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Tuesday, October 3, 2023

It's been another historic day in America — and a day brimming with media news. ABC News implements cost cutting measures, DirecTV voices disapproval over CNN Max, Emma Tucker talks about The WSJ's plans for the future, Sinclair says it was "unaware" it had platformed an extremist, Campbell Brown announces her departure from Meta, Netflix reportedly readies to raise prices, and so much more. But first, the A1.

THE A1

The Gaetz of Hell

CNN Photo Illustration/ing Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Matt Gaetz is a product of America's broken information environment.

Not so long ago, a young Florida congressman with no major legislative achievements to his name would hold little power in Washington. Such a person would certainly not wield enough power to overthrow the Speaker of the House.

But as the media landscape has dramatically shifted, particularly in the right-wing information space, so have the power dynamics in Washington. In our present day, because of a warped media incentivization structure, the Republicans who carry real power and drive the party are the performers who work in conjunction with partisan media, not those who wish to govern.

Gaetz is not an anomaly. He is the direct consequence of this twisted construct.

In many ways, the astonishing affair that played out on Tuesday in the halls of Congress — and on televisions screens across the world — leading to Kevin McCarthy's ouster was yet another reminder that the once-sought-after prestigious posts in government, such as the Speakership, are no longer the real centers of power in Washington, or politics at large.

The gravity actually rests in the hands of high-profile media personalities — many of whom are not incentivized by unity and compromise, but feed off conflict and division. And these media personalities have birthed and empowered people like Gaetz.

This is, of course, particularly pronounced in the Republican Party, which has become largely controlled by right-wing talkers and outright propagandists who have radicalized much of the GOP base and pulled the party further to the fringe. Their hyperbolic rhetoric seduces audiences with outrageous headlines and fact-free claims that whips up the political base and is later regurgitated by lawmakers hoping to exploit the platforms for their own gain.

The right-wing media machine — comprised of Fox News, talk radio, social media personalities, and a constellation of blusterous websites — have made stars out of attention-hungry politicians. It's far from just Gaetz, but people such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, and a parade of others — all of whom are willing to peddle dishonest narratives to vast audiences in exchange for seeing their personal profiles rise.

It does not take hard work, bipartisanship, and honor to make a name for oneself in Washington. Those traits might actually work against aspiring politicians these days. The real trick is to score spots on cable news (or outlets masquerading as such), grow social media followings, and shamelessly draw attention onto oneself by using any means necessary.

Gaetz is the embodiment of those characteristics. He has perfected that game.

News organizations should remain vigilant about those who would try to exploit their platforms to fuel their rises to power. Gaetz knows that if he creates a political circus, a fleet of reporters will follow him around endlessly, sticking microphones in his face and asking what he will do next. That's precisely what he wants — and it's very reminiscent of how the press covered Donald Trump in 2016.

After being ousted as speaker Tuesday, McCarthy addressed reporters and declared that the small handful of Republicans who voted to boot him "don't get to say they're conservative because they're angry and chaotic." That might be true. But it is also true that those are the traits rewarded by today's media ecosystem. Which is why Gaetz's star has been on the rise, and why McCarthy was just shown the door.

CHAOS IN CONGRESS

CNN Photo Illustration/HuffPost

HuffPost: "MCCARTHY MAYDAY."
The Drudge Report called it "MAGA CHAOS."
The New York Times' banner homepage headline: "House in Chaos After Far-Right Leads Push to Remove Speaker."
"We're talking about a day unlike any in Washington since 1910," Anderson Cooper said, to open up CNN's 9pm hour. "That's the latest time House members tried to throw out their Speaker, and it didn't work then." Jake Tapper replied, "113 years later, for the very first time, members ... succeeded."
Over on MSNBC, Alex Wagner started her program by going back to McCarthy's speech in the immediate wake of the January 6 attack: "That moment was the closest Kevin McCarthy ever came to pulling himself out from under the heel of his party's hard-right base."
Sean Hannity opened up his program by telling his audience that "some House Republicans" have "been in contact with and have started an effort to draft" Donald Trump as the next House Speaker. Hannity said that he has been told Trump "might be open to helping the Republican Party, at least in the short term, if necessary." As Jake Sherman pointed out on X, however, "This will not happen."
After overthrowing McCarthy, Gaetz — predictably — appeared on right-wing media, talking with Laura Ingraham on Fox News and Eric Bolling on Newsmax.

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

C-SPAN's Camera Question: Remember how riveting the coverage of the last speakership race was, in part due to the independently operated C-SPAN cameras that were permitted inside the House chambers? Given that a new election for speaker is around the corner, I checked in with the public affairs outlet to see if it would once again have such incredible access. "During the January 2023 election that ultimately selected McCarthy, it was at the then Speaker's discretion to allow cameras into the chamber prior to that all happening," C-SPAN communications director Howard Mortman told me. "So Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, as had become custom for the opening day of each Congress, permitted our cameras to supplement the regular House cameras. We are inquiring about adding C-SPAN cameras to cover this Speaker election and will let you know if we get access."

THE INDUSTRY

CNN Photo Illustration/Ronen Tivony/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

DirecTV's Disapproval: DirecTV has fired a warning shot over Warner Bros. Discovery's decision to broadcast the bulk of CNN's programming on its Max streaming service, The NYT's Benjamin Mullin reported Tuesday. Per Mullin, DirecTV warned WBD in a letter that CNN Max's programming "risks violating the contract between their businesses." Because of distribution agreements with cable and satellite companies, who pay for carriage rights, CNN has long been unable to sell its programming directly to consumers. With CNN Max, WBD offered streaming subscribers access to portions of CNN International, a separate channel that simulcasts the network's biggest U.S. shows and is not bound by such agreements. But, per Mullin, DirecTV is not too happy with the workaround.

🔎 Zooming in: Whether DirecTV will take any further action is not clear and spokespeople for the company didn't respond to requests for comment. It's also unclear whether another cable or satellite carrier will take any action after last week's debut of CNN Max. A WBD spokesperson declined to comment on DirecTV's letter, only saying, "WBD maintains strong and meaningful relationships with our affiliate partners. Our partners are aware of and understand our rationale with Max, which is to reach new audiences."

First in Reliable | Axing Costs at ABC: Cost cutting has hit ABC News. The Disney-owned news organization has started making efforts to reduce spending after the Magic Kingdom said earlier this year that it would slash costs and find billions of dollars in savings. I'm told that shows are being encouraged to be far more judicious when deciding whether to send camera crews into the field, though deploying such personnel will, of course, still occur when warranted. In lieu of the full fledged camera crews, ABC News has resorted to using iPhones for shooting some stories, I'm told. And, as one would expect, the network is also scaling back on traveling to save on costs. A spokesperson for ABC News declined to comment.

THE FOURTH ESTATE

Emma Tucker spoke to Ben Smith at Semafor's inaugural business summit about the future of The WSJ. Tucker said the paper's niche will be about American capitalism: "That's a great niche to own. And I think that's very much where The Wall Street Journal is going to focus its efforts now because it plays to our strengths." (X)
"Telling the truth about Mexico, and dying for it": Nicholas Casey has an important story on how violence "have put the country's journalists in peril" and how in one town "reporters tried to fight back." (NYT)
Amy Hawkins profiles Jimmy Lai, owner of the now-shuttered Hong Kong publication Apple Daily, as the democracy activist marked 1,000 days in prison: "There is always a price to pay when you put truth, justice, and goodness ahead of your own comfort." (Guardian)
News media executives lobbied Beltway legislators last week to offer copyright protections for their work in the face of the looming A.I. threat, Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
Members of the European Parliament voted down an amendment that would have curbed member countries from being able to install spyware on the phones of journalists. (Guardian)
Puck has expanded its partnership with Audacy and the two will launch a Julia Ioffe-hosted documentary podcast series Wednesday about Vladimir Putin. (Audacy)
Kyle Pope, the Columbia Journalism Review's editor, is exiting his role to join Covering Climate Now to champion the environment. (AP)
Nicholas Witchell, the BBC's long-time royal correspondent who covered the family for 25 years, will retire. (BBC)

IN THE MARKET

"As a brighter spotlight is being put on Disney's role as a content supplier and distributor amid labor disputes, a federal judge has ruled that the entertainment monolith must face an antitrust lawsuit accusing it of illegally taking advantage of its dual position in business dealings," Winston Cho reports. (THR)
The FCC slapped Dish Network with a first-ever $150,000 fine after the company left its old junk orbiting the Earth in space. (CNN)

MEDIA MOVES

Netflix named Amy Reinhard as president of advertising and promoted Eunice Kim and Elizabeth Stone to chief product officer and chief technology officer, respectively. (THR)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

Supremacist on Sinclair: How on Earth did this happen? "At least 16 Sinclair television stations ran sponsored gold investment segments featuring white nationalist and antisemitic streamer Stew Peters from May through September of this year," Media Matters' Eric Hananoki reported Tuesday, noting it was especially outrageous given that the right-wing figure has "urged the execution of journalists." It should not have been difficult for anyone at Sinclair doing basic due diligence to determine the reprehensible views of Peters. As The Daily Beast's Justin Baragona wrote, "Since launching his podcast in 2020, Peters has drawn notoriety for his extreme and unhinged views, along with his unabashed racism, homophobia, and antisemitism." But apparently it flew over the heads of the folks at Sinclair.

► Upon being informed about Peters' horrific views, a spokesperson for the local TV broadcaster would only tell Hananoki, "We were not aware of the association and are reviewing our internal policies on sponsored content. The segment in question is no longer on our air."

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

"The pizza influencer with a private jet and a 'troll army'": Kevin Draper and Amelia Nierenberg take a close look at Dave Portnoy and how the controversial Barstool figure "is now almost certainly America's most influential person in pizza." (NYT)
Marty Baron talks to Joe Pompeo about covering Donald Trump as the former editor of The WaPo promotes his new memoir: "The press is still struggling with him in the way that the press in other countries has really struggled to cover autocrats." (Vanity Fair)
"Donald Trump's Fox News propagandists rallied to his defense on Monday after he appeared in court at the opening day of New York State Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million civil fraud suit against him," Matt Gertz writes. (MMFA)
Say what? Fox News host Emily Compagno suggested Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman could get 30 years in prison for pulling the fire alarm at the U.S. Capitol. (Mediaite)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Stop the Presses: If you didn't believe Mark Zuckerberg and Meta were intent on entirely exiting the news business, Tuesday's news should settle the matter once and for all. Campbell Brown, the longtime leader of Meta's news initiatives, announced internally that she was leaving the company, Axios' Sara Fischer reported. As we've previously reported, Meta has signaled to publishers in recent months that it is exiting the news business. The social media platform has quietly made changes that have dramatically reduced referral traffic to news publishers. The exit comes as lawmakers around the world become far more serious about forcing Big Tech companies like Meta to pay publishers for the content posted to their platforms.

🔎 Zooming in: Brown leaves behind somewhat of a mixed record. Most famously, perhaps, she oversaw the development of Facebook's so-called "News Tab." At the time, Brown sparked a healthy volume of backlash for including Breitbart as one of the featured outlets in that section, a decision that she defended by pretending the dishonest right-wing website just had a different ideological viewpoint than others.

TOO MANY TABS

Meta is mulling over whether to charge E.U. users €13 a month for access to an ad-free mobile version of Instagram and Facebook, Dan Milmo and Lisa O'Carroll report. (Guardian)
A big legal loss for Elon Musk: X "must pay $1.1 million in legal fees racked up by a group of the social-media platform's former top executives," Jef Feeley reports. (Bloomberg)
A judge said a class action lawsuit seeking to prove shareholders were defrauded by Musk after he waited too long to show he'd invested in Twitter may continue, Jonathan Stempel reports. (Reuters)
Crisis PR experts believe Linda Yaccarino's "train wreck Code Conference interview" caused immense damage to her credibility, Kelly Hartog reports. (TheWrap)
Spotify will start giving away 15 hours of books a month to paying subscribers as it move into the audiobooks space. (NYT)
Zoom will release a Google Docs-like function to its video conferencing product as the company seeks to take on rival Microsoft. (WaPo)
Spam No More: Google is making major moves to ensure your Gmail inbox is less cluttered by that irksome, enduring spam. (CNBC)
Research from Sony suggests A.I. is "biased against skin with yellow hues," Paresh Dave reports. (WIRED)
LinkedIn is looking to use A.I. to help companies identify job candidates more easily. (Reuters)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/Sipa USA

Raising the Rates: The price of streaming movies and shows without advertisements is continuing to rise. Netflix plans to hike the monthly subscription price of its ad-free tier in a few months after the actors' strike has come to an end, The WSJ's Jessica Toonkel and Sarah Krouse reported Tuesday. The duo reported the price increase will likely debut in the U.S. and Canada first, before impacting other markets. A Netflix spokesperson declined to comment on the report. Elsewhere in streaming, Discovery+ said Tuesday it would hike the price of its ad-free service. That tier is moving up from $6.99 to $8.99, effective immediately.

🔎 Zooming in: Streaming services have long touted their ad-free plans, but that is increasingly changing as platforms seek higher revenues and profitability. By raising the price on premium ad-free plans, they're effectively pushing customers to their lower priced, but more profitable model.

HOLLYWOOD HELL

The writers and studios are set to meet again on Wednesday to resume negotiations. (TheWrap)
Natalie Harvey and Joy Press break down the "winners and losers" of the writers strike. (Vanity Fair)
Christy Hoffman points out that the deal the writers struck with the studios on A.I. will "impact the wider world of work." (Fast Company)

OFF STAGE

The HIPA Awards nominations are out, with "Barbie" leading the hopefuls. (THR)
Colton Underwood is launching a production company. (Variety)
Hulu has renewed its popular series "Only Murders in the Building" for a fourth season. (THR)
Paramount Pictures made "Mean Girls" available for free on TikTok in 23 clips on the movie's official account to celebrate so-called "Mean Girls Day." (CNN)
Legendary Entertainment acquired the film, TV, and ancillary rights to "The Alchemist." (THR)
A24 released another trailer for Sofia Coppola's upcoming film, "Priscilla." (YouTube)
The trailer for John Woo's dialogue-free film, "Silent Night," has dropped. (YouTube)

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 here. You can follow us on Instagram and Threads. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow.