Good morning from Miami, where the Bad Bunny Bowl was a huge hit. Here's the latest from Reporters Without Borders, Meta, David Remnick, the "Today" show, the FCC, 404 Media, Coinbase, and more... |
This first story isn't as sexy as a Super Bowl halftime concert, but it warrants attention. Over the weekend, President Trump publicly blessed Nexstar's pending acquisition of Tegna, which will strengthen the right-leaning Nexstar and shrink the number of station owners in the US.
FCC chairman Brendan Carr responded to Trump's post by saying the president is "exactly right" and "let's get it done."
So, it's yet another demonstration that "M&A goes through the Oval Office right now," as I recently quoted a media exec saying.
Nexstar CEO Perry Sook has worked overtime to appeal to Trump, billing his company as "the anti-fake news" and going on Maria Bartiromo's Fox Business show to praise Trump's policies. Media observers wondered whether new MAGA-friendly talk shows on the Nexstar-owned NewsNation were partly a way to appeal to the president as well.
But the Nexstar-Tegna tie-up also created a schism in conservative media, with Newsmax and One America News Network lobbying hard against the deal. "The president doesn't want this," Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy — often described as a personal friend of Trump's — said in November. Politico's Gregory Svirnovskiy wrote more about that here.
|
Trump's rhetoric around this topic has been really revealing. For Nexstar to take over Tegna, the FCC would have to change the national TV ownership rule, which caps station ownership at 39 percent of all US TV households. Carr wants to raise the cap, and obviously, station conglomerates want the same.
Trump seemed to echo Ruddy's anti-deal talking points in November, writing, "If this would also allow the Radical Left Networks to 'enlarge,' I would not be happy." Then he raged against ABC and NBC.
Judging from Trump's newest post, though, someone (or multiple someones) persuaded him to see things differently. "We need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks," he wrote Saturday. "Letting Good Deals get done like Nexstar - Tegna will help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition, and at a higher and more sophisticated level."
There will, by definition, be less actual competition in markets like Denver, Seattle and Dallas.
But Carr echoed Trump's "competition" claim in a post on Saturday. "The national networks like Comcast & Disney have amassed too much power," he wrote on X. "For years, they've been pushing this Hollywood & New York programming all over the country with no real checks."
The Independent's WH correspondent Andrew Feinberg responded on X, "This is more than a bit ridiculous. Nexstar and TEGNA own local stations which are all affiliated with the national networks Carr is denigrating here."
That's correct. We saw how Nexstar capitulated when Disney brought Jimmy Kimmel back on the air last September. But the argument from Carr — and from the WSJ editorial board, which cheered Trump's "wise change of heart" — is that Nexstar should be allowed to grow, to better compete with (purportedly more liberal) companies with streaming and social media platforms.
>> By the way, lest we all read past Trump's use of the word "enemy," Rep. Joe Neguse and Sen. Michael Bennet responded in a statement: "By designating news outlets he dislikes as 'the enemy,' Trump has continued his baseless attack on reporters who devote their careers to investigating those in power and holding them to account."
|
Journalists and advocates from groups such as the National Association of Hispanic Journalists are on Capitol Hill today opposing the deal, saying it "threatens newsroom independence, reduces diversity of viewpoints, cuts local coverage capacity, and raises costs for consumers," per a press release.
The lobbying day is timed to tomorrow's Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the station ownership rules. Ruddy is slated to testify.
|
The FCC says it is following through on Carr's threats to target shows like ABC's "The View." The agency says it is probing whether the talk show "violated equal time rules for interviews with political candidates" for booking James Talarico (even though his main primary rival, Jasmine Crockett, was already on the show), as David Shepardson reported for Reuters.
But will this amount to anything? The FCC’s lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, says it's a "sham" probe: "This is government intimidation, not a legitimate investigation."
|
Hoda co-hosts 'Today' as Guthrie search continues |
Hoda Kotb co-hosted the "Today" show this morning as Savannah Guthrie's search for her mother, Nancy, stretches into a second workweek. "We are a family. I’m part of the family. I’m happy to be with you because we show up for each other," Kotb said at the top of the show. The AP's David Bauder wrote about NBC's approach to covering the Guthrie news here. And you can catch up on CNN's live updates here.
|
WaPo cuts Will Lewis loose |
It’s a new day at The Washington Post, and journalists across the organization are cautiously looking ahead. Former Tumblr CEO Jeff D'Onofrio, who recently joined the Post as CFO, is now the interim publisher and CEO following the defenestration (yes, we’re using that word) of Will Lewis.
In an unusually abrupt Saturday night news dump, Lewis stepped down, a move that The Post's staff guild called "overdue." The guild said his "legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution."
Lewis' memo to the newsroom was terse and thanked no one. And Jeff Bezos did not thank Lewis in his own statement... or mention him at all. Everything about the move suggested it was sudden and not-so-amicable.
The FT quoted a source saying, "Bezos lost patience after the Super Bowl thing," i.e., Lewis showing up on the NFL Honors red carpet the day after the mass layoffs.
>> BI's Peter Kafka argues that Lewis may have "had a terrible tenure," but "let's be clear: This one's on Jeff Bezos."
|
'Don't give up on the Post' |
One big question: How many Post subscribers have cancelled in the past five days due to the mass layoffs? Someone at the company knows, but they're not telling. So far, the cancellation # has not leaked.
I appreciated what CBS correspondent Ed O'Keefe, a Post alum, wrote on X last night: "Don’t give up on The Post. Subscribe, engage, demand more. Same goes for any local news outlet near you — subscribe or watch, engage, demand more."
|
'Melania' doesn't have legs |
"Melania" "fell off a steep 67 percent" in its second weekend, "leading to a likely 10th-place finish with $2.4 million," THR's Pamela McClintock writes. Over the weekend, Amazon MGM Studios put out a statement "stressing" that the film "is already a win for cinemas" and expressing confidence in its Prime Video rollout.
>> Overall to date, "Melania" has earned about $13.3 million domestically, and Amazon hasn't shared any overseas box office #s.
|
'Today, the curtain falls on press freedom in Hong Kong' |
That's what Reporters Without Borders said when former Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday morning.
"We are outraged by the harsh sentence," the group said. "This court decision underscores the complete collapse of press freedom in Hong Kong and the authorities' profound contempt for independent journalism."
CNN's Chris Lau has a full report on the sentencing here...
|
Opening statements in two major social media trials |
"The first stand-alone trial from state prosecutors in a stream of lawsuits against Meta is getting underway in New Mexico," The AP's Morgan Lee writes.
Opening statements are expected today. The case "is built on a state undercover investigation using proxy social media accounts and posing as kids to document sexual solicitations and the response from Meta."
On the eve of trial, the company pushed back hard, arguing the undercover investigation was compromised. Here is Andy Stone's full thread about that.
>> Meanwhile, opening statements are also getting underway today in the bellwether social media addiction trial in L.A., and CNN's Clare Duffy has a full preview here...
|
No Super Bowl ratings until tomorrow |
Hats off to NBC for an epic day of television — with the Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl, and then even more Olympics all in the same day.
Unfortunately, we won't be getting any Super Bowl #s from Nielsen today. Overnights are basically a thing of the past, due to Nielsen's new "Big Data + Panel" approach, which takes an extra day to capture the full audience. Nielsen and NBC are expecting to share #s for the game and the halftime show shortly after 4 p.m. ET Tuesday.
But we can confidently state that the halftime show was exponentially more popular than Turning Point USA's attempt at counter-programming. While the "All American" live-stream "drew over 6 million concurrent views on YouTube," The Athletic's Jordy Fee-Platt wrote, last year's halftime concert drew 133 million views.
|
Bad Bunny's big bash — and the backlash |
Our own Andrew Kirell said it best: "The thing about that incredible halftime set is Bad Bunny didn’t even need to 'get political' in the traditional sense. Joy alone feels like a political act in 2026." The set was a giant party, colorful and chock-full of celebrity cameos, with nods to Puerto Rican history and statements about the power of community and love triumphing over hate.
"For months, conservatives from the president on down have painted him as anti-American. Last night, Bad Bunny asked: What if I'm the real American?" CNN's Ali Rosenbloom wrote.
Surprising no one, Trump complained. He called it "absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence."
Open question: Did the racist image he reposted of the Obamas as apes "represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence"?
|
>> "According to iSpot, 23% of Super Bowl commercials — 15 out of the 66 ads — featured AI," Trishla Ostwal wrote. (AdWeek)
>> "What stood out this year was the high volume of A-list celebrity appearances," Auzinea Bacon and Robert Ilich wrote. (CNN)
>> A few of my personal favorites: Anthropic's ad throwing shade at OpenAI, Michelob Ultra's "Greg" spot, and Xfinity's trip to "Jurassic Park."
>> About that Coinbase ad that just showed Backstreet Boys lyrics, CEO Brian Armstrong said, "Turning 100M+ screens into karaoke, so the whole U.S. (and many around the world) can sing in unison, is an antidote to polarization and just plain fun."
>> 404 Media bought a Super Bowl ad for $2,250 in one small Iowa market, to demonstrate what the process is like. (404 Media)
|
>> New from David Remnick this morning: "Listening to Joe Rogan." (New Yorker)
>> Max Tani reports that late last year, The Washington Post was set to unveil a new slogan, "We the People," but then MS NOW launched a brand campaign with the exact same slogan. (Semafor)
>> Ross Douthat responded to author Seth Harp's accusation that the NYT spiked his interview because he "decisively" beat Douthat in a debate. Douthat said it was just an "unsuccessful episode" in which the "latter half of our discussion became unmoored" in an unproductive way. (X)
|
>> “Homeland security field agents are scouring the social media site Reddit, monitoring the communications of law-abiding Americans critical of the agency,” Ken Klippenstein reports. (KlipNews)
>> “Settlement talks between ticketing giant Live Nation and the Justice Department are deepening fractures inside the Trump administration over antitrust enforcement,” Rohan Goswami, Liz Hoffman and Ben Smith report. (Semafor)
>> As Section 230 turns 30, Lauren Feiner writes that it “faces its biggest tests yet.” (The Verge)
|
|
|
|
® © 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
