Good morning! This edition is all about giving thanks – starting by thanking you for reading. We'll be off for Thanksgiving and back in your inbox on Monday. Here's the latest on Fox News, USA Today, The Sunday Long Read, James Carville, "Moana 2," and more... |
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images |
The Reliable Sources team brainstormed what we're thankful for, and soon we had a special edition full of fantastic links and recommendations. Starting with... |
Thanksgiving TV specials! |
This Thursday is one of the best days of the year on good old-fashioned broadcast TV: parades, dog shows, football games, "Friends" repeats.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC is "America's great unifying event," New York Times reporter John Koblin declares in a fantastic new story this morning. It has been "the most-watched entertainment program in the United States for the past three years, ahead of the Oscars and the World Series." As NBC exec VP Jen Neal says, "it totally defies gravity." That's why, as the WSJ's Joe Flint reported earlier this week, NBC is "ready to pay triple" to retain Macy's broadcasting rights. In a splintering world, unifying events are more valuable than ever.
This year, CNN is getting in on the action and producing a four-hour Thanksgiving morning spectacular, "Thanksgiving in America," from 8 a.m. until noon ET. John Berman and Erica Hill will talk with celeb guests and take viewers to parades in NYC, Philly, Chicago, Houston, and Detroit.
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In praise of primary sources |
Podcasters, TikTok stars and other "influencers" are getting all the attention right now. "This parallel media universe now stands poised to challenge the left-of-center establishment in Washington, D.C., and influence the policies of Trump’s second term," the pro-Trump site The Daily Signal says. But that site is a perfect example of the point I want to make: Its home page is full of aggregation and opinion, not original reporting. Most of the content creators who are disrupting media are secondary sources, talking about and riffing on and remixing what primary sources have gathered elsewhere.
So let's hear it for the primary sources! Let's sing the praises of journalism's often-unsung heroes – those who work holiday shifts and produce packages about airport gridlock and wake up before dawn for live shots and catch the typos in the home page headlines. While secondary sources affirm and entertain and enrage audiences, primary sources are what we should be thankful for. This next story is a prime example...
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Last Friday, a woman called the sheriff's office in Lassen County, California, and said she needed help. Her brother had gone missing in 1999 and a friend had sent her a USA Today article titled, "He's been in an LA hospital for weeks and they have no idea who he is. Can you help?" The article contained a photo of her missing brother.
The sheriff's office got to work and coordinated with authorities in Los Angeles to confirm the man's identity. Now, the man "is set to be reunited with his sister," USA Today reports, all thanks to a six-month-old online article summarizing a hospital's press release...
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Hadas Gold: "I'm thankful for media organizations that make it possible to listen to their articles either via AI or voice actors; the Libby library app, which gives you access to ebooks and audiobook catalogues at multiple libraries; and people who create follower lists on social media platforms."
Liam Reilly: "I'm thankful for Otter.ai; enough RAM to handle an ungodly number of tabs; pant pockets that can fit two phones; overly ambitious book clubs; a healthy number of free articles; patient editors; and long-form journalism."
Jon Passantino: "It's been a perilous year for the press. I'm grateful for those risking their lives to deliver the facts and standing up to powerful forces with the truth. We need it more than ever. And, of course, I'm thankful for the hardworking Reliable team who put this newsletter together every day."
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Thankful for end-of-year lists |
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I am unabashedly thankful for all of these shows:
"Human vs. Hamster" – Reality Blurred says this new reality competition show on Max is a "seriously silly throwback to '80s and '90s game shows." My kids love to root for the hamsters.
"A Man on the Inside" – Don't just take it from me, Ted Danson's sitcom on Netflix has a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
"The Franchise" – I finished streaming this send-up of superhero moviemaking last night and would have happily watched another eight episodes.
"Say Nothing" – The limited-series epidemic "feels like the biggest TV story of 2024. There are so many, and so many of them are so bad," the Post's Lili Loofbourow writes. But she says FX's new miniseries has avoided that trap. Agreed!
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More to give thanks for... |
>> Black Friday news sales: This week is a great time to subscribe to news sites at reduced rates. Brands like Bloomberg, The Economist, NYMag, and the Washington Post are running Cyber Week and Black Friday (which is really also a week) sales. And for print magazines, I always love DiscountMags.
>> Good-faith critiques: If journalists "want to figure out the election results, they can't conclude that every media criticism is a lie," Tim Graham of the Media Research Center writes in this new column. "They have to engage with critiques and stop thinking they are the most heroic and crucial actors in politics, that democracy dies when people unsubscribe. They need to talk less, and listen more."
>> The Sunday Long Read: This month, The Sunday Long Read — a reliable source for the very best longform journalism — is celebrating its 10th anniversary of weekly curation. "Right now, you have to be extraordinarily intentional and disciplined to make time for reading," cofounders Don Van Natta Jr. and Jacob Feldman recently observed. Places like The Sunday Long Read help a lot.
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>> A truly lovely story: In Vermont, the alt-weekly Seven Days is "one of the last bastions of newspaper personal ads," full of "quirky" and "very Vermont" messages from readers looking for love, Adrienne Raphel writes. (NYT)
>> "Sunset in Baltimore:" Marc Fisher explains what's happening to the Baltimore Sun now that conservative TV mogul David D. Smith owns the paper. (Nieman Reports)
>> Meghnad Bose chronicles the incredible secret life of "the anonymous woman journalist reporting inside Taliban-run Afghanistan..." (CJR)
>> Matteo Wong says the DOJ's proposed remedies for Google, like selling off Chrome, "may in fact do more to shape the future of AI..." (The Atlantic)
>> Podcasting is "not really an audio medium anymore." John Herrman describes "how YouTube ate podcasting" and what it portends... (NYMag)
>> McKay Coppins writes about the "hollowness" at the center of "Heretic," a horror movie "about an athiest who won't shut up..." (The Atlantic)
>> Josh Rottenberg goes "inside the high-stakes battle for L.A.'s screening rooms during awards season..." (LA Times)
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"Trump's selection of so many Fox alumni for his administration is in part a reflection of his instinct that politics is really a form of entertainment," The Atlantic's David Graham writes in a new piece titled "The Fox News Rebound." The costly lies of 2020 have faded from memory. Fox is back to stocking the cabinet and celebrating the incoming president. Meanwhile, November was one of the network's "most-watched months in network history," Fox's Brian Flood notes.
>> Trump's pick for surgeon general, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, "called for banning social media for teens" during a Fox segment earlier this year, Cristiano Lima-Strong reports.
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Liam Reilly writes: A majority of social media influencers don't verify information before sharing it with their audiences, a study published yesterday by the UN’s scientific and cultural arm found, underscoring concerns that some of the biggest online figures can uncritically spread misleading claims. Read all about it here...
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>> "CNN's Kaitlan Collins, already busy anchoring the network's news-heavy 9 p.m. show, will take on another high-pressure role as chief White House correspondent, the network confirmed Tuesday." Jeremy Barr writes that she will be "CNN's first prime-time anchor to also serve as its top WH reporter." (Post)
>> "Tony Bobulinski's $30 million defamation suit against Fox News host Jessica Tarlov was dismissed on Tuesday by a NY judge, who also ordered Bobulinski to pay Tarlov's legal fees in a first-of-its-kind decision," Alex Griffing writes. (Mediaite)
>> "Prince Harry and other high-profile British figures' privacy lawsuits against the Daily Mail newspaper's publisher will go to trial in early 2026, London's High Court heard on Tuesday," Sam Tobin reports. (Reuters)
>> "Kari Lake is in 'active negotiations' to join Newsmax after losing her bid for the Senate in Arizona," Diana Falzone scoops. (Mediaite)
>> "James Carville is commissioning pollsters to do a deep dive on how people get their news, in hopes that Dems will overhaul how they communicate with voters, particularly working class ones," Greg Sargent writes. (TNR)
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Haaretz editor pushes back |
Days after Israel’s cabinet unanimously voted to sanction the nation’s oldest newspaper, Haaretz, citing its critical coverage of the war, Aluf Benn, the publication's editor-in-chief, is speaking out on the chilling decision.
"We will prevail over the recent Netanyahu assault, just as we prevailed over his predecessors’ anger and shunning," Benn wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian. "Haaretz will stand by its mission to report critically on the war and its dire consequences for all sides. The truth is sometimes hard to protect, but it should never be the casualty of war."
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X steps in on Infowars sale |
What is X doing, objecting to the sale of Alex Jones' accounts? It's interesting that "X has decided to involve itself at all," 404 Media's Jason Koebler writes, "and it highlights that you do not own your followers or your account or anything at all on corporate social media." Koebler argues that "Elon Musk’s X is primarily a political project he is using to boost, or stifle, specific viewpoints and help his friends." More here...
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>> In its first week on Bluesky, The Guardian is already seeing more traffic from its nascent account than any previous week this year on X, said Dave Earley, The Guardian's Australia audience editor. (Bluesky)
>> "OpenAI suspended access to its unreleased but highly anticipated video generation tool Sora on Tuesday after a small group of artists leaked access to the tool in protest of the company's treatment of creative professionals who test the tool with minimal compensation..." (Wash Post)
>> "A new analysis estimates that over half of longer English-language posts on LinkedIn are AI-generated..." (WIRED)
>> Spotify has introduced "a new set of tools for authors and publishers distributing their audiobooks on its platform..." (TechCrunch)
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Holiday box office preview |
As we mentioned up top yesterday, this week's "combined output" of "Moana 2," "Wicked" and "Gladiator II" should deliver "one of the biggest Thanksgiving weekends in box office history," TheWrap's Jeremy Fuster reports. So far, "Moana 2" has a 69% Tomatometer score, compared with the original’s 95% score, but I think we all know that won't matter in this case...
>> Shawn Robbins of Box Office Theory is projecting a big holiday opening weekend for "Moana 2" of $155-190 million, which would place it "among the best-ever 5-day takes for an animated film."
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>> "Wicked" fans "can't stop filming scenes on their phones" and posting to social media, Matt Donnelly writes, calling it "a form of piracy that Hollywood doesn't seem to mind." (Variety)
>> The movie's "merchandising juggernaut" has eclipsed "Barbie," Esther Zuckerman writes. "This is capitalism at its finest, and there will be more to come when Part 2 of the saga debuts next year." (NYT)
>> A New Mexico special prosecutor has appealed the dismissal of Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter case, Dominic Patten reports. (Deadline)
>> “Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, is speaking out in defense of his Prime Video reality show after ‘Beast Games’ was accused of unsafe working conditions and enabling sexual harassment,” Kayla Cobb reports. (TheWrap)
>> This week's Variety cover story is about "FX's rebound," which "started just when its parent company, Disney, needed some good news," Cynthia Littleton writes. (Variety)
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