Good morning. I'm under the weather, so today's edition is brief. Here's the latest on "Careless People," DOGE, Ruth Marcus, Michelle Obama, Bluesky, and much more...
|
'Hollywood Pivots to Programming for Trump's America' |
☝️ That's the headline on Joe Flint's latest Wall Street Journal story.
"Whether it is a show featuring Tim Allen, who has made no secret of his admiration for the president, Bill Maher interviewing Trump backer Kid Rock on his ‘Real Time’ HBO show, or A&E bringing back ‘Duck Dynasty,’ Hollywood is serving some red meat to the red states," Flint writes.
Yesterday brought two new examples: Netflix ordered a batch of specials from Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian and podcaster who told racist jokes at Trump's MSG rally last October; and Amazon Prime Video acquired the streaming rights to the first seven seasons of "The Apprentice." As Liam Reilly wrote here, the "Apprentice" pact came just a couple months after Amazon paid a reported $40 million for a Melania Trump documentary.
>> The Fox-Dominion litigation back in 2023 revealed that Fox execs had talked about licensing old "Apprentice" episodes in order to appease Trump, since he owns a big stake in the show. Tellingly, Fox didn't move forward with that plan when Trump was out of office...
|
Flint's story also describes a "reluctance among execs to challenge current political and cultural landscape for fear of retaliation from White House and activist FCC."
Hollywood has a (sometimes overstated) reputation for left-wing sympathies, so the shift, if that's what's happening, is noteworthy. The question: Is Hollywood simply acknowledging that there's an underserved market for right-coded content? Or, as with recent tech company moves, is this a show of support to avoid Trump's ire?
|
|
|
>> "Just 20 days ago, the US stock market was sitting at all-time highs. The US economy appeared to be growing at a solid pace. And a recession was nowhere in sight. Now, the R-word is seemingly everywhere," Matt Egan writes. (CNN)
>> DOGE aides have arrived at the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Check out David Folkenflik's latest: "A bane for tyrants abroad, U.S.-funded networks fear fate under Kari Lake." (NPR)
>> An intriguing new episode of Nilay Patel's Decoder podcast: "Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour on AI, press freedom, and the future of news" (The Verge)
|
|
|
Today's new nonfiction releases |
Sarah Wynn-Williams' Facebook memoir, "Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism," is out today, and it's already in the top five on Amazon's new releases chart. Reviewer Jennifer Szalai says the book is "darkly funny and genuinely shocking: an ugly, detailed portrait of one of the most powerful companies in the world." (Meta says it is "a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives.")
Also new on store shelves today: David Enrich's "Murder the Truth;" Steve Oney's "On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR;" and Maureen Dowd's "Notorious: Portraits of Stars from Hollywood, Culture, Fashion, and Tech."
|
|
|
The Post wants to 'broaden' |
Liam Reilly writes: Another week, another announcement of sweeping changes at the Washington Post. Yesterday executive editor Matt Murray announced a major "reinvention" that will reallocate resources to "evolve with reader habits." The Post will separate its digital and print workflows while beefing up its central news hub; reorganize several departments; and add muscle to WP Ventures.
>> A few snippets from Murray's internal memo: To reach a "broad audience across the country," The Post is "broadening the topics we own" and "broadening the range of our coverage."
>> "Broadening coverage will help the Post become less dependent on political news, which can be cyclical in nature, Murray told Axios in an interview..."
|
Another big loss: "Ruth Marcus, a columnist and editor for The Washington Post's opinion section, said Monday she was leaving the newspaper after Will Lewis, the paper's publisher, killed a column she wrote that was critical of the editorial pages' new direction," the NYT's Ben Mullin scooped.
>> Marcus said the rejection of her piece "underscores that the traditional freedom of columnists to select the topics they wish to address and say what they think has been dangerously eroded..."
|
|
|
MAGA media rallies around Musk |
As Tesla stores become the sites of protests, and shares in the company nosedive, MAGA media stars are coming to Elon Musk's defense – which might make the company's brand even more polarizing. Last night on Fox Sean Hannity went on a tangent about how much he loves driving his Tesla. Overnight Trump said he's going to buy a Tesla today to support Musk...
|
Political media notes and quotes |
>> Hannity and RFK Jr. promoted Steak 'n Shake's french fries, "which the company now makes with beef tallow in place of vegetable oil," in a taped interview that looked like a fast food infomercial. (NYPost)
>> The "billionaires at Trump's swearing-in" have together lost about $209 billion since then, Dylan Sloan calculates. (Bloomberg)
>> CNN alum Josh Levs says "fact checks" are too little too late: "What we need in America is a truth countermovement." (The Contrarian)
>> "Media Matters sues Elon Musk's X over 'libel tourism' legal assault." (NPR)
|
|
|
>> "Financial Times chief commercial officer Jon Slade has been named as the next CEO of the business." (Press Gazette)
>> The BBC "has spent more than 1.3 million pounds on investigating the Huw Edwards scandal and a resulting review of its procedures." (FT)
>> In a letter to the FCC, Skydance has rejected complaints from a rival bidder for Paramount and called the bid "unserious." (Bloomberg)
>> In Orlando yesterday, WOFL meteorologist Brooks Garner was alerting viewers about a tornado warning when the tornado passed right over the station's TV studio. (Weather Channel)
|
|
|
Michelle Obama's new podcast |
Michelle Obama is starting a new podcast, "IMO," with her older brother Craig Robinson through her production company Higher Ground. The pair "will interview celebrities and offer advice on various topics," the NYT's Jessica Testa writes. They're taping a live show at SXSW later this week..
|
|
|
>> Musk "has a history of attributing technical snafus to cyberattacks," so there was widespread skepticism when he blamed Monday's X outages on a "large, coordinated group and/or a country." (CNN)
>> A terrible day for X doubled as a great day for Bluesky. The startup announced "3-minute video uploads" (up from 1 minute previously) "and inbox management features." (Engadget)
>> Bluesky chief Jay Graber poked fun at Mark Zuckerberg during a much-buzzed-about appearance at SXSW. (TechCrunch)
>> "A new AI agent named Manus is winning expert acclaim while stoking concern over another AI advance rooted in Chinese research and development," Ina Fried reports. (Axios)
>> On Page One of today's WSJ: "Investors Want a Piece of DeepSeek. Its Founder Says Not Now." Liang Wenfeng has told associates "that he wants to keep the science-project ethos that brought him global renown." (WSJ)
>> "Celine Dion has issued a warning about AI-generated songs that are circulating on the internet," Jack Guy writes. (CNN)
|
|
|
Legal setback for the Menendez brothers |
LA County's new district attorney Nathan Hochman announced Monday that he will "not support Erik and Lyle Menendez's efforts to be released from prison because he believes they have maintained a decades-long lie that the 1989 murders of their parents were committed in self-defense," CNN's Elizabeth Wolfe writes. "Though the court can still proceed with a resentencing hearing scheduled to begin March 20, Hochman's opposition threatens to capsize the strong momentum that has driven the brothers’ latest bid for freedom..."
|
|
|
Entertainment odds and ends |
>> "The White Lotus" keeps growing: Sunday's new episode pulled in 3.4 million U.S. viewers via HBO and Max, a premiere night series high. (TheWrap)
>> The two-episode premiere of Disney and Marvel's "Daredevil: Born Again" on March 4 raked in 7.5 million viewers globally in its first five days. (TheWrap)
>> "A jury on Monday quickly and completely rejected a man's claim that Disney's ‘Moana’ was stolen from his story of a young surfer in Hawaii." (AP)
>> Disney+ and Lucasfilm are making "Andor" season one "more widely — and freely — available ahead of the highly anticipated release of season two." (THR)
>> My son keeps asking me for a Feastables bar, and this story helped me understand why: "YouTube's biggest star MrBeast makes more money from chocolate than videos." (Bloomberg)
|
|
|
|
® © 2025 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
