it's Pluto TV... (The Verge)
-- "Disney has decided kill off the 'FX on Hulu' name less than two years after it launched," Todd Spangler reports. The "FX" brand will remain prominent... (Variety)
-- Disney "plans to name Geoff Morrell to the newly created role of chief corporate affairs officer," Kim Masters and Alex Weprin scoop... (THR)
Smollett takes the stand
Omar Jimenez and Eric Levinson write: "Former 'Empire' actor Jussie Smollett took the stand in his ongoing criminal trial Monday. Last week, brothers 'Bola' and 'Ola' Osundairo testified that Smollett, who is Black and gay, directed and paid them to carry out a sham anti-gay and racist attack in order to garner sympathetic media coverage. But under oath Monday, Smollett offered testimony for about five hours that suggested the brothers -- whom he knew from the 'Empire' set -- may have had other motivations at play. He said Bola Osundairo, who he called 'Bon,' helped him get drugs, including cocaine. He also said a sexual relationship began to forge between the two at a particular Chicago bath house. More in our story here..."
HBO's one-two punch
Brian Lowry writes: "HBO's twin premieres Monday include 'Landscapers,' a British miniseries based on the true story of the Mansfield murders, starring Olivia Colman and David Thewlis. It looks like a can’t-miss combination, but thanks to its more over-the-top elements, somehow does. The network fares better with 'The Forever Prisoner,' Alex Gibney’s latest documentary, which looks at the case of Abu Zubaydah and the enhanced interrogation techniques used against him, prompting the director to ask if the war against terrorism prompted the US 'to abandon the principles of democracy that we claim to live by....'"
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
-- "Netflix is launching an 11-day stand-up comedy mega-festival in Los Angeles featuring 130 comics – including Dave Chappelle, whose recent special 'The Closer' was hugely controversial for the streamer," James Hibberd writes... (THR)
-- "Alec Baldwin has deleted his main Twitter account just days after his first sit-down interview about the 'Rust' tragedy," Max Goldbart writes... (Deadline)
-- "Destin Daniel Cretton has inked a new overall deal with Marvel Studios and Hulu's Onyx Collective, and part of that deal is developing not only a theatrical sequel to 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,' but also a Disney+ series," Russ Burlingame writes... (ComicBookMovies)
-- "Adele is No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart this week for a second time, with '30' holding off competition from Christmas collections and recent hits by Taylor Swift and Drake," Ben Sisario writes... (NYT)
WGA's best screenplays of the 21st century are...
Brian Lowry writes: "Jordan Peele’s 'Get Out' has topped the list of the 101 best screenplays of the 21st century, as voted on by Writers Guild of America members. 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,' 'The Social Network,' 'Parasite,' and 'No Country for Old Men' round out the top five. See the full list here..."
SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...
Pet of the day!
Reader Lisa Finkel emails: "This is Sonny Boy. He fits on the cat scale between 'soft and cuddly' and 'destructo-monster...'"
Thank you for reading! Email your feedback anytime. I'll see you back here tomorrow...
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