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Tuesday, December 16, 2025 |
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Good morning. Here's the latest on Vanity Fair's surprising interview with Susie Wiles, Howard Stern's new deal with SiriusXM, the BBC's charter review, and much more. But first... |
Scrutinizing Trump's BBC lawsuit |
Up until this year, it was unheard of for a sitting American president to sue a news outlet.
In just a few months, President Trump has managed to make it seem normal.
Trump has sued The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and now the BBC, each time filing suit in Florida and each time alleging defamation.
The pattern is evident: Trump immediately wins headlines for waging a legal battle, making him look like he's taking bold action to combat big bad media, and leaving some of his fans rooting for a multibillion-dollar judgment that will cripple an adversarial newsroom.
Then legal experts review the complaint and poke lots of holes in it.
I asked several media lawyers and law professors to check out the BBC suit overnight, and they're all skeptical about Trump's chances, in part because it's very hard to argue that he was genuinely hurt by poor editing of a pre-election film that didn't air or stream in the US.
Dylan McLemore, who studies media law and teaches at the University of Oklahoma, said, "The decision to file in Florida goes back to the question at the heart of all of the president's defamation suits against media companies — is he filing them to win in court or to create headlines and chill critical speech from the press?"
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Bad editing, but not actual malice |
"The headline on the legal analysis in all of these suits has to be how extraordinarily protective the First Amendment is of news outlets in libel cases involving public figures," University of Utah professor RonNell Andersen Jones told me overnight.
"Many have noted that this editing fell short of excellent journalism — indeed, the BBC itself has conceded this, and the Trump complaint emphasizes the internal and external critiques the BBC has faced. These are bad facts," she said.
But the BBC's admission and apology don't matter in a defamation case: "Trump must show knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth," she said. And "the bar to prove actual malice in news editing is remarkably high," McLemore added.
Both professors predicted a legal fight over Trump's decision to file suit in Florida. The complaint suggests (but can't prove) that some Floridians watched the BBC film using a VPN. "Whether and how actual Floridians were impacted by this documentary is going to be a real centerpiece of the action," Andersen Jones said.
Trump has a predilection for filing lawsuits with wild damage claims — in this case, $10 billion! — that don't amount to much except a bold headline. "Ten billion dollars in damages is a hard number to sustain in any libel suit," Andersen Jones added. "It is a ridiculously hard number to sustain without a strong showing that there was an actual viewing audience. The fight over this will be important."
I'm not a lawyer, so I'll just say it this way: C'mon. No one seemed to notice this bad edit when the film aired in the UK last year. Certainly, no one in or around Mar-a-Lago did.
As for the substance of the edit, which spliced together two different parts of Trump's infamous Jan. 6 speech, the president claimed yesterday that "they put words in my mouth," adding, "I guess they used AI or something." That's false. The speech cannot be memory-holed despite Trump's attempts to do so.
The London-based media lawyer Mark Stephens made this point via email: "Multiple US Judges have noted President Trump's repeated exhortations to 'fight' and 'stop the steal' as central to the riot's occurrence. Expressions such as 'fight' and 'take back our country' — combined with urging supporters to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue (albeit peacefully) could be interpreted as directed at inciting imminent lawless action." And that is, "in essence," what the BBC conveyed in the documentary. "Indeed US judges have already made those characterizations in many suits," Stephens said.
So that's likely to be the basis of the BBC's legal response. A BBC spokesperson said today, "As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings."
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BBC charter review begins |
This case "couldn't come at a worse time" for the BBC, as CNN's Max Foster observed this morning. Today the British government "fired the starting gun on BBC charter renewal, a once-in-a-decade review of the broadcaster’s funding and operating agreement," Deadline's Jake Kanter wrote.
>> The Beeb's own story about the process says "the government will consider new ways of funding the BBC, including via advertising or a subscription model..."
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A related story about Trump pressuring the press |
This story by AP investigative reporter Byron Tau is a must-read: "How an AM radio station in California weathered the Trump administration’s assault on media."
It's a shocking look at how political pressure from pro-Trump influencers and FCC chair Brendan Carr affected KCBS in the Bay Area. The station "demoted a well-liked anchor and dialed back on political programming," Tau found. "For months, reporters were dissuaded from pursuing political or controversial topics and instead encouraged to focus on human interest stories, according to the current and former staffers. When journalists were given permission to pursue politics or Trump administration policies, some of the staffers said, the tone of the stories was heavily scrutinized." Read the rest here...
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The cruelty is still the point |
By now, you've read all about not one, but two instances of Trump cruelly attacking Rob Reiner, almost celebrating the Hollywood icon's tragic death. I remarked on CNN yesterday that I hoped those crass, crude remarks wouldn't get too much attention, in part because I felt like Trump's venom would overshadow the touching tributes that have been published all over the place.
But I think my "hot take" on TV was off. A viewer and friend messaged me with this response: Trump "should be asked over and over to explain them, as should the people around them. When they say they didn't see them, they should be read to them. The biggest mistake is not treating the presidency as the presidency."
Indeed, when the cruelty is the point, it's also the news. Exhaustion is no excuse for breezing past it. And it's striking how Trump's attacks against Reiner have broken through in a way that very few Trump outrages do. Maybe that's because Trump views Reiner as a political opponent, but most normal people view Reiner as a beloved actor and filmmaker, not an anti-Trump crusader. I'll be talking more about this on CNN's "Inside Politics" with Dana Bash later today...
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Abandoning the 'moral high ground' |
After Charlie Kirk's killing, MAGA media influencers vowed "they would never celebrate or mock the untimely death of a political opponent." However, Tal Axelrod wrote for Axios, "Trump abandoned that moral high ground" yesterday.
Trump-aligned media personalities realized that, and most of them avoided any defense of Trump's hateful comments. Some outright condemned the comments. For a few moments, it felt like the internet had returned to some semblance of sanity, to a time when deeply offensive behavior was met with near-unanimous disgust.
But then Laura Loomer weighed in. "Rob Reiner was a loser. Naturally, his son was also a loser, and he got addicted to drugs and allegedly murdered his parents," she wrote. "Looks like Rob should've spent more time parenting & less time spreading Russia conspiracy hoaxes about President Trump."
By the way, Loomer showed up at a White House Christmas party last night.
>> Fox's approach to the controversy has been telling — numerous hosts and guests have praised Reiner and expressed condolences. (Last night, it felt like Laura Ingraham was modeling the behavior she'd like to see from her #1 viewer.) But most Fox personalities have not called out Trump by name. Greg Gutfeld went with this: "The thing is, you don't have to like the things that he says all the time."
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Vanity Fair scores major WH access |
Well, Vanity Fair just landed its first major win under new editor Mark Guiducci. The title: "Susie Wiles Says It All." The two-part feature has Trump's chief of staff speaking freely about everyone from her boss to some of his most powerful allies.
The candor is so surprising, and the access is so rare, that the NYT's Peter Baker published a story about it this morning. His top takeaway: Wiles "said a push for prosecutions was partly fueled by President Trump's desire for retribution."
So how did VF get the access? Why did Wiles talk? The answer is in who she talked with: Chris Whipple, who literally wrote the book on how chiefs of staff define presidencies.
Reince Priebus reportedly once told Wiles, "don't talk to Whipple." But Priebus talked to him, and Wiles did too, all year long. Among the newsy quotes: Wiles called Elon Musk "an odd, odd duck" ... She said Trump has "an alcoholic's personality" ... And she directly contradicted her boss, saying Trump was "wrong" and "there is no evidence" that Bill Clinton visited Epstein's private island.
>> For more, check out Guiducci's incredible editor's letter about the VF photo shoot at the White House. He says VP JD Vance joked to the photographer, "I'll give you $100 for every person you make look really shitty compared to me. And $1,000 if it's Marco."
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In a post on X just now, Wiles did not dispute any of the quotes attributed to her. But she said the article "is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history. Significant context was disregarded..." |
Howard Stern renews deal with SiriusXM |
After months of speculation about his future, Howard Stern has signed a new contract with SiriusXM. "I'm happy to announce that I figured out a way to have it all, more free time, and continuing to be on the radio," Stern said this morning on his show. "So, yes, we are coming back for three years."
The new deal comes months after the US Sun reported, based on very thin sourcing, that Stern was about to be canceled — and that his downfall might be linked to the host's outspoken criticism of Trump. Turns out, none of that was true. Liam Reilly and I have more here...
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New report on 'streaming consolidation' |
Liam Reilly writes: PwC is out with its US Media and Entertainment Deals Outlook for 2026 this morning, predicting "significant market realignment."
"We've been expecting streaming consolidation for several years at this point — and now our prediction is finally coming to fruition,” PwC's Global Media and Entertainment leader Bart Spiegel says.
>> "The adage that ‘content is king’ continues to assert itself even in the most recent of times," the report notes. "Whether it's content libraries, video games, or even sports assets, we continue to see capital invested in vehicles that own this IP and can monetize it across the flywheel."
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Nielsen's latest TV snapshot |
This morning Nielsen released its TV and streaming snapshot for November, finding that live sports drove broadcast "to its best share of TV since last November, while simultaneously fueling double-digit growth for hybrid streamers like Peacock and Paramount+." Check this out: Sports accounted "for just 3% of broadcast content by duration," but "commanded 37% of all broadcast viewership."
>> Here's another impressive stat: Thanksgiving Day audiences "watched 103.4 billion minutes of TV across the day," with linear streaming representing "10.1% of total TV usage to achieve the second-highest level of daily linear streaming ever, surpassed only by Super Bowl Sunday in February 2025."
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>> Elizabeth Warren "and a handful of other top Democrats have sent a letter to FCC chairman Brendan Carr and Department of Justice antitrust chief Gail Slater, asking them to take a close look at Nexstar's proposed deal for Tegna, and to block it if they find it anticompetitive,” Alex Weprin reports. (THR)
>> The Associated Press has launched AP Verify, "an AI-powered tool to help journalists verify text, photos and videos in one place." (Press Gazette)
>> The WSJ has introduced "Free Expression," a "newsletter-focused opinion brand that will be available via its own channels and Substack." (Axios)
>> A big moment for the Boston Globe: Acclaimed former editor Brian McGrory is returning to his old post. (Globe)
>> Netflix has named Dani Dudeck its chief communications officer. (Variety)
>> BTW: the Jim VandeHei memo about the "post-news era" we previewed yesterday is now public. (Axios)
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'Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China...' |
"...to safeguard billions in revenue." That's the headline on a new Reuters investigation by Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham that relies heavily on internal documents. The reporters found that Meta "decided to accept high levels of fraudulent advertisements from China" as the company “wanted to minimize ‘revenue impact’ caused by cracking down on the scams." Here's the story...
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>> Meta's social network Threads "is expanding the number of topics available through its newer communities feature." (TechCrunch)
>> The Washington Post "plans to continue publishing its AI-generated personalized podcasts despite internal criticism that the initiative is flouting newsroom standards," Corbin Bolies writes. (TheWrap)
>> Google's AI summaries are crushing recipe writers, leading at least one to decry the current moment as an "extinction event," Aimee Levitt writes. (The Guardian)
>> Merriam-Webster has chosen "slop" as its 2025 word of the year. (CNN)
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>> “Musicians are getting really tired of this AI clone 'bullshit,'" Terrence O'Brien writes. (The Verge)
>> Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen are booked on the "Late Show" tonight to preview CNN's New Year's Eve Live show. It's a crossover of sorts, as Stephen Colbert will be their guest on NYE. (LateNighter)
>> "With only about five months to go before his show's cancellation takes effect," Colbert "is auctioning off memorabilia from the show he has hosted for over a decade — with all proceeds going to charity." (LateNighter)
>> The sixth season of "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman" is out today. His guests: Michael B. Jordan, MrBeast and Jason Bateman. (Netflix)
>> And speaking of Netflix, the trailer for part 2 of the "Stranger Things" final season is here. (YouTube)
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