Happy Monday! Here's the latest on "Morning Joe," Karoline Leavitt, Infowars, Beyoncé, Barnes & Noble, Bluesky, and something called "Glicked..." |
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Past chairs of the FCC, both Republicans and Democrats, have emphasized broadband internet deployment and wireless spectrum policy. But president-elect Donald Trump's pick for chairman, Brendan Carr, didn't mention those issues after he thanked Trump for the promotion on Sunday night. Instead, he took aim at Big Tech companies for "censorship;" promised to hold broadcast TV and radio stations accountable; and pledged to end the FCC's promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Carr was very clearly channeling the president-elect and signaling that it won't be business-as-usual at America's communications regulatory agency. "We must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans," Carr wrote on X.
Elon Musk immediately replied and praised him. Here's my full story...
>> Carr and Musk have a close relationship. As chairman, Carr may be able to steer generous federal subsidies to Musk's Starlink. When Politico published a story titled "the DC bureaucrat who could deliver billions to Elon Musk" last month, Carr told the outlet that he would be an even-handed regulator...
>> Carr wrote the chapter on the FCC in the conservative blueprint Project 2025...
>> "If tradition holds," current chair Jessica Rosenworcel will step down in January, "but that will leave the FCC with four voting commissioners, two Republicans and two Democrats," Ted Hearn notes. "That means Carr will need to await confirmation of a third Republican before he can drive his agenda forward..."
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Carr advanced his "censorship cartel" argument in a letter to the CEOs of Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple last week. He predicted that Trump and Congress would "take broad ranging actions to restore" Americans' First Amendment rights, "and those actions can include both a review of your companies' activities as well as third-party organizations and groups that have acted to curtail those rights." The letter singled out NewsGuard, a startup that rates the reliability of news websites. NewsGuard responded by calling Carr ill-informed: "Every statement in the letter about NewsGuard is false, citing unreliable sources."
>> These battles are sure to continue once Carr becomes chair, but they may be more in words than deeds. The FCC does not have any meaningful oversight of tech platforms like Google. Will Republicans in Congress pass legislation to change that?
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The Associated Press will eliminate positions across the organization and offer some staffers voluntary buyouts. Daisy Veerasingham, the news agency's president, said in an internal memo this morning that "these changes make up about 8% of our workforce, with less than half impacting the news division." The AP is "making some difficult changes so we can invest more fully in our future," she added...
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Joe and Mika's journey to Mar-a-Lago |
I bet some "Morning Joe" viewers spit out their coffee when they heard this:
"Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with president-elect Trump" on Friday, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski revealed at the top of Monday's show. In a seemingly scripted back-and-forth, Joe Scarborough said "we didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so." But "what we did agree on – was to restart communications," Brzezinski said, before suggesting that their behavior should be a model for others.
There's a whole lot of history here – including Trump's promotion of a debunked claim implying Scarborough was a murderer and years of anti-Trump "Morning Joe" episodes. "Don't be mistaken. We are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump," he said this morning. "We are here to report on him." I'm very curious to see if the show's ratings take a hit in the coming days...
>> "Fox & Friends" celebrated the news and said it's a sign that Trump might really be uniting the country, per Mediaite...
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Trump picks his press staff |
Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for Trump's campaign, will segue to White House press secretary in January, the president-elect announced Friday. Leavitt is a logical pick, "having worked as an assistant press secretary during Trump's first term," CNN's story noted. She is also a natural at the "fake news" mode of media combat. Trump "was pleased with her performance" in interviews this year "and looked to her as a trusted voice to defend him on television," the NYT's Michael Gold reported.
>> At age 27, she "would be the youngest White House press secretary in history," the AP's story observed. "Previously that distinction went to Ronald Ziegler, who was 29 when he took the position in 1969 in Richard Nixon's administration."
>> Steven Cheung will be White House comms director.
>> Big unknowns: Will the incoming Trump admin hold regular press briefings and what might change about the briefing room dynamic?
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Leavitt posted a rousing defense of Trump's embattled pick for Defense Secretary last night. In a post that doubled as a condemnation of "60 Minutes," Leavitt said Americans "want drastic change" so that's why Trump is "choosing change-makers like Hegseth to join him in the Swamp."
Over the weekend, The Washington Post broke the news that Hegseth paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017. Hegseth's attorney said the Fox News host felt that he was the victim of blackmail. When CNN "spoke briefly with the alleged victim on Thursday," she became "visibly distraught at the mention of Hegseth’s name but declined to be interviewed without first contacting her attorney. She said she did not know what she was authorized to say..."
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On Friday, the WSJ reported that Trump was "considering tapping Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow for a senior economic policy role." Within hours, though, the story was updated to say that Kudlow doesn't want to return to government, and a Fox News rep said Kudlow – who "recently signed a new deal" – "has no plans to leave his current role helming one of the highest rated shows on the network."
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Selzer steps back from Iowa Poll |
This year's Des Moines Register Iowa Poll was J. Ann Selzer's last, Liam Reilly writes, though the pollster will continue her work on other projects. "Over a year ago I advised the Register I would not renew when my 2024 contract expired... l as I transition to other ventures and opportunities," Selzer wrote Sunday. Her pre-election poll showed Kamala Harris ahead in Iowa, and Trump went on to win the state by 13 points, leading Trump to claim that "she knew exactly what she was doing" and should be investigated...
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The war for Infowars continues |
Hadas Gold reports: A judge will hear Alex Jones' challenge to the auction of his conspiracy theory platform Infowars, which was sold to satirical news outlet The Onion last week. It is unclear when the hearing will take place. Jones' attorneys argued in front of Judge Chris Lopez that the auction process was not conducted in a fair or transparent manner.
No matter who won the bidding, the judge in the case would have had to bless the sale overseen by a court appointed trustee – but Lopez did express some skepticism about how the process unfolded. What's more: Elon Musk's X is getting involved. Lawyers for the company submitted a request for notice, meaning they want to be notified of any and all activity related to the case.
On X, Ben Collins, the Onion chief executive, said that he hasn't heard of changes to the sale, other than claims from Jones' team: "We expected all of this, obviously. Buying this site was always going to be fun later on, but annoying right away..."
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>> David Hoffmann, "a Florida billionaire with a fondness for local news," is "looking to build a newspaper giant by potentially scooping up publishers Lee Enterprises and DallasNews," Colin Kellaher reports. (WSJ)
>> CNN alum Andrew Morse, the publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "has splashy plans to revive the ailing newspaper," and a $150 million runway, David Folkenflik writes. (NPR)
>> Some of Google's recent algorithm changes "have been so disruptive" that the company invited some small publishers to its HQ last month "to hear their complaints," Catherine Perloff and Kaya Yurieff report. However, "the message seemed to be: there is no going back..." (The Information)
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WBD and NBA settle legal battle |
Warner Bros. Discovery is settling its lawsuit against the National Basketball Association over broadcast rights, Liam Reilly reports here. Under the settlement's terms, the 2024-25 NBA season will be the last to air on the TNT cable network — though the league will permit WBD to use its content to create a variety of programs for the next decade.
The media conglomerate, CNN's parent, also plans to announce a multi-year deal with Disney to exclusively license its beloved TNT Sports show, "Inside the NBA," starting next season. Production of the show will remain at WBD and the show's hosts — Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal — will remain intact, but Disney's ESPN and ABC will distribute the program. More...
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Netflix's buffering fight |
The streaming giant alluded to Friday night's widespread technical difficulties when it announced that a record "60 million households" tuned in for the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight. "The boxing mega-event dominated social media, shattered records, and even had our buffering systems on the ropes," Netflix quipped in an X post.
"Of course, more people tuning in also means more people dissatisfied with the experience," Mike Florio remarked. Others noted that Netflix is relying on its own internal data, not an external source like Nielsen, to make the 60 million claim. No matter what, the boxing match was one of the most-streamed live events in history...
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For Netflix's next trick... |
"Are you ready? Beyoncé is coming home for Christmas," CNN's Isaac Yee writes. "The singer will perform during the halftime show of the Houston Texans-Baltimore Ravens NFL game on Christmas Day in her hometown of Houston, Netflix announced on Sunday." |
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>> The post-election exodus from X to Bluesky is real, though very hard to measure, as CNN anchor Michael Holmes and I discussed over the weekend. (CNN)
>> Philanthropist John Arnold's concern: "Each side has its own newspapers. Each has its own TV and radio stations. Now there are different social media sites. This might be inevitable but it isn’t healthy." (X)
>> "No one knows what will happen to X, with predictions ranging from collapse, to flipping to an anti-Trump platform if Musk and the president lock horns, to becoming a training ground for Musk’s xAI venture," Siân Boyle reports... (Guardian/Observer)
>> Mike Isaac sheds light on how Bluesky's "20 full-time employees have been working around the clock to deal with the issues that come with hyper-growth..." (NYT)
>> "TikTok parent ByteDance is valuing itself at about $300 billion, one of its highest valuations ever, even as the Chinese tech giant’s popular TikTok app faces the prospect of a looming ban in the U.S.," Juliet Chung and Raffaele Huang report. (WSJ)
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>> "Red One," Amazon MGM's action-comedy starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, "sold $34.1 million in tickets in its first weekend in theaters," Lindsey Bahr writes. (AP)
>> Incredibly, "Red One" was "the first major studio holiday release since 2018," and it'll be streaming on Prime Video soon...
>> Internationally, Paramount and Ridley Scott's "Gladiator II" has debuted to an estimated $87 million," Nancy Tartaglione reports. (Deadline)
>> Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, Paramount will debut a final 60-second "Gladiator" trailer "on more than 4,000 television networks, digital platforms, local stations, Spanish-language outlets and radio stations simultaneously," Brooks Barnes reports... (NYT)
>> That Paramount stunt reminded me of this great WSJ story from over the weekend about Universal's marketing blitz for "Wicked." Getting audiences to the theater "in droves requires sucking up more pop-culture oxygen than ever," Erich Schwartzel writes... (WSJ)
>> With "Wicked" and "Gladiator" both opening in the U.S. this weekend, the "Glicked" pairing has been born... (BuzzFeed)
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SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST... |
The Barnes & Noble renaissance |
I love this story by CNN's Erika Tulfo about Barnes & Noble making a comeback with a "books first," individualized approach. The bookseller has more than 60 new locations opening this year. Tulfo interviewed CEO James Daunt and head of books Shannon DeVito about what's working and why...
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