Monday, November 14, 2022

Monday is gone. The WSJ is zinging Trump, ABC News is implementing freezes, The New Yorker is relaunching its popular podcast, the employee Elon Musk fired by tweet is speaking out, and more. Plus, Margot Robbie reveals that Disney has ditched the female-led "Pirates" and "Andor" is getting a big holiday push. But first, the A1.

THE A1

The Trump-Pence Split Screen

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A split-screen for the ages is about to play out this week.

On Monday night, former Vice President Mike Pence kicked off his book tour, appearing for a candid sit-down with ABC News' David Muir in which he forcefully denounced his former boss, ex-President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Trump is set to announce on Tuesday night from his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach that he will run for president in 2024.

It's an unprecedented situation unfolding on television screens across America: A former president announcing another bid for the White House as his former vice president criticizes him on a high-profile national media tour.

In his interview with Muir, which aired in part on "World News Tonight" and will air in full during a one-hour special on ABC at 10pm, Pence laced into Trump for "reckless" behavior on January 6 which he said endangered the lives of himself and his family. Pence added that the country will "have better choices in the future" to elect to the nation's highest office and said he, himself, is mulling whether to challenge Trump for the job.

It's just the first of many media appearances Pence is set to make this week. Pence also appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Monday night in which did — oh so lightly — criticize Trump. And on Wednesday, the night after Trump makes his big announcement, Pence will appear on CNN for a town hall moderated by Jake Tapper.

The split-screen will put on full display the ugly fight that is set to once again play out in the Republican Party: The Trump wing versus everyone else.

"Covering Trump on Tuesday will not just be about covering a former president's ambition or his political plans," CBS News' Robert Costa told Vanity Fair's Charlotte Klein in a piece published Monday. "It's going to be about covering a reckoning inside the Republican Party about its future, and how it feels about former President Trump."

Trump's run for the White House will test news organizations in a significant way. The first challenge: Will networks take his speech on Tuesday night? If so, how much? And what about Fox News? Will the right-wing cable giant break into its regular prime time programming for Trump, or will the Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet give the cold shoulder to him? (I asked Fox News spokespeople, but they didn't return my email seeking comment.)

These types of high-stakes decisions will show just how much time and space news organizations — still reeling from the mistakes of the 2016 campaign — are willing to cede to the twice-impeached former president. On one hand, he is the former president and defacto leader of the GOP. On the other, he continues to undermine American democracy with dangerous misinformation.

It is a thorny situation — and one that every news organization is going to have to navigate.

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

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Presidents Push Back: Meanwhile, as the Trump-Pence split screen plays out, another one is also set to take place in the wake of Trump's announcement. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama are set to hold back-to-back democracy conferences in which they discuss the threat of authoritarianism and disinformation, Axios' Margaret Talev reported. Bush's event will take place in Dallas on Wednesday and Obama's will take place in New York on Thursday.

THE INFO WARS

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Murdoch's Mighty Machine : More evidence is emerging that Rupert Murdoch's powerful media empire is no longer in the Trump camp. The Wall Street Journal on Monday evening published a scathing editorial that described the former president's character flaws ("narcissism, lack of self-control, abusive treatment of advisers, his puerile vendettas") and declared if he were to secure the GOP nomination he would be "the man most likely to produce a GOP loss and total power for the progressive left." Meanwhile, Fox News' Brit Hume declared Trump's "star has faded." Oof.

► Speaking of Murdoch: i's David Parsley reported Monday that a senior News Corp source said that the Murdochs are (as of now) on the Ron DeSantis train — if that hasn't been clear enough already.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who recently left the Democratic party, has joined Fox News as a paid contributor. On Monday night, she was filling in as host for Tucker Carlson. (LA Times)
NBC News has suspended"Today" show correspondent Miguel Almaguer over his retracted Paul Pelosi attack report, Lachlan Cartwright scoops. (Daily Beast)
Arizona election officials have aggressively fired back at rumors and false claims as the swing state's critical vote counting continues. (AP)
"Oh, come on": In Arizona, Tim Miller confronted Steve Bannon over his false election claims on "The Circus." (Mediaite)
2020 vision: Claims of voter fraud in the midterms aren't as prominent as they were in 2020, though some lies are gaining traction. (NYT)

THE BUSINESS

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First in Reliable | Freeze Warning: On Friday, Disney CEO Bob Chapek outlined the steps that the entertainment giant will take to weather the uncertain economy. And on Monday morning, ABC News boss Kim Godwin explained to staffers how the moves will affect them. Godwin, who met with higher ups late Friday to discuss the situation, told staff on the outlet's daily editorial call that the network's hiring will be frozen, outside of executive producers and producers, sources told me. Godwin added that business travel — notably not travel for newsgathering — will also be frozen.

Regarding the potential for layoffs, Godwin told staffers that avoiding cuts is simply not something that she can promise because Disney has established a "cost structure task force" to hunt for savings. But Godwin said that Disney General Entertainment Content head Dana Walden is on that force and is a major advocate for news. Reached for comment, an ABC spokesperson said Godwin's remarks were transparent and spoke for themselves.

First in Reliable | Making A ' Scene': The New Yorker is relaunching its popular "Political Scene" podcast with a trio of new hosts: Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos. Senior editor Tyler Foggatt will also take over the weekly politics interview for the show, which will now be available three times a week. The show will continue to offer a weekly segment from Editor-In-Chief David Remnick's "The New Yorker Radio Hour," which is produced with WNYC.

► "I'm delighted that Susan, Jane, and Evan will be joining the show as hosts of a new roundtable discussion, and that Tyler will be hosting our weekly political interview," Remnick said. "Together, they'll help our listeners make sense of the U.S. political landscape and more at this moment for American democracy."

First in Reliable | WNYC Probes Right-Wing Radio : WNYC's On The Media on Tuesday will premiere a five-part series examining the role of right-wing talk radio in American politics. The series, called "The Divided Dial," will pay specific attention to Salem Media Group and how it has grown into a powerhouse in right-wing media. The series will go live here at 3am.

IN THE INDUSTRY

BuzzFeed shares are up slightly after the company reported a 15% year-over-year revenue increase, but saw user engagement fall 32% in Q3. (THR)
The US has informed Israel that the FBI is opening an investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. (Axios)
News Corp. execs are saying they expect Sunday Times editor Emma Tucker to be tapped to succeed The WSJ Editor-In-Chief Matt Murray, Max Tani reports. A Dow Jones spokesperson later commented to me that they won't "comment on rumors and speculation." (Semafor)
Another one from Tani: Sam Bankman-Fried invested in media before the implosion of FTX. One high-profile investments was in Semafor, which says that it received all the money in USD. (Semafor)
Andy Serwer is leaving Yahoo Finance as the company eliminates the editor-in-chief role, Lachlan Cartwright reported in his Confider newsletter.

MEDIA MOVES

The Boston Globe has named NPR news chief Nancy Barnes as its next editor, becoming the first woman in the role. (Globe)
POLITICO has named Sam Stein deputy managing editor for politics. (POLITICO)
Lisa Tolin has joined PEN America as editorial director. (Twitter)

THE VALLEY

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Alexa, find me a new job: It looks like Amazon will be the next Big Tech giant to execute mass layoffs. The NYT's Karen Weise reported Monday that the e-commerce titan will lay off approximately 10,000 employees — the biggest cut to the company's workforce in its history. The cuts, Weise reported, will focus on retail and Amazon's devices organization, which will impact Alexa. Wise also reported that the layoffs are not likely to be done in a single swing of the ax, but will roll out team by team. Here's the full story.

Bezos Says to Buckle Down: As his company buckles down amid economic uncertainty, Jeff Bezos is also urging Americans to do the same. In a rare sit-down interview with CNN's Chloe Melas, Bezos warned consumers to consider postponing big purchases in the coming months and keep some "dry powder" on hand. The comments are particularly noteworthy given that Bezos' Amazon would probably not prefer to see a slowdown in shopping.

► Bezos, who did the interview with partner Lauren Sanchez, also told Melas that he plans to give away the majority of his $124 billion net worth during his lifetime.

First in Reliable | Fired By Tweet: Software engineer Eric Frohnhoefer was at home in California when a co-worker shared a tweet with him. The tweet, from new Twitter boss Elon Musk, informed him that he had just been fired. The public termination came after Frohnhoefer quote-tweeted Musk, saying the billionaire was "wrong" about why Twitter was running "super slow" in various countries. Frohnhoefer told me that the method of firing struck him as "cowardly," adding that, "No one even reached out to me from Twitter."

Instead he's been slowly losing access to company systems. "[They] locked my computer at 1pm," he said, adding that he had "just lost Slack access" as we were talking. Frohnhoefer said he had been "willing to give it a try" under Musk and described himself as "in the wait-and-see camp," but that "everything that has been reported is true." He described working for Musk as a "total sh*t show" and the current state of affairs as pure "chaos." As for whether Twitter will have a future? Frohnhoefer indicated he isn't sure: "Time will tell."

Elon's Email to Swisher: Elon Musk apparently thinks Kara Swisher is an "asshole." For the latest episode of the "On" podcast, the tables were turned on Swisher as producer Nayeema Raza put her in the hot seat, asking about her relationship with Musk. "He's not speaking to me," Swisher said. "I'm an 'asshole.' He emailed me this recently."

Swisher said the email came after she tweeted reporting from WaPo about him wanting the US to pay for providing Starlink services to Ukraine. Swisher noted that she agreed Musk should get paid and made that point on Twitter, but apparently that wasn't enough. She said Musk emailed her with the subject: "You're an asshole." Inside the email was a screenshot of her tweets. "In this case, I was supporting him, which is really kind of ironic," Swisher said. Listen to the full pod here.

TOO MANY TABS

Musk is further gutting the teams that battle misinformation at Twitter with content moderators learning over the weekend they were out of a job. (AP)
Musk's SpaceX has purchased a large ad campaign on Twitter. (CNBC)
Google has agreed to a record $392 million settlement with 40 states for allegedly misleading consumers over its location tracking practices. (CNN)
Sen. Mark Warner: Donald Trump was "right" on TikTok. (Vox)
Outgoing Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker spoke to Jake Tapper for a wide-ranging interview, part of which touched on social media. Baker said David Bowie was onto something when in 1999 he described the internet as both exhilarating and terrifying. (CNN)
Sarah Scire says that Meta's layoffs "make it official" that "Facebook is ready to part ways with the news." (NiemanLab)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Vanity Fair

Disney Ditches Pirates: Margot Robbie made news in her Vanity Fair cover story written by Rebecca Ford. The Hollywood A-lister subtly disclosed that Disney had put the kibosh on the female-led "Pirates of the Caribbean." Robbie told Vanity Fair, "We had an idea and we were developing it for a while, ages ago, to have more of a female-led—not totally female-led, but just a different kind of story—which we thought would've been really cool, but I guess they don't want to do it." Disney hasn't commented.

"Wakanda" Conquers: Marvel's "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" soared to an estimated $180 million in North America this weekend. The opening represents one of the best premieres of the year and makes the superhero film the highest-grossing debut ever for the month of November. The films' massive success also indicates the holiday box office could be back in a big way this year. CNN's Frank Pallotta has more.

OFF STAGE

Disney is pushing "Andor" in a big new way. During the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the company will air the first two episodes of the Disney+ "Star Wars" series on ABC, as well as FX, Freeform, and Hulu. (THR)
Dave Chappelle's monologue on "SNL" has ignited major backlash, with the Anti-Defamation League saying the comedian had worked to "popularize" antisemitism. (CNN)
The "Yellowstone" season five premiere did not dispute in ratings, gaining over last season's opener, with 12 million viewers tuning in. (The Wrap)
Jay Leno has suffered "serious burns," but is in stable condition following a gasoline fire. (Variety)
Apple TV+ has given the green light to a half-hour comedy series from Seth Rogen. (Deadline)
Apple is launching a World Cup podcast hosted by "Ted Lasso" co-creator and star Brendan Hunt. (Variety)
Whoopi Goldberg was absent from "The View" Monday after testing positive for Covid. (EW)

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino. Have feedback? Send us an email here. We will be back in your inbox tomorrow.