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Monday, March 13, 2023

Welcome to the new week. Oscars ratings climb, BuzzFeed shares fall, the BBC's drama (sort of) comes to an end, Lifehacker gets sold, Meta prepares for more layoffs, and Rupert Murdoch says he doesn't watch "Succession." But first, the A1.

THE A1

Covering SVB Chaos

CNN Photo Illustration/Nathan Frandino/Reuters

Andrew Ross Sorkin woke up early Monday morning, long before the crack of dawn, after managing to sneak in a handful of hours of sleep.

The New York Times columnist had been up late into the night working on his DealBook newsletter. And now he needed to rise for a special edition of "Squawk Box," the CNBC program he has co-hosted since 2011.

The special 5am edition of "Squawk" had been tasked with covering the continuing fallout stemming from the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, a massive financial news story that has drawn some eerie comparisons to the beginnings of the 2008 financial disaster.

It is a story Sorkin described covering as "a balancing act, a little bit like walking a tight rope." On one hand, he told me, journalists must avoid sparking panic and causing a catastrophic run on the banks. But, on the other hand, journalists also owe it to their audiences to deliver them a clear-eyed assessment of the state of affairs.

"Our job as journalists is to tell the public what is happening — and if you believe in transparency, we should all want that," Sorkin told me. "The downside of transparency in real-time is sometimes news that may not be positive can pile on itself in a way. And so I think it is really just about trying to contextualize what we're seeing."

"You don't want to cause a run on a bank," Sorkin added, "but then at the same time, if everyone is running and they have reason to run, I think it's important that the public understands what's happening."

The approach to delivering the news and covering the implosion of SVB that Sorkin described stands in stark contrast to some of the commentary saturating the internet and at other media outlets.

Over the weekend, some venture capital influencers amplified fear and suggested the entire U.S. banking system was on the verge of collapse. The investor Jason Calacanis, who hosts a podcast and commands a Twitter audience of nearly 700,000 followers, tweeted, "YOU SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED RIGHT NOW." On the right-wing talk channel Fox News Monday morning, "Fox & Friends" co-host Ainsley Earhardt suggested Americans needed "to go to our banks and take our money out."

Unprecedented in its sheer speed and volume, SVB's collapse is "fascinating," Sorkin said, causing a meltdown only now possible in the "true age of social media, as well as what might be described as digital banking."

"The ability for information to spread rapidly, both good information and bad, and for people to act on that information and then going to a bank app and transferring funds from one place to another, makes the responsibility [for journalists] even greater," Sorkin said.

Sorkin said banking is ultimately a "confidence game," explaining that it is "genuinely about whether people have confidence in leaving their money in a particular institution." And in this current environment where social media influencers and other irresponsible voices thrive, Sorkin said it "inherently makes things less stable."

"You have a lot of people who are on social media who don't necessarily feel the same responsibilities to contextualize the news in the same way I might try," Sorkin said. He suggested that in the case of SVB, there may have been "a little smoke in the corner of the theater" that could have been addressed before a fire burst out and prompted danger.

"If you scream 'fire,' everyone runs out of the theater," Sorkin said. "Could the smoke have been put out before everyone ran out of the theater? Maybe."

THE SIDEBAR

Jim Cramer: "I don't want to cause any run. It is easy for any of us to cause a run at this moment." (Mediaite)
Joe Wieczner argues that the SVB bank run was "fueled more by venture-capitalist influencers than financial reality." (NY Mag)
Brian Stelter says journalists should help the public "separate their fears from the facts" during a financial crisis. He interviewed The Information CEO Jessica Lessin, who oversaw scoops about SVB's collapse while trying to get her publication's money out of the bank. (The Atlantic)
Speaking of Lessin, she said Monday the SVB story is sending large audiences to her outlet, with 5.2 million email opens of The Information in the previous 72 hours: "Never thought I would be typing that." (Twitter)
Media companies like Roku, BuzzFeed, and Vox Media are caught up in the SVB collapse. (NYT)
Right-wing media blamed the collapse of SVB on its ESG commitments, which were used to frame the company as supposedly "woke." (NBC News)
"As ridiculous as it sounds, the conservative movement's leading economic minds have all converged on the theory that SVB's decision to overleverage its holdings in federal bonds is somehow a product of its commitment to social liberalism," Jonathan Chait writes. (NY Mag)
Oops? Fox News' focus on assailing ESG measures "has the network attacking its own shareholders," Ruby Seavey points out. (MMFA)

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Oscars On the Rise: The Oscars telecast grew its total audience 12% from last year, delivering 18.7 million average viewers. That marks the second consecutive year that the show has increased viewership, which is nothing to sneeze at in this era of linear television decline. However, those numbers still pale in comparison to the audience the Oscars once commanded. Just a decade ago, the show drew roughly 40 million viewers. The numbers started dwindling in 2015 (falling from 43.7 million viewers to 37.3 million) and ultimately bottomed out at a mere 10.4 million viewers in 2021. This year's ratings were almost certainly boosted by including blockbusters such as "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" in the best picture category, and possibly The Slap. Of course, the big question: Can the Academy continue the trend and grow the audience next year? We'll have to wait to find out.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

See the full winners list. (CNN)
"The Oscars were safe, conventional, and old-fashioned, which made them an ideal vehicle for one movie's triumph," Owen Gleiberman writes. (Variety)
The show was "mercifully low on drama, movingly high on emotion," Daniel Fienberg writes. (THR)
The night "could have used a jolt of some kind," argued Mike Hale. (NYT)
Rory Satran examines Oscars carpet style, saying the "naked dress" ruled the evening. (WSJ)
Speaking of the red entrance carpet, it was the first time since 1961 that its color changed. (NYT)
Rabin Setoodeh goes "inside Vanity Fair's Oscars party." (Variety)
Steve Pond writes about how "EEAAO" became "the poster child for the new Academy." (The Wrap)
Indie studio A24 had a huge night, become the first to sweep the acting awards and win best director and best picture in the same year. (NYT)
Justin Chang notes, "The Oscars' best picture might seem radical. But it's as traditional as they come." (LAT)
Rebecca Sun highlights how "creatives of Chinese and Indian descent triumphed at the Oscars." (THR)
And on the homefront: CNN celebrated its first Oscar win for "Navalny," which won best documentary feature. (CNN)

THE BUSINESS

CNN Photo Illustration/Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket /Getty Images

BuzzFeed's Bummer : Shares in BuzzFeed are down more than 10% in after-hours trading after the company posted its Q4 earnings and offered a dire outlook for 2023. The digital media company reported $134.6 million in revenue in Q4 (down 8% from 2022) with an overall loss of $106.2 million. The company forecast Q1 2023 revenue to be somewhere between $61 million and $67 million, which The Wrap's Lucas Manfredi noted would represent a decline of "more than 30% year over year and more than 50% quarter over quarter." In other words, not good. Read Manfredi full story.

► CEO Jonah Peretti: "There's no denying that 2022 was a tough year for digital media. The challenges we faced in Q4 are also impacting us in Q1 2023, and it is clear we have more work to do to realize the full potential of our combined brand portfolio."

Off the Sidelines: The BBC on Monday announced that it would reinstate sports anchor Gary Lineker after his suspension prompted an internal mutiny and fierce public backlash. "Gary is a valued part of the BBC and I know how much the BBC means to Gary, and I look forward to him presenting our coverage this coming weekend," the BBC Director General Tim Davie said in a statement. Lineker said he looks "forward to getting back on air" after the BBC's flagship soccer program, "Match of the Day," aired without commentary this past weekend. The entire incident was sparked by a tweet in which Lineker compared the UK's immigration plan to 1930s Germany, which the BBC deemed to be in violation of its social media rules governing impartiality. In announcing his return, Davie said the BBC will conduct a review of its social media guidelines. CNN's Ben Church has the details.

► Kudos to the BBC for aggressively covering itself over the last several days. Here's a live blog the outlet has continued updating with the latest.

► Related read: The BBC "is engulfed in an impartiality storm of its own making," Rob Picheta writes, noting that "as it so often does during moments of crisis," the outlet "managed to anger almost everyone across the political spectrum during a days-long fit of self-flagellation."

IN THE INDUSTRY

Nonfiction books publishing on Tuesday: Benjamin Hall's "Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make it Home" and Paris Hilton's "Paris: The Memoir."
Lifehacker "has been sold by its parent G/O media to Ziff Davis," Sara Fischer scooped. (Axios)
The CoinDesk acquisition talks continue. Jon Rice reports Binance Capital Management has been exploring how to possibly purchase the company. (BlockWorks)
New WSJ editor Emma Tucker "is extremely keen on shifting the paper away from commodity news and towards a hardcore focus on exclusives and investigations," Lachlan Cartwright reports. (Daily Beast)
Irin Carmon talks to 17 female journalists — including Amna Nawaz, Gayle King, Norah O'Donnell, Katie Couric, Erin Burnett, and Joy Reid — on the legacy of Barbara Walters. (NY Mag)
Several news organizations have asked a judge to announce plans for a hearing in a blockbuster abortion case. (CNN)
UTA boss Jeremy Zimmer told Janice Min that he's siding with the WGA as a strike looms. (The Ankler)
Sean "Diddy" Combs is also exploring a bid for a majority stake in Paramount's BET business, Alex Weprin reports. (THR)

MEDIA MOVES

CNN tapped Lauren Mensch and Chris Russell as executive producers of "CNN This Morning." (THR)
NBC News hired Matt Dixon as senior national politics reporter. (TV Newser)
Reddit hired Sarah Rosen as senior director of content partnerships. (Variety)
Disney named Sonia Coleman head of human resources, taking over from Paul Richardson, who exits after 15 years at the company. (Variety)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Advertising on Fox's Air: Prominent advertising executive Lou Paskalis believes it is now a risk for companies to continue marketing their products on Fox News. Paskalis over the weekend published a post in which he said the Dominion revelations "present a moral hazard for advertisers" and recommended they cease sending money into the right-wing talk channel's pockets. "There are errors of omission and errors of commission," Paskalis told me Monday, indicating that Fox committed the latter. Paskalis said that it's not enough to simply pull ads from the prime time bloc and move it to the dayside. "I think that's a bit of a head fake the industry at large has accepted," he said, "but the testimony and discovery in Dominion has blown that away."

► A spokesperson for Fox News told me Monday night that no advertisers have dropped the channel in the wake of the recent Dominion revelations. The spokesperson also pointed me to a statement that accused Dominion of using "distortions and misinformation" to "smear Fox News."

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

Howard Kurtz — finally — on Sunday addressed Dominion's lawsuit against Fox News, two weeks after saying that he had been ordered not to discuss it on-air. Kurtz knocked the "barrage of negative coverage" in the 4-minute segment that quite honestly sounded like it could have been scripted by Fox News' PR department. (Fox News)
Erik Wemple zinged Fox for claiming it redacted some information from recent legal filings for fear competitors will steal its "journalistic processes": "Hold on here. Given the revelations that have emerged thus far from the litigation, what 'journalistic processes' are in place at Fox News, proprietary or otherwise? And if another media organization moved to 'appropriate' them, wouldn't its editor in chief be sacked?" (WaPo)
Ed Pilkington noted that Fox News is bracing "for more turbulence" as Smartmatic's lawsuit moves forward. (Guardian)
Amid continued fallout from his private texts, Tucker Carlson lightly scrutinized Trump in an interview that published over the weekend on the "Full Send" podcast. Carlson knocked Trump for having not managed to "build the border wall in four years." (Mediaite)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Sven Hoppe/Picture Alliance/Getty Images

Meta's Move: More layoffs are about to hit Meta. The WaPo's Naomi Nix reported Monday that the anticipated round of job cuts are poised to begin this week. Nix reported, via a source, that the cuts "will be focused primarily on Meta's recruiting division, followed by technical workers in April and employees in nontechnical roles in May." Read the full story here.

TOO MANY TABS

Meta is winding down support for NFTs on its platforms. (TechCrunch)
John D. McKinnon noted that President Biden has been "largely silent" on the TikTok ban issue: "Biden and his aides have demurred when asked about potential actions to restrict TikTok." (WSJ)
Kara Swisher spoke to Walter Isaacson about his forthcoming Elon Musk biography. (Apple Podcasts)
ChatGPT "could power voice assistants in General Motors vehicles," Jess Weatherbed reports. (The Verge)
Koo, a Twitter rival in India, has infused its platform with ChatGPT to help creators. (Reuters)
Meanwhile: Jonathan Vanian and Kif Leswing report on the "extraordinarily high" costs for developing generative AI. (CNBC)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Liane Hentscher/HBO

HBO's Home Run: The season finale of "The Last Of Us" summoned 8.2 million viewers to HBO on Sunday night, the premium television channel said. HBO touted the viewership number, noting it has been "growing consistently throughout the season against enhanced Sunday night competition." Indeed, the finale number was almost double the audience the show's premiere drew (4.7 million). CNN's Brian Lowry has more on the ratings numbers.

OFF STAGE

I have yet to see "The Last of Us" finale, but my cursory scan of headlines indicates it was somewhat controversial. Slate's Sam Adams said it was a "disastrous" ending. The Ringer's Ben Lindbergh described it as a "faithful conclusion." (Slate/Ringer)
"The Mandalorian" gave Disney+ a win on The Wrap's list of top streaming programs. (The Wrap)
Drake announced his 2023 "It's All a Blur" tour. (Pitch Fork)
"Boy Meets World" star Ben Savage spoke to Jake Tapper about why he's running for Congress in California. (Twitter)
Ready for the new season of "Succession"? One person who won't apparently be watching: Rupert Murdoch. The Fox boss told Maxwell Tani he doesn't watch the award-winning series. (Semafor)

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