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Wednesday, September 10, 2025 |
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Hey there. The first Kamala Harris book excerpt is out, Elon Musk says "the government is basically unfixable," and Univision claims YouTube is charging a "Hispanic Tax." Plus, sightings from "The Morning Show" season premiere last night. But first... |
Cracking down on drug ads |
President Trump "is aiming to ramp up scrutiny on pharmaceutical ads — both on TV and social media — as his administration accuses companies of misleading the public about medications and their side effects," CNN's Tami Luhby and Adam Cancryn report.
Trump has tasked government agencies with "greater enforcement of existing regulations governing direct-to-consumer drug advertising," and he has directed the FDA to "craft new regulations that would effectively eliminate a decades-old provision that officials have blamed for fueling an explosion of drug ads on television and elsewhere."
Trump's memo stops well short of the total ad ban that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has floated. Still, the directives could dent major TV networks, "which earn substantial revenue from pharmaceutical advertisers trying to reach older viewers," the NYT's team writes.
Increased enforcement of existing rules will take effect right away, but any broader impacts are a ways off, since new regulations will be strongly opposed by pharma companies. "Past efforts to even modestly restrict drug advertising have been blocked by the courts on First Amendment grounds," the NYT notes.
>> Big picture context from TIME: "The U.S. is one of just two countries worldwide to allow" direct-to-consumer drug ads at all.
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Addressing the 'influencer' problem |
This aspect of the POTUS directive stood out to me: "The agency will expand its oversight to social media platforms, including social media influencers who may be paid to promote drug products without providing proper disclosures or following the same rules as drug makers."
As a senior admin official told reporters, "People are seeing ads sometimes not even realizing that they're pharmaceutical ads when a paid social media influencer is touting a product."
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NBC's vaccine data mapping project |
For the last six months, the NBC News Health & Medical Unit, in collaboration with Stanford, has been gathering extensive data on vaccination and exemption rates from counties and jurisdictions in all 50 states. The results, which NBC bills as "the most comprehensive county-level vaccine and school exemption data collection and mapping project-to-date," will go live this afternoon on NBCNews.com... |
>> Robert Draper is out with a must-read story about "notorious white nationalist" Nick Fuentes, who has "emerged as one of the loudest voices on the right to turn on the president," and isn't showing any signs of going away. (NYT)
>> Conservative social media influencers "are increasingly focusing on foreign policy," Makena Kelly reports. "Whether they're emissaries from or to the US isn't always entirely clear." (WIRED)
>> Hadas Gold flagged this one: Speaking on the "All-In" podcast last night, Elon Musk said a lesson from his time in DC was that "the government is basically unfixable." (X)
>> As the Kennedy Center overhaul continues, this story flatters Richard Grenell and claims the left is "whining" as the center "promotes employees who are actually doing their jobs." (Daily Caller)
>> "Ro Khanna floods the zone:" From Hasan Minhaj to Ryan Grim, the Democratic congressman "is going on every podcast that will have him," Kyle Tharp writes. (Chaotic Era)
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Two second-day stories about Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch capture the state of play perfectly: Rupert has secured the Fox future he wants "as his kids take the money and run," TheWrap's Brian Lowry says. And now, with the succession war over, Lachlan has been freed to refocus on empire building, as "insiders expect the real dealmaking to begin," THR's Alex Weprin writes.
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'Fox News turns blind eye to latest Epstein bombshell' |
That's the headline on Justin Baragona's analysis for The Independent. Karoline Leavitt's repeated dismissal of legit questions about the Jeffrey Epstein birthday card must have confused Fox's loyal viewers since the network continues to ignore the controversy almost entirely.
After yesterday's press briefing, Fox host Sandra Smith pivoted right back to the fallout from Iryna Zarutska's murder last month. And when Fox has covered the birthday letter, it has been either in passing, to parrot Trump's line about it being fraudulent, or to skewer other media outlets for caring about it...
>> Beyond Fox, "the right-wing media ecosystem appears to be doing a good job dismissing the story," Charlie Warzel writes for The Atlantic.
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FCC chair praises CBS ombudsman |
For a report that was released this morning, Popular Information reviewed new CBS ombudsman Kenneth Weinstein's past comments and found he has "an extensive record of praising President Trump and criticizing Trump's political adversaries."
FCC chair Brendan Carr, a staunch Trump ally, is pleased. "The New York Times is very upset," he tweeted yesterday, "that CBS selected a former advisor to President Trump & Trump nominee as an ombudsman as part of its new commitment to fair, fact-based reporting, But diversity of viewpoints is a good thing! And the NYT could learn a thing or two about that." The NYT wasn't "upset," but I digress...
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The first look at Kamala's book |
Simon & Schuster chose The Atlantic as the venue for the very first sneak peek of Kamala Harris's book "107 Days." Here's the link to the excerpt, in which she frankly discusses her frustrations with the Biden White House.
Jeffrey Goldberg says the book is full of surprises: "I read it last week, expecting lawyerly calibration and discretion. This careful Harris is present, but so too is another Harris: blunt, knowing, fervent, occasionally profane, slyly funny." He says Harris "no longer seems particularly interested in holding back." Read on...
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More of this week's big new books |
I mentioned a bunch yesterday, but there are more! Bill O'Reilly's "Confronting Evil" is selling well. "The People's Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward," edited by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith, is getting great press. And there are several new celeb titles, including "Eternally Electric" by Debbie Gibson, "The Book of Sheen" by Charlie Sheen, "Shot Ready" by Steph Curry, and "Does This Make Me Funny?" by Zosia Mamet. (Here's a fantastic excerpt from Mamet's memoir.)
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Will Lewis, secret political adviser? |
"The publisher of the Washington Post, Will Lewis, is facing fresh questions over his independence after a cache of leaked files revealed he gave extensive support to Boris Johnson as a secret political adviser when Johnson was prime minister" and Lewis was vice-chair of the Associated Press. That's what Jessica Elgot, Harry Davies, Henry Dyer and Rowena Mason report in this big heave for The Guardian...D
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Univision goes public against YouTube TV |
Ahead of a September 30 distribution deal deadline, TelevisaUnivision is publicly accusing YouTube of discrimination because the streamer "plans to remove Univision from YouTube's core offering and move it to a Spanish-language package at an extra cost," Sara Fischer reports for Axios. Univision has dubbed it a "Hispanic Tax." YouTube is pushing back strongly, saying "TelevisaUnivision's demands aren't supported by their performance on YouTube TV over the last four years."
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NBCUniversal "is phasing in a mandate for employees to work at least four days a week in the office..." Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN's parent) "has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Dish Network's Sling TV..." Paramount PR exec Justin Dini is departing the company... And former CBS News boss Wendy McMahon is advising beehiiv...
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>> Ben Thompson's follow-up on yesterday's big Apple product rollout: "iPhones 17 and the Sugar Water Trap." (Stratechery)
>> Will OpenAI move out of California? On Page One of today's Journal: "OpenAI executives rattled by campaigns to derail for-profit restructuring." (WSJ)
>> Microsoft "is taking its biggest step to lessen reliance" on OpenAI by embracing Anthropic "to power its most important software business." (The Information)
>> "Nepal's crackdown on social media companies, which led to protests and police killing at least 19 people, is part of a years-long decline of internet freedoms around the world as even democracies seek to curtail online speech," Barbara Ortutay writes. (AP)
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Entertainment odds and ends |
>> "A new play by Wallace Shawn, directed by André Gregory, will be produced Off Broadway by Scott Rudin and Barry Diller." (Deadline)
>> Reservoir Media has acquired "the majority of music rights owned by the Miles Davis estate ahead of the jazz master’s centennial next year." (NYT)
>> "The number of shows created by women on streaming services shot up to 36% during the period from August 2024 to June 2025 compared with a year earlier," a new high. (NYT)
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As some of you know, I'm a producer of "The Morning Show," the Apple TV+ drama that took some inspiration from my book "Top of the Morning." Last night was the season four premiere screening in NYC, and the MoMA event space was packed, with everyone from Apple SVP Eddy Cue (who showed off two of the new iPhone models) to NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien.
The new season starts streaming one week from today. Viewers will see that we grapple with many of the topics in this newsletter: The polarized media landscape, the rise of podcasting stars, and the scourge of conspiracy thinking. I will want to hear your feedback if you watch!
At the screening, co-stars and exec producers Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston introduced the first episode with a shoutout to all the cast and crew members in attendance. Also spotted: Michael Ellenberg, Charlotte Stoudt, Sunny Hostin, Van Jones, Kara Swisher, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Carl Quintanilla, Don Lemon, Stephanie Ruhle, Pat Kiernan, Jeff Zucker, Rebecca Kutler, Dan Abrams, Risa Heller, and many more.
🔌: CNN is out with a fun new interactive, "Good Job," which ranks "25 exceptional workplace series from the last 25 years," including "TMS." Check out the feature here...
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