Good morning! Here's the latest on the NYT, NBC, Elon Musk, TikTok, Michele Norris, "FlashPoint," Lachlan Murdoch, and more... |
Michael M Santiago/Getty Images |
On this election eve, let's go back in time for a moment. The day after Joe Biden became president-elect in 2020, Fox News seeded false stories about fraud on its air. The election was "stolen" from Trump, Newt Gingrich bellowed. "There were voting irregularities," Maria Bartiromo claimed. "They were flipping votes," Sidney Powell alleged.
Donald Trump was inspired by those TV segments. He tweeted what he heard on Fox and began to embrace a very big lie.
You know the rest of the story. After the siege of the US Capitol, conventional wisdom held that Trump was disgraced, washed up, done. Tucker Carlson said on air that Trump was "elderly and retiring." But once again, media coverage has changed that. The right's favored outlets minimized and memory-holed January 6, then recast Trump as a victim, making it possible for him to recapture the Republican nomination for president.
In short: Right-wing media's influence has been enormous. And expensive, since the election lies of 2020 have cost Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch's company nearly a billion dollars to date. But the lies kept viewers hooked on Fox. This morning Fox posted a strong quarterly earnings report, thanks in part to political ad revenue.
So what will Fox say this week? Will the network's coverage raise or lower the collective temperature of the country? Fox decision desk boss Arnon Mishkin is trustworthy, but the commentary that surrounds Fox's race calls will have a big impact.
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What Trump fans are hearing |
Conservative outlets are continuing to exude confidence about Trump's chances. Words like "landslide" are getting thrown around a lot. And some commentators are suggesting that any Harris victory would be illegitimate.
To be fair, Fox's programming is highlighting the coin-flip nature of swing state polling. Breitbart's top headline this morning says "Which America will turn out on Tuesday?" But voters who exist exclusively in the pro-Trump media bubble – where Harris is a liar, a lightweight and a loser – would find it hard to fathom how anyone could vote for her. If Trump wins, the right-wing media's demonization of Harris will have been a factor.
>> Also notable: Pro-Trump outlets consistently say immigration is issue #1 while minimizing abortion. If a "diverse, women-driven Roe coalition" ultimately carries Harris to victory, many right-wing media consumers will be stunned.
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What Harris fans are hearing |
Progressive outlets are expressing a whole lot less certainty about the outcome. But some commentators are "nauseously optimistic," to borrow one of the most popular phrases of the moment. Saturday's shock poll out of Iowa remains a huge story on MSNBC 36 hours later. And abortion remains issue #1 in liberal media circles. "Nobody knows how this will turn out," Jen Psaki told viewers last night. "But I think it's safe to say that one campaign," the VP's, "seems to be closing this thing out strong. And one seems to be losing oxygen, fast."
>> Some liberal shows are also daring to imagine a political world where Trump is no longer the center of gravity. HBO's John Oliver remarked last night, "Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where [Trump] is no longer an active threat, just an annoyance?”
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TikTok makes the past the present |
This story gives new meaning to the phrase "it's news to me." The Washington Post's Tatum Hunter writes: "It's been eight years since leaked audio from a conversation between Donald Trump and TV host Billy Bush made waves for the former president’s descriptions of kissing and grabbing women without their consent. Now, young people are encountering the tape for the first time on TikTok." Last week, numerous TikTokers said "they were shocked by the former president's words and confused why the episode wasn’t a dealbreaker in 2016..."
>> A team of Post reporters asked readers to submit their TikTok viewing histories, and the results were striking: There were "distinct differences in political news shown to men and women..."
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NYT Tech Guild is on strike |
Liam Reilly writes: The New York Times Tech Guild — the union that represents the publisher's 600+ tech workers — made good on its threat to walk off the job this morning. "Our union members and bargaining committee have done everything possible to avoid this ULP strike,"
Kathy Zhang, a senior analytics manager for the Times and unit chair of the Tech Guild, said in a statement. Times management has disputed many of the guild's past claims.
So what about the needle? The strike "could disrupt the newspaper's ability to cover this week's election results," the Post's Laura Wagner writes. The Times says it has "robust plans in place to ensure that we are able to fulfill our mission and serve our readers."
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Trump's violent press rhetoric |
"Traditionally, a campaign's closing argument is supposed to hammer home its main themes," The Atlantic's Helen Lewis writes. At a rally Sunday, "Trump did exactly that—by once again fantasizing about violence against his perceived enemies."
Trump's "shoot through the fake news" comment rattled some of the reporters who regularly travel with him. My perception, having observed three Trump campaign cycles, is that he always ratchets up his media-bashing right before election day. In the past week he has sued CBS, filed an FEC grievance about The Washington Post, and leveled new TV licensing threats...
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Trump gets 'equal time' on NBC |
Harris's cameo on "SNL" triggered the FCC's "equal time" rule, and Trump took advantage on Sunday. "Hello to our great sports fans," Trump said at the beginning of an unusual 60-second video played during NASCAR post-race coverage on NBC stations. I wrote more about it here.
>> Despite the free airtime Trump received, his allies are crying foul; if he loses, some supporters will surely accuse NBC of "election interference."
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Musk's 'perpetual disinformation machine' |
X owner Elon Musk's misleading claims about the election have generated more than two billion views this year, according to a new analysis by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The group's founder, Imran Ahmed, said X has become a "perpetual disinformation machine" since Musk removed many of the site's guardrails. CNN's Marshall Cohen has details here.
>> Speaking of: Musk has weirdly but effectively "become the star of his social media platform, transforming X into a reflection of his personal views before the election..." (NYT)
>> It is easy to connect the dots between Big Tech players dismantling "programs adopted in 2020 to fight election disinformation" and the dramatic surge in "unsubstantiated voter fraud claims" on social sites... (Wash Post)
>> Despite all the lawsuits, business setbacks and bad press, The Gateway Pundit "is still pushing an alternate reality" to far-right readers... (The Atlantic)
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Political media notes and quotes |
>> Oliver Darcy compiled a list of "the 27 most consequential media figures of the 2024 election." (Status)
>> Stephanie McCrummen watched hours and hours of "FlashPoint," the premier news show for a "growing pro-Trump Christian movement" known as the New Apostolic Reformation. She says "the prophecies have become more apocalyptic" in recent weeks... (The Atlantic)
>> Michele Norris, one of the Post columnists who resigned over the non-endorsement last month, has joined MSNBC as senior contributing editor. She was on set for Rachel Maddow's pre-election special last night, and will be stationed at Howard University for Harris's election night event tomorrow... (MSNBC)
>> Wise words from Axios: In the coming days "you're going to have to throttle your reactions to every outrage on social media — and there'll be plenty. But lots of it will be plain false. And lots of it will be twisted to manipulate your emotions." (Axios)
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NYT surpasses 11 million subscribers |
The New York Times Company's adjusted operating profit rose 16% in the third quarter, and "overall revenue increased 7%," the NYT's Katie Robertson reports. "We passed 11 million total subscribers in the quarter, more than five million of whom now subscribe to the bundle or multiple products," CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said. Digital ad revenue was up almost 9%...
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Fox profit doubles on political ads |
Fox Corp shares are up almost 4% in premarket trading after the company said "profit doubled in its latest quarter," the WSJ's Ben Glickman writes. Political ads "helped boost revenue more than Wall Street expected." CEO Lachlan Murdoch cited "record political advertising across the company."
>> Ahead this week: Reuters posts quarterly earnings on Tuesday; News Corp and (CNN's parent) Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday; and Paramount on Friday...
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>> "An Iranian-American journalist who once worked for a U.S. government-funded broadcaster is believed to have been detained by Iran for months now, authorities said Sunday, further raising the stakes as Tehran threatens to retaliate over an Israeli attack on the country,” Jon Gambrell reports. (AP)
>> "A radio station in Poland fired its on-air talent and brought in A.I.-generated presenters. An outcry over a purported chat with a Nobel laureate quickly ended that experiment," Andrew Higgins reports. (NYT)
>> Correction: Yesterday I misspelled Clare Malone's name. But this gives me another chance to highlight her great story about "The Fight Over Truth in a Blue-Collar Pennsylvania County."
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Bobby Holland/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images |
RIP: Musical titan Quincy Jones, "the composer and producer who added his tasteful polish to recordings by everyone from Ray Charles to Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson," has died, his representatives said overnight. He was 91.
"A renowned jazz and pop musician, Jones was also a prolific cross-genre arranger, conductor, record label executive and civil rights advocate," CNN's Lisa Respers France writes. "His talent and drive led to an almost unparalleled career in entertainment." Read the full obit here...
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