Happy Tuesday! Here's the latest on Alex Jones, Chris Wallace, Shailesh Prakash, and the NYT, plus today's new nonfiction releases and a terrific new tech podcast... |
Leonardo Munoz/AFP/Getty Images |
Election post-mortems should zoom out – way out – to the reality that web browsers, social networks and smart phones have introduced an almost infinite amount of competition for peoples' attention. Longtime reporter Tom LoBianco calls it "the cellphone election" – "this was the first election where cellphones" and Big Tech platforms like YouTube and TikTok "evolved into the dominant force, sidelining the former mainstream media," he wrote, appropriately enough, on his own Substack.
The 50-state The Civic Health and Institutions Project, a joint project of several universities, has some new and very relevant data about election info sources. The survey of 25,000+ adults found that "friends and family," not "news media," was the most-cited source.
As Harvard's Shorenstein Center director Nancy Gibbs told me, "We've now read 10,000 post-mortems about the rise of non-corporate, decentralized, individualized media (I think of it as MYdia). But media by definition is a filter; it mediates. And for many voters, especially young ones, IT TOO WAS MEDIATED." Meaning that information about Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and other candidates trickled down, from primary sources to podcasters to parents and friends.
Gibbs said the report shows that "higher income and higher education voters still relied on news media; but younger, less engaged, less educated were getting their information from each other." A couple other key findings:
>> Only about a third of Americans say info from the news media was "very important" to their voting decisions.
>> "Democrats and Independents are more likely to rely on news media," whereas "Republicans more often get information from friends and family." More here...
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A return to 'folk-story society' |
Los Angeles Times alum Matt Pearce is out with a thought-provoking post about "journalism's fight for survival in a postliterate democracy." He says changes across the industry have made it cheaper to produce and profit off "bullshit" while it remains expensive to gather, and really hard to monetize, real news.
"The result of all of this is a growing consumer alienation from the actual sources of information, a return to a kind of folk-story society ripe for manipulation by demagogues who promise simplicity in an increasingly complex world," Pearce writes. "The way we talk about the media and political coverage — as a matter of editors and producers picking stories and headlines — is stuck in the 20th century. It’s comfortable and familiar to complain about the billion-dollar media companies that often annoy us but not the trillion-dollar platforms deciding what information hundreds of millions of Americans see." Read on...
>> Further reading: "The old media grapples with its new limits" by Semafor's Max Tani and David Weigel
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The Fox-to-Trump pipeline |
As Trump's government picks emerge, "each selection or anticipated pick so far has one thing in common: Ultra-loyalty to Trump," CNN's Stephen Collinson wrote overnight. Each person "is known for paying the kind of exaggerated homage in television interviews that the president-elect adores." Those interviews were most often on Fox. Trump is poised to re-make the "Fox News White House," as I wrote for CNN yesterday. During Trump's first term in office, there were 20 known cases of Fox-to-Trump moves...
>> What did former Rep. Lee Zeldin do right after accepting a role in Trump's cabinet as EPA administrator? He appeared on Fox's "The Story with Martha MacCallum."
>> Related: In this Business Insider piece, Peter Kafka ponders whether the new Trump presidency will be defined by X or cable TV. My answer: Both! Because the two are inextricably linked.
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Alex Jones preps for Infowars shut down |
Hadas Gold writes: Alex Jones has already begun setting up a future online outlet as Infowars faces the auction block. Secret bids for his conspiracy theory empire closed on Friday, and tomorrow a trustee will start the process of auctioning it off to help pay the families of Sandy Hook victims, who Jones owes more than $1 billion. Anyone could make an offer, and as Jones noted again on Monday, his supposed allies have lined up to do so. According to my sources, a mix of big-name bidders seen as Jones' allies as well as those on the other end of the spectrum have placed offers. "I saw the auctioneers inside the building, going around surveying from the last time they were here to make sure all the stuff's here," Jones said. "They're in the control room right now... Now good guys say they're gonna buy it. If good guys buy it, Infowars will continue."
>> And if a different bidder prevails? Jones said he'll move over to a new social media account called AJNLive. He implored his fans to keep buying his products to help fund his next iteration...
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>> "Sexist and abusive attacks on women, like 'your body, my choice' and 'get back to the kitchen,' have surged across social media" since Trump’s reelection, Clare Duffy reports, citing a new analysis. (CNN)
>> Last night, Jon Stewart skewered pundits who argued Democrats lost last week because they had gone "too woke" since, as Stewart put it, "I just didn't recall seeing any Democrats running on woke shit." (Daily Beast)
>> "Liberals shouldn't be thinking about 'building their own Joe Rogan,'"
Nicholas Quah writes. Instead "they should be effectively engaging with the Rogans and the growing class of alternatives that already exist." (Vulture)
>> One week ago: "At the start of Election Night, even executives at Fox News Channel didn't think Donald Trump had a decisive edge" over VP Harris. Brian Steinberg interviewed decision desk boss Arnon Mishkin about what happened next... (Variety)
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NYT tech workers end strike |
Unionized tech employees at The New York Times are going back to work today – without a new contract. "The union and the NYT will continue negotiating on a contract," The Verge's Emma Roth reported. So what did the weeklong, election-timed strike achieve, exactly?
Some Times journalists are furious about how the tech staff guild (part of the wider NewsGuild) handled this. National correspondent Jeremy W. Peters told me: "The NewsGuild owes us, its dues paying members, an explanation for why they miscalculated so badly here. Unfortunately, when journalists need robust, effective labor representation more than ever, our union leaders seem more interested in unpopular, self-indulgent stunts than in thinking about the obvious ways a strike like this would diminish the bargaining power of the workers they represent. What was this all for?"
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Chris Wallace leaving CNN |
"This is the first time in 55 years I've been between jobs. I am actually excited and liberated by that," Chris Wallace says. Yesterday, the 77-year-old told The Daily Beast that he is leaving CNN at the end of his contract later this year. CNN chief executive Mark Thompson confirmed Wallace’s departure and thanked him "for the dedication and wisdom he's brought to all his work at CNN." Wallace told Hugh Dougherty he wants to explore new platforms like streaming or podcasting...
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Today's new nonfiction releases |
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Learn the 'Terms of Service' |
CNN tech writer Clare Duffy is launching a new podcast, "Terms of Service," today. "Consuming the constant flood of tech news, like covering it, can be equal parts exciting and scary," she says. "I hope Terms of Service can help break through some of that overwhelm and help listeners understand where emerging technologies are showing up in their lives right now and how to navigate the changes they bring. I want to help people learn how to experiment with these tools — without getting played by them." Check out the first two episodes...
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Watch 'The American Question' |
Yesterday, I mentioned "Art of the Surge," the pro-Trump docuseries that has seen a surge of interest in recent days. Here's another documentary that soared up the Apple charts when it was released last week: "The American Question." The film explores America's fragmented national identity through interviews with voters in swing states. "We explored over 8 years how this trust deficit in America occurred, over time, discovering what was happening on the ground over that period of time, and what we can do to make it better," director James Kicklighter told me.
>> More: Kicklighter and the film's narrator Guy Tal Seemann talked with Politico about what they learned on the road...
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>> "What is John Malone up to? One of the long-running parlor games on Wall Street and in Hollywood is afoot again amid the media mogul's noticeable portfolio-changing moves,"
Georg Szalai writes. With Trump returning to office, Malone "may take advantage of a more favorable M&A environment to settle unfinished business." (THR)
>> Google News exec Shailesh Prakash has resigned "amid an ongoing rift between Google and news outlets over how the search engine drives traffic and uses their content," Alexandra Bruell reports. (WSJ)
>> A notable line in IAC CEO Joey Levin's internal memo about the company's quarterly earnings: "Even little Daily Beast had a great quarter, growing revenue over 80% and, for the first quarter ever, profitable!"
>> Sarah Krouse writes about a new type of streaming customer, "the subscription pauser..." (WSJ)
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A video startup for 'dynamos' |
Nicholas Carlson, the former top editor of Business Insider, is launching a media venture called Dynamo and "betting big on the growing popularity of video on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and LinkedIn." As the NYT's Ben Mullin reports here, Carlson's company "will produce 'cinematic' video stories for those platforms... focusing on business journalism for a core group of strivers that he calls 'dynamos.'" Here's the plan...
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Challenges for 'creator-driven content' |
"As Gen Alpha comes of age in an entirely online environment, traditional media is facing new challenges when it comes to the algorithm-driven YouTube, which delivers much-lower revenues than linear cable has," TheWrap's Kayla Cobb and Adam Chitwood write in their latest report on kids TV. The takeaway: "While creator-driven content booms for this age group, those creators are also struggling to find an audience on such a wide platform — and to make money from it.”
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>> The White Stripes have dropped a copyright lawsuit accusing Trump "of using ‘Seven Nation Army’ in a social media post without a license," Bill Donahue reports. (Billboard)
>> AMC Theaters has unveiled its so-called Go Plan, which will see the cinema chain "invest between $1 billion and $1.5 billion over the next four to seven years" to upgrade theaters... (Boxoffice Pro)
>> Paramount Pictures has dropped the teaser trailer for "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning." (YouTube)
>> “Mark Rylance is at the top of the casting wishlist for the new HBO 'Harry Potter' adaptation,” K.J. Yossman and Joe Otterson report. (Variety)
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