Puck peddles a pro-Will Lewis narrative as the embattled WaPo publisher faces more questions about his ethical integrity, Alex Jones' Infowars empire is set to be shut down and sold off, Paramount+ hikes prices, MTV News' website shutters, Julian Assange strikes a plea deal that avoids prison time, Jonah Peretti meets with Vivek Ramaswamy, the music industry sues A.I. companies, "Inside Out 2" continues to power the summer box office, Taylor Swift fires back at Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, and so much more. But first, the A1. |
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| MAGA Media's Miscalculation |
CNN Photo Illustration/Win McNamee/Getty Images |
Donald Trump's allies in right-wing media have a problem ahead of CNN's presidential debate: They've set the bar too low for President Joe Biden.
For years, and particularly over the last few months, MAGA Media has portrayed Biden as a senile, mentally incapacitated elderly man who cannot remember what he had for breakfast, let alone run the federal government. That might sound like an exaggeration to those who don't tune in to Fox News or listen to talk radio, but it has been a real and constant theme in the right-wing media universe.
To support the narrative, these outlets and personalities have seized on Biden's verbal gaffes (while ignoring Trump's) and presented out-of-context video clips to their large audiences — a deceptive, but effective strategy that the Biden campaign has struggled to meaningfully rebut.
Enter Thursday's high-stakes political showdown. The debate, which will be one of the most-watched moments of the 2024 presidential campaign cycle, will allow audiences from coast-to-coast the opportunity to watch an unfiltered Biden go head-to-head with Trump for some 90 minutes. While the two will undoubtedly tangle over a host of issues, the stage also will afford Biden a unique opportunity to puncture the narrative he lacks the mental fitness to be commander-in-chief. That's a worry for right-wing media figures, which risk seeing their bogus narrative about Biden being ripped up in real time. As right-wing personality Megyn Kelly even put it Monday, Biden will come out great if he manages to simply "not die" during the face-off with Trump.
"The stakes could not be lower for a Joe Biden performance," Kelly observed.
To account for the looming reality in which Biden has no trouble walking on stage without the help of a handler (some in right-wing media had suggested Biden required President Barack Obama's help to complete such a task), Trump's media allies are already searching for excuses. And they're getting noticeably desperate.
One such claim boosted by Trump's media allies is the conspiracy theory — which lacks any evidence — that the president will be on performance-enhancing supplements or drugs during the debate. That narrative, which was also floated after Biden's forceful State of the Union speech earlier this year, has been promoted by none other than Trump himself.
"He's sleeping now, because they want to get him good and strong," Trump said at a campaign rally over the weekend. "So a little before debate time, he gets a shot in the ass."
That narrative has been, predictably, amplified by Trump's media supporters, who all overlooked the fact that Trump repeatedly fell asleep mid-day at his own trial earlier this year in court. Fox News host Jesse Watters, for instance, played into it on Monday's episode of "The Five," claiming Biden "is going to be taking shots at the jungle juice" ahead of the debate so that he can appear energetic.
MAGA Media has also settled around a scapegoat to protect Trump if he should perform poorly: CNN. The dishonest pro-Trump forces, particularly the overt propagandist Sean Hannity, have leveled a barrage of attacks aimed at Jake Tapper, who will be co-moderating the debate alongside Dana Bash. Tapper, the hard-hitting anchor and CNN's chief Washington correspondent, has been portrayed as a Democratic hack. While it is an absurd accusation, it is one MAGA Media is gleefully pushing, even attempting to do so on CNN's own air.
On Monday morning, CNN anchor Kasie Hunt abruptly ended an interview with Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, who repeatedly assailed Tapper and Bash as "biased" news anchors. After booting Leavitt from her program, Hunt noted that "if you're attacking the moderators, you're usually losing."
Hunt is, of course, spot on. The hang-up, however, for MAGA Media is that they've forced themselves into a corner. Now, they're trying to find a way to break free — and they're getting desperate. | |
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What the Puck?: Embattled Washington Post publisher Will Lewis doesn't have many allies these days — but he's found one in Puck. The upstart digital news outlet, which caters itself to elite audiences in media and politics, has been running with a distinctly pro-Lewis narrative over the last few weeks. In no uncertain terms, Puck has pushed a storyline supportive of Lewis, in which entitled journalists at The WaPo are either too stupid or naïve to understand the complexities of the troubled economics facing the news industry. As a result, this narrative goes, they are "scheming" to overthrow their new leader because he wishes to reimagine the newspaper's business. Suffice to say, it is a flawed narrative that does not reflect the full realities of the situation.
In truth, Lewis has not put forth any revolutionary business ideas that would shock the newsroom into mounting such a "coup." To date, his most notable ideas amount to establishing a nebulous third newsroom, allowing audiences to purchase stories à la carte, and launching a suite of subscription products aimed at professionals. None are so groundbreaking in nature that they would inspire a full-throated rebellion from his army of journalists, who have already endured plenty of disruption through the years, including a round of brutal buyouts last year executed by Patty Stonesifer. In fact, while Lewis' business plan was met with a dash of confusion, most staffers I have spoken to were generally open to see how the strategy played out. Yet, strangely, the narrative that Puck — and one would presume Lewis and his allies — is trying to advance posits that The WaPo newsroom is effectively made up of conspiring reporters so triggered and threatened by Lewis' fairly unimaginative business plan that they have to throw him overboard.
The reality of the situation is far easier to digest. Journalists at The WaPo are worried that Lewis lacks the ethics and integrity and leadership acumen to serve as publisher of the storied newspaper. They are alarmed that Lewis attempted to suppress stories about his role as a Rupert Murdoch lieutenant helping to clean up the right-wing media mogul's U.K. phone hacking scandal — revelations that came to light after Sally Buzbee was ousted as the top editor earlier this month. While Lewis denies wrongdoing in the hacking scandal, he has chosen to remain publicly silent about it, though he found time to launch an ugly attack on NPR's David Folkenflik for his reporting on on the matter, calling him "an activist, not a journalist." Unfortunately for Lewis, questions about the phone hacking scandal aren't going away soon, given that Prince Harry's lawsuit, which has revived the allegations into the public consciousness, is set to go to trial early next year. And as that process plays out, other stories have raised additional — and serious — questions about Lewis' journalistic integrity. That is why The WaPo is ensnared in a crisis.
The turmoil gripping The WaPo has little, if anything, to do with Lewis' business proposals for the newspaper. It has everything to do with his leadership style and ethical integrity (which, it should be noted, does impact The WaPo as a business), both of which have been thrown into doubt in recent weeks. Puck has offered hard-hitting coverage on other newsroom leaders when they've lost the trust and respect of their staff (see Chris Licht, Kim Godwin, etcetera). So it is odd that, when it comes to The WaPo, it has in its published stories and podcasts so casually and callously dismissed the newsroom's very real concerns in favor of a nakedly pro-Lewis narrative. |
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- Puck senior reporter Dylan Byers faced a torrent of criticism over the weekend for his Friday column, in which he advanced the aforementioned narrative and portrayed The WaPo journalists doing investigative reporting on Will Lewis as a mere "attempt to defenestrate" their boss.
- Puck co-founder and Editor-In-Chief Jon Kelly told me in response to the backlash, "As always, we stand by Dylan's incredible reporting." Though it is worth noting that it's not just Byers who has promoted this narrative. Kelly and Peter Hamby have both done so too!
- As we have repeatedly noted, the crisis at the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper is not going to vanish from sight anytime soon. The NYT published another investigative piece Monday raising questions about Lewis' role in the U.K. hacking scandal. The paper reported that documents it obtained revealed U.K. authorities "were suspicious of News Corporation's intentions, and came to view Mr. Lewis as an impediment" in their probe. (NYT)
- Over the weekend, The WaPo also published another deeply-reported story on Lewis, this one focused on how a company he holds a financial stake in has entered into an agreement with the newspaper. (WaPo)
- In The WaPo's weekend story, former interim chief executive Patty Stonesifer was quoted defending Lewis, with the newspaper characterizing her as an advisor to the newspaper. I'm told that she has re-engaged with the newspaper and is now helping to advise Bezos and Lewis on go-forward strategic efforts — a sign that Bezos is aware of the severity of the crisis.
- Even Jack Shafer, always one with a contrarian opinion, is questioning Lewis' "PR strategy of deflection and silence" as WaPo boss. "Is this any way for the publisher of the Washington Post to behave? Especially a former top Financial Times and Daily Telegraph journalist who has turned publisher?" Shafer asks. "The press demands accountability from people in power, such as Lewis. Instead of coming clean, he's chosen to present like an unscrupulous member of Congress, or a corporate chief caught sweeping toxic waste under the carpet." (POLITICO)
- Anne Applebaum: "Readers don't trust dirty tricks." (The Atlantic)
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- RIP: MTV has pulled the plug on the website of MTV News, meaning that "more than two decades' worth of content ... is no longer available," Todd Spangler reports. (Variety)
- Paul Farhi writes about how it is more common for spokespeople to refuse to even respond to requests for comment. "Nonresponses are rife, and growing rapidly," Farhi reports, citing Nexis data. (CJR)
- MSNBC, continuing to lean into live events, is trotting out its biggest stars for a September 7 program in Brooklyn, which will even include an intimate dinner for some of the attendees, Alex Weprin reports. (THR)
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- Paramount+ is hiking the price tags on both its advertising-supported and premium plans. (THR)
- BuzzFeed has been trying to sell First We Feast, which owns the hit YouTube show "Hot Ones," for more than $70 million, Lucas Shaw reports. (Bloomberg)
- Speaking of Shaw, he and Molly Schuetz write that Netflix's greatest advertising challenge is that it "isn't big enough." (Bloomberg)
- Nicole Sperling reports on Netflix's latest culture memo: It "is more about how it expects employees to behave than what it wants to become." (NYT)
- James B. Stewart and Benjamin Mullin talked to "nearly a dozen top media executives and asked them to predict" the future of the industry, though no one really said anything very surprising. (NYT)
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- The Academy re-upped Bill Kramer as its chief through 2028. (NYT)
- New York magazine hired Charlotte Klein to pen a weekly media column and features. (New York)
- Quartz hired Sarah Douglass as its executive editor. (TBN)
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CNN Photo Illustration/David J. Phillip/AP |
Infowars Nears the Inferno: Infowars is on its death bed — though how long it continues to breathe its final gasps there remains to be seen. The conspiracy media entity owned and operated by right-wing extremist Alex Jones will eventually be shut down and sold off, the bankruptcy court-appointed trustee disclosed in a filing Sunday. The trustee said, flatly, that he plans to end the company's operations "and liquidate its inventory" — the first time such plans have been publicly revealed. But in order to achieve that in an "orderly" fashion, the trustee has asked the bankruptcy court for some additional time. CNN's Hadas Gold has more here. |
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- A Win for WikiLeaks: In a remarkable turn of events, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange cut a plea deal with the U.S. government in which he will plead guilty to a felony charge, but avoid imprisonment in the U.S. (CNN)
- BuzzFeed boss Jonah Peretti and right-wing conspiracy theorist Vivek Ramaswamy, who has taken an activist stake in the media company, recently met for over an hour, Dan Primack reports. (Axios)
- Murdoch Media continues to vilify migrants. The latest example?Jeanine Pirro ranted Monday that "the presumption" should be undocumented migrants are considered to be "murders," "gang members," and "pedophiles." (MMFA)
- "Donald Trump has said so many crazy things over the years that some news organizations have decided it's not news anymore. So when the would-be dictator who's running for president makes outrageous comments, the mainstream media often yawns. And that's really crazy," Mark Jacob writes. (Stop the Presses)
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CNN Photo Illustration/Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images |
A.I. Faces the Music: It's not just Hollywood and news publishers that are unhappy with how A.I. companies have been using their works to train computer models — the music industry is up in arms too. On Monday, the Recording Industry Association of America filed two copyright lawsuits against A.I. companies Suno and Uncharted Labs, with boss Mitch Glazier saying the legal action was "necessary to reinforce the most basic rules of the road for responsible, ethical, and lawful development of generative A.I. systems." CNN's Samantha Murphy Kelly has more here. 🔎 Zooming in: As Platformer's Casey Newton noted on Monday, "The lawsuits draw fresh attention to the still-unsettled question about the extent to which media published online can be freely used to train generative A.I. models and be transformed for other purposes, such as in-depth article summaries." |
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- More trouble for Mark Zuckerberg: "A new report on financial sextortion reveals that Instagram appears to be the most used platform for sextortion in the U.S.," Kate Tenbarge reports. (NBC News)
- "Has Facebook stopped trying?" asks Jason Koebler, reporting that the platform is now "overrun with A.I. spam and scams" while several experts who used to consult with the company on safety matters "have not engaged with Meta in years." (404 Media)
- So sensitive! Documents obtained by The NYT show top communications officials at Meta were triggered by a story Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel authored in 2021. In the tranche of documents, Nick Clegg referred to Mac as "the worst of the worst." Mac noted the emails "illustrate how the company views reporters and accountability reporting." (Threads)
- Rotten Apple? The E.U. accused Apple of violating its tough Digital Markets Act and could issue a hefty fine. (CNN)
- TikTok is "in denial" as it careens toward a ban in the U.S., Max Tani and Ben Smith report. (Semafor)
- OpenAI "is on an M&A tear," Kyle Wiggers writes, reporting that the A.I. giant has purchased yet another startup. (TechCrunch)
- New "close friends" features from Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat show how social media companies are trying to rekindle their social origins, Sydney Bradley and Dan Whateley write. (Business Insider)
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CNN Photo Illustration/Disney |
Powered by Pixar: The summer box office, which industry observers had expressed no shortage of fear over, has roared to life, thanks largely to Pixar's "Inside Out 2." The sequel smashed past expectations — again — over the weekend, selling $101 million worth of tickets at the domestic box office. That figure represented a mere 35% decline from its opening weekend, meaning the family-friendly film outperformed hits such as "Avengers: Endgame" and "Star Wars: Force Awakens" on the key metric. That's due to the very good worth-of-mouth for the film and perhaps, the record-setting heatwave that swept the country, making those cool theaters a very appealing place to spend a few hours. Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro has more here. ► THR's Pamela McClintock looked at how "Inside Out 2" became "2024's first must-see movie." (One might argue that "Dune: Part 2" was also must-see, but we understand the point McClintock is making!) ► CNBC's Sarah Whitten noted that the Pixar film "could be the first billion-dollar movie of 2024." |
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- Taylor Swift's "Tortured Poets Department" is still No. 1 on the Billboard 200, marking the ninth consecutive week the album has been in the top spot. (Billboard)
- Travis Kelce made an on-stage appearance during the London leg of Swift's "Eras Tour" on Sunday, carrying the pop star out dressed in a tailcoat and top hat during the "Tortured Poets" set. (CNN)
- Heh? Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, who was also playing in London over the weekend, launched a bizarre attack on Swift, saying his band "actually play[s] live." (Rolling Stone)
- Swift, who plays three-to-four hour shows each night, indirectly responded, saying her team deserves credit for their performances: "Every one of my band members, every single one of our crew, my band who's gonna be playing live for you for 3.5 hours tonight, they deserve this so much. And so does every one of my fellow performers." (CNN)
- Switching gears: Will Smith, stepping even further into the public spotlight after "The Slap" incident, will perform a new song Sunday at the BET Awards. (Variety)
- FX moved up the season three premiere of "The Bear." (Deadline)
- Apple TV+ renewed "The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy" for a third season. (Deadline)
- Production started on the "Freaky Friday" sequel. (The Wrap)
- Bob Odenkirk will star in Universal's "Nobody 2." (Deadline)
- Michael Fassbender will join Paramount+'s spy-thriller series "The Agency." (THR)
- Brian Cox will star in a historical fiction for Wondery+. (The Wrap)
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Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino and produced with the assistance of Liam Reilly. Have feedback? Send us an email. You can follow us on Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow. |
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