Happy Friday. Here's the latest on a book deal about Zohran Mamdani, a new report about Candace Owens' conspiracy theories, and a legal victory for Ann Selzer. Plus, Meta's scam ads problem and OpenAI's PR crisis. But first... |
'Please do something, President Trump'
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President Trump said yesterday that "I don't want to hear about the affordability." The comment — which instantly became prime-time cable fodder — came in the middle of a meandering and misleading response to a question from Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich.
"Groceries are way down. Everything is way down," Trump falsely claimed. "And the press doesn't report it. The press reports whatever the con people say. You know, I call the Democrats, con men and women. They make up numbers."
It's easy enough for Trump to blame the press when he's in a Q&A session with reporters. It's harder when he's hearing from a voter who is struggling. That's why I thought this was a savvy move by Fox News anchor
Bret Baier on Wednesday.
Baier used his access to Trump, on the sidelines of a business forum in Miami, to read a message from Regina Foley, a retiree in Greensboro, North Carolina. Foley told Baier that she was a three-time Trump voter who was worried about the GOP losing control of Congress next year.
"Something has to be done fast," Foley wrote to Baier. "I don't see the best economy right now. Wall Street numbers do not reflect my Main Street money. Please do something, President Trump."
Her concern about the cost of living was tellingly framed as a political problem, not an economic or moral one. But it hit right at the theme of this off-year election week. As Axios put it this morning, "The affordability crisis, once Biden's, is now Trump's."
Trump's non-answer to Foley's concern (he said prices are "down already," and the "biggest problem is Republicans don't talk about it") made waves on social media. On Baier's Instagram page, commenters said things like "our groceries are not down" and "why don't you come shopping?"
The exchange underscored that the press is most effective when it is really, directly channeling the public. I'd love to hear how Foley felt about Trump's response, but I haven't been able to reach her. Maybe Baier can?
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Trump's ability to talk some people into believing up is down, with the assistance of the right-wing media machine, has been central to his political success. And his "affordability" comments this week suggest that he sees it as a messaging problem. His new favorite thing to tout is Walmart's promotional Thanksgiving meal basket being 25% cheaper than last year. Leave it to Daniel Dale to totally dismantle that talking point...
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'Don't believe your eyes at the grocery store' |
GOP radio host Erick Erickson offered some tough love for his party yesterday:
"Grocery prices are going up. And now Republicans are perversely doing the same thing Democrats did when they were in office with Joe Biden, saying, 'No, actually, don't believe your eyes at the grocery store, prices are coming down!' That's not helpful to Americans who are feeling higher grocery costs right now, which is actually happening," Erickson said on his show. "The Republicans have gotta figure this out."
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Elle Reeve challenges Candace Owens |
CNN's Elle Reeve questions Candace Owens about her "speedrun through old-school white nationalist conspiracy theories" in this new report for the All Access streaming service.
Reeve's 25-minute feature describes Owens' "huge impact on political discourse" and recognizes that some viewers might say she shouldn't be interviewed at all.
Owens "reflects the reality of the new media ecosystem we live in," Reeve says. "Whether you think that's great or terrible, it's the way it is. There's a temptation to treat figures like her as fringe players not worthy of attention, but we do that at our own peril."
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Carlson to his critics: 'Buzz off' |
Tucker Carlson has a response to the MAGA media stars who have taken issue with his friendly chat with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes: "Do your own interview the way that you want to do it. You're not my editor. Buzz off."
That's what Carlson said during an appearance at Megyn Kelly's live tour. He added: "You want to go yell at Nick Fuentes? I’ll give you his cell. Call him and go sit and yell at him and feel virtuous or whatever." Here's the video, and a CNN story that can get you caught up on the in-fighting...
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📈 Truth Social and Free Press rising |
TheRighting's latest analysis of Similarweb data, shared first with us here, showed year-over-year declines for most right-leaning news websites in October.
However, a couple of conservative media brands showed notable gains: "Year-over-year visits to Truth Social soared 84%," TheRighting's Howard Polskin notes, with 19.5 million total visits in October. And in the month Bari Weiss' The Free Press was acquired by Paramount, the site "generated 6.3 million visits, a year-over-year increase of 25%." Here's the rest of the report...
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'Pod Save America' surprise |
Barack Obama was the surprise guest at a live taping of "Pod Save America" at DC's Warner Theatre last night. The taping was the first part of Crooked Media's "Crooked Con," which takes place all day today. "Tuesday was nice, but we’ve got a lot of work to do," Obama said during the pod taping...
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'Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads' |
Investigative tech reporter Jeff Horwitz has done it again.
Horwitz got hold of Meta documents detailing how an "avalanche of ads" has "exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp's billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products."
Late last year, according to the documents, Meta projected "that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue — or $16 billion — from running advertising for scams and banned goods." Here's the full Reuters story.
That $16 billion estimate was ultimately too high, said Meta spokesman Andy Stone, who declined to provide an updated figure. Stone said, "We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don't want this content, legitimate advertisers don't want it and we don't want it either."
>> Jason Kint's takeaway: "Meta makes more money from ad fraud according to this report than all journalists collectively."
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YouTube TV/Disney stalemate continues |
Liam Reilly writes: The Disney blackout on YouTube TV has now lasted for a full week. The two companies say they're still talking, but YouTube's pay-TV subscribers missed "Monday Night Football," ABC's election night programming and a whole lot more. CNBC's Alex Sherman and Contessa Brewer write that "it’s unclear who has the upper hand..."
>> Meanwhile, Bloomberg's Adam Minter argues that the real culprits in all of this are the US sports leagues and their "increasingly expensive broadcast rights deals..."
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Two Comcast biz developments |
– The company has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley "as it explores a bid for Warner Bros Discovery's studio and streaming businesses," Dawn Chmielewski, Amy-Jo Crowley, Dawn Kopecki and Milana Vinn reported for Reuters.
– Comcast's Sky, the European pay TV service, "is in talks to buy ITV's media and entertainment arm in a deal that would dramatically shake up the UK broadcasting landscape," Michelle F Davis, Benoit Berthelot, and Ruth David reported for Bloomberg.
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Condé Nast abruptly fired four staffers — including WIRED senior reporter Jake Lahut, along with a senior fact checker at The New Yorker, a digital staffer at Bon Appétit and a video staffer — after an "HR confrontation," Semafor's Max Tani reports. The quartet was "among a group of more than a dozen employees who confronted the company's head of HR," Stan Duncan, over the Teen Vogue consolidation and other recent cuts.
>> Tani says the firings amount to “an unsubtle message to its employee union that the publisher was taking a harder line in its dealings with employees."
>> TheWrap's Corbin Bolies says video of the confrontation "did not appear to exhibit 'extreme misconduct' as claimed by the company." Watch here for yourself.
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Could Trump's suit 'meet the same fate' as this one? |
Liam Reilly writes: A federal district court has tossed out a class-action lawsuit filed by a Des Moines Register reader against the paper and pollster J. Ann Selzer, ruling that the First Amendment bars such complaints. FIRE's Bob Corn-Revere, who represented Selzer, said the decision "shows where petty politics ends and the rule of law begins." Conor Fitzpatrick, FIRE's supervising senior attorney, expressed confidence that a similar lawsuit by Trump "will meet the same fate."
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>> Ross Barkan is writing a book for Random House about Zohran Mamdani's campaign and early days as NYC mayor. (X)
>> "The pieces are falling in place," Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said yesterday, expressing optimism about his pending takeover of Tegna. (THR)
>> What's behind yesterday's news about ESPN replacing Penn Entertainment with DraftKings? Peter Kafka sums it up this way: "ESPN tried to push its way into the sports-betting market, and sports bettors didn't care." (Business Insider)
>> Speaking of ESPN, Matt Yoder asks: "Has the sports fan lost trust in the Worldwide Leader in sports?" (Awful Announcing)
>> "The Washington Post said it is among victims of a sweeping cyber breach tied to Oracle software." (Reuters)
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What is arguably the most-anticipated video game in the world is now still a year away. Take-Two Interactive, which previously delayed the release of "Grand Theft Auto VI" from this fall to May 2026, said Thursday that the game's new release date is now November 2026. CEO Strauss Zelnick told IGN that he is "highly confident" the new date will hold...
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More of today's tech talk |
>> OpenAI "went into panic mode" yesterday "over what it said was a very public misstatement." Clare Duffy explains it all here. (CNN)
>> In other OpenAI news, the company has offered up a blueprint for "crafting safety standards for teens using AI." (Axios)
>> "Amazon just introduced an AI tool that will automatically translate books into other languages," Lawrence Bonk reports. (Engadget)
>> "The FBI is attempting to unmask the owner behind archive.today, a popular archiving site that is also regularly used to bypass paywalls on the internet and to avoid sending traffic to the original publishers," Jason Koebler reports. (404 Media)
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Entertainment odds and ends |
>> "Zootopia 2" is "tracking to bite off at least $125 million in its five-day debut at the Thanksgiving box office." (THR)
>> Netflix has a "Stranger Things" animated series in the works for next year. (THR)
>> "Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, will reportedly be returning to the big screen" for the first time in years, Lisa Respers France writes. (CNN)
>> Lionsgate has dropped the official teaser for Antoine Fuqua's Michael Jackson biopic, "Michael." (YouTube)
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