Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Half the week is in the rearview mirror. Scroll down below for how NBC News is defending its correspondent amid controversy, what the Anti-Defamation League is saying about Tucker Carlson "sanitizing" his Kanye West interview, details on the cuts at Gannett, and which Big Tech company TikTok is taking aim at next. But first, the A1.

THE A1

Alex Jones Sent to Hell

CNN Photo Illustration/Mike Segar/Reuters

Judgment Day arrived on Wednesday for Alex Jones — and he said that it felt like he landed in Hell.

"This must be what Hell's like," the notorious right-wing conspiracy theorist said on an Infowars livestream as a Connecticut jury awarded plaintiffs a staggering nearly $1 billion in damages.

Of course, the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims actually know what Hell feels like. Jones put them there with his heinous conspiracy theories and lies about the 2012 shooting, which he repeated again and again over the years, ignoring pleas to stop.

But Jones isn't wrong to feel crushed. As former US Attorney Harry Litman said after the mammoth awards to the plaintiffs were read in court, Jones will be "basically broke" for the remainder of his life. And it's not just his houses or Rolex watches that he could lose.

With its punishing award, the jury's decision will likely shrink or even doom Jones' media empire, which has been at the center of major conspiracy theories dating back to former President George W. Bush's administration and which was embraced by former President Donald Trump.

Jones has, of course, vowed to appeal. So he may be able to delay the inevitable for a little time longer. But not forever. The clock is now ticking on Infowars. Will jones have a platform in five years? Ten years?

If he struggled with being deplatformed from major social media websites (I've seen it up close), Jones is going to be in for an entirely new world of hurt when he loses the instrument he built over the years that allowed him to weaponize information for his own ends.

The reckoning for Jones comes at a seismic moment in American society, where hate, lies, and conspiracy theories have flourished in recent years, often enriching and empowering those who peddle them to the masses.

But, as I wrote earlier this week, the corrosive form of information warfare that Jones rode to fame and fortune is not going anywhere. It is here to stay. And it is, unfortunately, more popular than ever, with right-wing media stars and top Republican politicians emulating Jones' modus operandi.

At this point, one has to frankly even wonder how much the ultimate demise of Jones and his Infowars business would even clean up the discourse. After all, his brand of hate and lies have already been fused into a large swath of the public dialogue.

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

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Closing Argument: The January 6 committee will hold its final televised hearing ahead of the November midterms on Thursday afternoon. Notably, the hearing is occurring in the afternoon — not prime time. That's likely a result of how difficult it would have been for the committee to have wrestled away hours of fall prime time programming from networks. When the broadcast networks initially aired the first hearing in prime, it was during the summer when almost nothing else of interest was airing.

But networks have now rolled out their fall shows and spent not-insignificant sums of money promoting them, making the ask for prime time air a lot more challenging. Plus, it would be competing with October baseball and "Thursday Night Football." By holding the hearing during the day, it pretty much guarantees the major networks will carry the proceedings. On cable, even Fox News said it would present live coverage. And, regardless, cable news will still chew over the hearing in prime.

Defending Dasha: NBC News is responding to the torrent of criticism correspondent Dasha Burns has faced over her John Fetterman interview. "Dasha is a widely respected beat reporter on the Pennsylvania Senate race and has provided in-depth reporting from the state for the better part of the last year," an NBC News spokesperson told me Wednesday evening. "We stand behind her extensive coverage of all the important dimensions of this year's Senate campaigns."

The formal show of support from NBC comes after Burns prompted backlash when she said after her interview with Fetterman, his first in-person TV sit-down since his stroke, that "it was not clear" he understood the small talk that occurred before it got underway. The interview was aided by closed-captioning, which Fetterman told Burns he uses after his stroke because he "sometimes will hear things in a way that's not perfectly clear." But the small talk before it was not. Burns did stress Thursday that "once the closed captioning was on, he was able to fully understand my questions."

OFF THE WIRE

David Bauder has a recap of the controversy and notes that Burns' statement "has already been tweeted by political opponents." (AP)
Disability advocates said Burns' comments were "deeply upsetting to see." (BuzzFeed)
Kara Swisher and Rebecca Traister, both of whom have recently interviewed Fetterman, also pushed back strongly against Burns' comments. (Mediaite)
Speaking of which, a correction: In the previous edition of this newsletter, I wrote that Burns had landed the first interview with Fetterman since his stroke. That was incorrect. She had landed the first in-person television sit-down. Swisher and Traister had both interviewed him prior to NBC.

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Fox News

Condemning Carlson: Tucker Carlson's decision to cleanse the interview he conducted with Kanye West of antisemitic remarks earned the right-wing host another condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL, which has not been shy about speaking out against Fox News and Carlson over the years, told me in a statement, "Tucker giving airtime to Kanye and trying to sanitize, or coach him through his antisemitism is contemptible, and unfortunately par for the course with Carlson."

🔎 Zooming in: While it is not surprising that Carlson did what he did, it does speak volumes about who he is. Carlson could have at any point challenged or condemned West when he made the ugly comments. But instead he chose to use West as a vehicle for his own politics, deciding to shelve the newsworthy comments — and perhaps worst of all, vouch for West to his massive audience.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

"The deceptive editing points to how much leeway the Fox host thinks he has from the network brass, as well as the deceitful way he handles his show," Matt Gertz writes. (MMFA)
The Upside Down: The racist Daily Stormer is cheering on West. (Rolling Stone)
Meanwhile: LeBron James' "The Shop" said it will not run an interview with Kanye West after he used "more hate speech" and "dangerous stereotypes." (CNN)

THE BUSINESS

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Cuts at Gannett: "The chief executive of Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, announced widespread cost-cutting to its newsrooms," The NYT's Katie Robertson and Benjamin Mullin reported Wednesday. The measures include mandatory holiday leave and suspending the company's 401k match. In a memo, which you can read in full here, CEO Mike Reed placed blame on the "deteriorating macroeconomic environment" and said the steps are necessary "to ensure our balance sheet remains strong." Read Robertson and Mullin's story here.

CNN's A.M. Show Coming Soon: CNN on Wednesday unveiled the name of its new marquee morning show as well as the start date. The program, "CNN This Morning," will debut on November 1, just ahead of the midterm elections. "We're going to put the full power of CNN's newsgathering on display because we can do that better than anybody," the network's SVP of content strategy, Ryan Kadro, told the AP's David Bauder. Kadro said that CNN wants to take advantage of heightened ratings during the midterms, which will mean the show will start broadcasting from a temporary set while the new one is under construction. Read Bauder's full story here.

► On a related note: The numbers for Jake Tapper's prime time debut are in. While MSNBC's Alex Wagner bested him in total viewers, Tapper won the 9pm hour handily in the key 25-54 demo, averaging 211K viewers to Wagner's 144K. Tapper did have the benefit, of course, of interviews with President Joe Biden and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. But, from a purely ratings perspective, the show is off to a solid start.

IN THE MARKET

Maggie Haberman's magnum opus on Donald Trump, "Confidence Man," has debuted at No. 1 on The NYT's bestsellers list. (NYT)
Jeffrey Katzenberg tells Claire Atkinson he's done with media after "riding that Quibi rocket ship into the ground." (Insider)
Netflix is "inching closer to building a huge production studio on the Jersey Shore," John Koblin reports. (NYT)
More layoffs hit Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday, this time affecting the WBD Streaming Marketing division. (Deadline)
But, WBD said that it will keep its Writers Workshop and Directors Workshop alive under its DEI unit. (Variety)
"What happens when journalists become the story?" Vogue spoke to The NYT's Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey ahead of the release of "She Said." (Vogue)

MEDIA MOVES

NBCU parent Comcast has appointed Mike Cavanagh president. (The Wrap)
ABC Entertainment has hired Felicia Joseph as SVP of casting. (Deadline)
Warner Bros. Television has selected Parul Agrawal as its head of drama. (Variety)
WaPo has named Beth Reinhard as a politics investigations reporter. (WaPo)
Josh Billinson has joined Semafor as social media editor. (Twitter)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Mario Tama/Getty Images

Swinging for Spotify: Another day, another Big Tech giant that TikTok is seemingly coming for. On Wednesday, The WSJ's Jessica Toonkel, Anne Steele, and Salvador Rodriguez reported that the social media company's parent, ByteDance, has "begun talks with music labels about expanding its music-streaming service globally to compete with industry leaders including Spotify." The trio said their sources cautioned that hurdles do remain on the road. But, they noted that the company wants to ultimately incorporate the service within its TikTok app. Read the full story here.

TOO MANY TABS

Joseph Menn and Cat Zakrzewski report that Elon Musk's rhetoric on Vladimir Putin has stoked "fears of new Twitter policies." (WaPo)
Kurt Wagner argues that Twitter "faces only bad outcomes if the" Elon Musk deal closes. (Bloomberg)
Steve Kovach writes about how Mark Zuckerberg has "set expectations" for the new Meta Quest Pro "at rock bottom." (CNBC)
Connor Smith on how the "Big Tech AI wars" are "coming." (Barrons)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Trevor Noah's Last Day: The final episode of "The Daily Show" with Trevor Noah as the host will air on Thursday, December 8, Comedy Central announced Wednesday evening. The show will begin the week by airing some of the greatest moments. Comedy Central added that "The Daily Show" will return after the holidays, starting to again broadcast on January 17. The network said "additional details" about the show are "forthcoming."

OFF STAGE

Anthony Rapp explained why he came forward against Kevin Spacey in court on Wednesday. (THR)
Stephen Colbert will host a celebrity-packed pickleball tournament, featuring actors such as Will Ferrell and Emma Watson. (AP)
Emily Ratajkowski is launching a new podcast. (Variety)
Warner Bros. Discovery's decision to use TBS' airing of the MLB postseason to run an in-game ad for "House of Dragon" has not been well-received. (Deadline)
Netflix's "The Crown" is readying to shoot the scenes leading up to Princess Diana's death. (Variety)