Happy Tuesday. Patrick Soon-Shiong is taking the Los Angeles Times public, the Trump White House is punishing the Wall Street Journal, and two more big names are exiting The Washington Post. Plus: A big NPR departure and a new report about The Free Press. But first... |
Are TV networks going to keep supporting political satire and free speech at a time when President Trump's campaign of retribution is rattling corporate America?
That's the big question that looms over late-night TV right now, following the CBS network's "financial" decision to cancel "The Late Show."
The partisan arguments about whether Stephen Colbert is funny or pompous or overpaid might be fun, but they're a distraction.
There is a long history in the American TV networks giving comics space to poke presidents and even network executives in the eye, despite the potential ramifications. Fans feel that tradition is under threat now. It relates to a broader fear about institutions caving to Trump and removing room for dissent.
Anti-Trump protesters gathered outside the Ed Sullivan Theater yesterday, and some held up signs criticizing CBS. I thought the mass-printed protest signs that said "Colbert Stays! Trump Must Go!" missed the point. Colbert is going, ten months from now, amid very real financial strains at CBS.
The more relevant protest sign was this hand-written one: "Silencing comedians is no joke."
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Stewart decries 'pre-compliance' |
Lots of folks were curious to see what Colbert would say last night, but "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" was the newsier telecast. Keep in mind: Both shows are owned by Paramount; Colbert catapulted to fame on Stewart's show 20 years ago; the two men have remained friends ever since; and Stewart is an exec producer of "The Late Show."
Here is Stewart's monologue on YouTube. He attributed Colbert's cancellation to the fear and "pre-compliance" that is "gripping all of America's institutions at this very moment — institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair-doodling commander in chief."
Stewart, whose “Daily Show" contract expires at the end of this year, added, “This is not the moment to give in. I'm not giving in! I'm not going anywhere — I think."
He also had a profane message for Paramount and other media companies: "If you believe, as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous, that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king's radar, A, why will anyone watch you, and you are f**king wrong."
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A 'defiant message to Trump' |
Here's Bill Carter's headline for LateNighter: "Late Night Sends a Defiant Message to Trump—and CBS."
NBC's Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, Bravo's Andy Cohen, and HBO's John Oliver were among the faces in the "Late Show" crowd during a spoof of the now-famous "Coldplay cam." The fellow hosts didn't speak and they didn't have to: Being there was the point. Here's the clip.
Colbert also cracked several jokes about CBS saying his show was ending for "purely financial" reasons. "Cancel culture has gone too far," he quipped.
I was struck by this part of his commentary: "Some people see this show going away as a sign of something truly dire. And while I am a big fan of me, I don't necessarily agree with that statement. Because we here at 'The Late Show' never saw our job as changing anything other than how you felt at the end of the day — which I think is a worthy goal — or, rather, changing how you felt the next morning when you watched on your phone, which is why broadcast TV is dying. You're part of the problem. Look in the mirror, okay! Which is probably the camera on your phone — come on!"
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Late-night notes and quotes |
>> "I don't like what's going on one bit. These are crazy times," Jimmy Fallon said on "The Tonight Show."
>> "The partisan left's ritualist wailing and gnashing of teeth over Colbert is quite revealing," FCC chair Brendan Carr tweeted this morning. "They're acting like they’re losing a loyal DNC spokesperson that was entitled to an exemption from the laws of economics."
>> In this long essay, Nate Silver argued that "mainstream liberal comedy has struggled between the death of mass culture and the rise of Trump."
>> Big picture: Trump is "winning" in his "campaign to crush the media," Paul Farhi wrote for The Atlantic.
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Letters to Paramount and Skydance |
Ed Markey wrote to Shari Redstone yesterday, inquiring whether any Trump officials had complained about Colbert’s "big fat bribe" monologue. "If the Trump administration is using its regulatory authority to influence or otherwise pressure your company’s editorial decisions, the public deserves to know," Markey wrote.
Meanwhile, a trio of other Democratic senators wrote to David Ellison, asking about several matters, including the so-called "side deal" with Trump. Also: Has Skydance agreed to make changes to "Paramount's or CBS's content at the request of the Trump Administration, to facilitate approval of the transaction?" The execs are under no obligation to respond, so the whole point is to raise the questions in public...
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Trump retaliates against WSJ |
When the White House took control of the so-called "press pool" that accompanies the president, journalists worried that the Trump admin would use that power to punish news outlets. And now it is clearly happening. First it was the Associated Press; now it's the Wall Street Journal.
Trump's press shop has removed a WSJ reporter from a coveted press seat on the president's upcoming Scotland trip, citing the paper's "fake and defamatory conduct," press secretary Karoline Leavitt said — a reference to the paper's recent scoop about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The WSJ declined to comment while the WHCA denounced the "government retaliation" and the NYT called it "an attack on core constitutional principles underpinning free speech and a free press." Here's our full story...
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Harry Litman calls Trump's WSJ lawsuit "a sure loser" in this essay for The New Republic, arguing that the Journal "surely never would have published the story without rock-solid sourcing" and that "if they printed it, they probably have the receipts." That means "it’s Trump’s burden to show that the reporting is false and they knew it," Litman writes, noting that "anyone with a whiff of media literacy knows the likely answer."
>> "Trump's decision to file the case in southern Florida led to suspicions he was hoping to draw U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon," Politico's Kyle Cheney reports. Instead, it has been assigned to Judge Darrin Gayles. "The Obama appointee made history as the first openly gay Black man appointed to the federal bench," Cheney notes.
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...Say, between the WSJ and Colbert? Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen thinks so. He wrote on X yesterday that "we've seen this playbook in the darkest days of history: Dictators targeting independent journalists and dissenting views — using power and threats to silence those who tell the truth. Today it's WSJ, AP, NPR, Colbert. Who's next? We must resist together or we will fall apart."
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Fox is barely touching the story |
The Washington Post's Jeremy Barr writes that Fox News "faces a bind" when it comes to Trump's lawsuit against another arm of Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Barr counted, and "so far, the lawsuit has only been mentioned twice on Fox."
Instead, the network has fully pivoted to covering Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's claim about a "Russia hoax" by the Obama administration. Some MAGA media influencers are agitating for Barack Obama's arrest — but others are not buying "Trump's big Epstein distraction," Will Sommer writes for The Bulwark. "The question of whether the Obama administration responsibly handled various intelligence reports nine years ago just doesn’t hit quite like the Epstein case," he says. For more, read Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy's dismantling of Gabbard's attention grab...
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The L.A. Times is going public? |
Liam Reilly writes: Patrick Soon-Shiong, who paid $500 million for the Los Angeles Times in 2018, says he intends to take the ailing newspaper public in the coming year. The move is a way for the LAT "to be democratized and allow the public to have ownership of this paper," he told Jon Stewart last night. (Fascinating choice of venue to announce it!) Here's our full story. The LAT's own piece, by Clara Harter, notes that "he did not provide specifics..."
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NPR's top editor is leaving |
Right when we were about to hit send on this edition of Reliable, the NYT's Ben Mullin broke this news: "Edith Chapin, the top editor and acting chief content officer of NPR, will leave the organization later this year, according to two people with knowledge of her decision." An NPR rep did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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WaPo loses more big names |
WaPo TikTok superstar Dave Jorgenson is "leaving The Post next month to start an online video company based on his personal YouTube channel, Local News International, which blends the topical wit of 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart' with the surreal antics of Ron Burgundy, the fictional star of 'Anchorman,'" the aforementioned Ben Mullin reported earlier today. Jorgenson will be joined by two ex-colleagues, Micah Gelman and Lauren Saks.
>> More: WP Ventures head Krissah Thompson is also leaving the Post.
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Hunter Biden's 'bizarre' podcast hits |
Fox just published a list of "5 bizarre moments from Hunter Biden's interview meltdown" — and I'm sure it was hard to pick just five. Joe Biden's son taped a pair of podcast appearances, one with former DNC chair Jaime Harrison and another with Andrew Callaghan, creator of the "Channel 5" YouTube series.
On X, NBC's Garrett Haake noted that Hunter's "score-settling" comments "dominated the first 20 minutes of Fox News 8pm hour" last night — "a reminder of the younger Biden's potency in firing up conservatives, and of how he's probably the very last person Dems want to see talking politics anywhere right now."
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>> Bari Weiss is seeking "more than $200 million" as acquirers like David Ellison circle around The Free Press, the FT reports. (FT)
>> TelevisaUnivision reported earnings this morning and showed an overall drop in revenue, but more strong growth in its ViX streaming service segment. (TheWrap)
>> Fortune has cut 10% of its staff, "the result of a decline in traffic, and rise of audio/video," Max Tani reports. (X)
>> "Google is seeking to recruit news organizations for a new licensing project related to artificial intelligence." Julia Love and Hannah Miller say it's "a sign the company wants to strengthen strained ties with the industry." (Bloomberg)
>> Speaking of Google, the company has announced "the removal of nearly 11,000 YouTube channels and other accounts tied to state-linked propaganda campaigns from China, Russia and more in the second quarter," Zach Vallese reports. (CNBC)
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🙏 Remembering Malcolm-Jamal Warner |
"For millions of us, especially those of us who grew up Black in America during the 1980s," Malcolm-Jamal Warner "wasn't just an actor. He was family. He was possibility. He was hope," CNN's Van Jones wrote yesterday after learning of Warner's death at the age of 54. Read his full essay here.
Tributes continue to pour in today for Warner, who played Theo on "The Cosby Show." The last episode of his podcast "Not All Hood" was published just two days before he died, People mag notes.
>> As Linda Armstrong wrote for the New York Amsterdam News, the city's oldest Black-owned paper, Warner's "television family helped other Black families feel seen and proud, and his performances on the groundbreaking NBC sitcom for eight years gave the world a successful Black platform of people who were prosperous, led by doctor and lawyer parents who were both strong and funny while raising their children to be the best people they could be."
>> For more on his impact, check out Lisa Respers France's conversation with Erica Hill on "CNN This Morning."
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Paramount has "agreed to buy the global streaming rights for 'South Park' to bring the show to the company’s digital service, Paramount+, for the first time in the U.S.," the LAT's Meg James reports. The deal resolves a dramatic dispute with creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and "values the global streaming rights at $300 million a year."
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>> Alex Warren's "Ordinary" has scored its seventh week atop the Billboard Hot 100. (Billboard)
>> Anne Hathaway has shared a first look at "The Devil Wears Prada 2." (TheWrap)
>> "The first trailer for James Cameron’s 'Avatar' threequel will screen exclusively in theaters before showings of Marvel’s 'Fantastic Four.'" (Variety)
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