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Monday, December 04, 2023

CNN's Gaza producer learns his relatives have been killed, The WSJ marks "an appalling milestone" of 250 days Evan Gershkovich has been behind bars, Tucker Carlson's top producer gets hit with a sexual assault claim (which he denies), Joan Donovan accuses Harvard of bowing to Meta pressure, SAG-AFTRA's ratification process comes to an end, Stephen Colbert takes more time off after appendicitis, and more. But first, the A1.

THE A1

The Threat of Trump

CNN Photo Illustration/Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, refuses to go gently into that good night.

"We can't participate in the normalization of Donald Trump," an impassioned Goldberg told me by phone on Monday. "I refuse to participate in the normalization of Donald Trump."

Goldberg is one of the few major newsroom leaders who has been exceptionally clear-eyed about the perilous storm on the horizon for American democracy. Using plain language, Goldberg and his team of writers at the renowned magazine have not shied away from portraying Trump as a vandal of civilized society and an outright menace to the U.S. Constitution.

On Monday, The Atlantic published a special edition of its monthly magazine focusing on what a second Trump term would look like. The aptly-titled "If Trump Wins" issue features two dozen articles laying out how the twice-impeached, four-time indicted candidate would shred norms, weaponize government, warp the rule of law, and degrade democracy.

"I want people to be able to hand this issue to people... who are still unsure about the nature of Trump's authoritarianism," Goldberg explained to me.

While the leaders of major American newsrooms might privately believe Trump will aim to rule as an authoritarian, it is rare to hear any of them say so aloud — especially in such frank terms. But Goldberg is more than comfortable doing so. He points out that his position is not a partisan one. It's "not about Republicans and Democrats," he stressed, but "about authoritarians versus pro-democracy Americans." And, in his view, not being open with readers about dangerous forces on the march would amount to a dereliction of duty.

"I would prefer journalists to speak plainly about what they're seeing," Goldberg said. "And I believe that a second Trump term poses a threat to the existence of America as we know it."

It is not difficult for newsrooms to state that they are pro-democracy. Most leaders in the Fourth Estate have no problem saying as much. The conundrum they face is that, in this dark time in which we find ourselves, staking out a vocal pro-democracy stance effectively means being anti-Trump. And most news organizations are not comfortable in that territory, given it could be perceived as partisan and turn away audiences.

"This is one of the discomforting aspects of this whole dilemma that people in the news media face," Goldberg noted. "Our eyes and ears tell us that Donald Trump fomented an insurrection against the Constitution. Right? We saw it. We heard it. It happened. That means that he placed himself outside the norms of American democratic behavior. That is why I am comfortable devoting an entire issue of answering the question of what a second Trump term would look like and reaching the conclusion that it would be terrible. Absolutely terrible."

When I asked Goldberg about whether being outspoken about the prospect of a second Trump presidency could alienate otherwise persuadable audiences, he argued that self-censorship is not the solution. As he put it, "At a certain point, you can't convince people of reality."

"All we can do is try to present fairly and completely our fact-checked views of Trump and Trumpism and hope that people read it and understand that we are trying to be truthful with our readers and truthful with ourselves and transparent," Goldberg said. "And if some voters in America can't handle that, then they can't handle that. There's not much I can do about it."

"And this is the dilemma facing all journalism institutions," Goldberg continued. "We'd like to be able to speak to 100% of Americans. But at a certain point you don't want to twist or muffle or downplay certain realities simply because reporting those realities offends a segment of your audience."

Goldberg personally knows that being candid and reporting aggressively on Trump can come with severe consequences. After Goldberg reported in September 2020 that Trump had disparaged American servicemembers who had died in war as "suckers" and "losers" (something former White House chief of staff John Kelly later confirmed on the record to Jake Tapper), he had to move out of his house over security concerns for a period.

But, he warned, a second Trump presidency could be even worse for the press. And, for that reason, members of the news media will need to contemplate their editorial decisions now, given Trump's already-declared hopes to muzzle critics if he were to regain power.

"We all understand that Trump thinks of us as enemies of the state, and we understand that there are consequences for us that come with this belief," Goldberg said. "There's a chance that he would try to somehow criminalize reporting in a second term, and so we have to sound the alarm about that, along with the more generalized threats to American democracy. And we have to sound the alarm now."

DEMOCRACY DIES IN SILENCE

The Drudge Report

The Drudge Report featured an illustration of Donald Trump with a crown atop his head, with banner headlines carrying urgent warnings about a potential second term.
The top headline on CNN.com Monday: "Trump shows how U.S. Constitutional premise may be on the line." The piece, from Stephen Collinson, warned that a second Trump term "would risk destroying the principle that presidents do not hold monarchial power." (CNN)
The Bulwark has been publishing important stories on this front. "There's a storm coming. We all know it," Jonathan V. Last wrote. "And yet Americans are pretending that everything is normal." (Bulwark)
And the stories are resonating with audiences. Days after it was published, Robert Kagan's unnerving piece about how a "Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable" is still one of the most read pieces on The WaPo's website. (WaPo)
Kagan's piece has apparently gotten under the skin of Trump, with the disgraced former president sharing it Monday. (Mediaite)
MSNBC's 6pm banner: "AWAITING COUP TRIAL, TRUMP DEPLOYS AUTHORITARIAN PLAYBOOK."

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/CNN

CNN Producer's Anguish: CNN on Monday was grieving for Ibrahim Dahman, the network's Gaza producer who learned over the weekend that nine of his relatives had been killed in a strike on his aunt's home. "They were extremely peaceful and simple people, and their entire lives were devoted solely to work and raising their sons and daughters," he said. Dahman, who escaped Gaza last month with his wife and two children, also learned that his childhood home in Gaza City had also been destroyed in a separate strike. "Unfortunately, I left all my memories, my belongings, and the gifts that my bosses sent me at work in this house, all of which were lost under the rubble now." CNN's Helen Regan and Hamdi Alkhshali have more here.

FROM THE WARZONE

The number of journalists killed since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war has swelled again, with the figure now standing at 61, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. (CPJ)
Anthony Bellanger, the general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists: "In a war, you know, a classical war, I can say that in Syria, in Iraq, in ex-Yugoslavia, we didn't see this kind of massacre." (AP)
Omar Benjakob reported on "how media outlets like Haaretz are weaponized in the fake news wars over Israel and Hamas." (Haaretz)
The Guardian banned its staffers from signing open letters and posting commentary on social media concerning the war, saying that such content may "risk compromising our editorial integrity," Sam Buckingham-Jones reports. (AFR)
Jake Tapper delivered a gut-wrenching report on how sexual violence is being committed by Hamas. The brutal details were outlined at the United Nations on Monday, spurred, in part, by Tapper's earlier reporting on this tragic subject. (CNN)
TikTok continues to face challenges in removing deepfakes of Hamas victims, Alexandra Barinka reports. (Bloomberg)

THE INDUSTRY

CNN Photo Illustration/Wall Street Journal

250 Days Behind Bars: The WSJ on Monday marked a grim milestone: 250 days of Evan Gershkovich's detention in Russia. Editor-In-Chief Emma Tucker called it "an appalling milestone," writing in a letter to readers that it has been "250 days since the concept of a free press — the underpinning of a free society — has been singularly challenged by the arrest of the first American reporter in Russia on an espionage charge since the Cold War." And Dow Jones chief Alma Latour said that "it cannot be overstated that his incarceration is a deeply disturbing development for anyone who values free press or freedom." To mark the solemn occasion, The WSJ ran a full-page ad in its print edition. And the outlet's bureaus took group photos and circulated them.

► Gershkovich's parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, told Jake Tapper that they are still "very, very helpful" that President Joe Biden will get their son home and "understands their pain as a parent."

► Evan's sister, Danielle Gershkovich, told Jim Scuitto that the family asks others to "save a seat for Evan at their dinner table around the holidays."

THE FOURTH ESTATE

Meanwhile, a Russian court has extended the detention of RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva by two months. Kurmasheva's husband, Pavel, sounded the alarm about her treatment behind bars during an event last week about Americans detained in Russia, saying his wife spent their 21st anniversary in a cold cell and that he is having trouble communicating with her. "Anything negative about her conditions is blacked out," Pavel said, according to CNN's Emma Lacey-Bordeaux, who was at the event.
✂️ Cuts, cuts, cuts: Lachlan Cartwright reports on the cuts taking place at Condé Nast. Per Cartwright, about a dozen employees got the axe at The New Yorker last week, including satirical humorist Andy Borowitz. (Daily Beast)
Bad news up north. The CBC/Radio-Canada said Monday it will cut 10% of its workforce as it grapples with a $125 million budget shortfall. (CBC)
The Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation shared the names of the four architecture and design teams who have made it to the final round of the selection process to erect the first national memorial dedicated to press freedom and journalists who have died on the beat. (FJMF)
The Mirror won a 1 million pound libel case against Sir James Dyson, who alleged the English tabloid's description of him caused his business, Dyson, serious harm. (Press Gazette)

IN THE MARKET

Verizon announced a bundling deal for its wireless customers, pairing the ad-supported tiers of Netflix and Max for $10 a month. (Reuters)
Media stocks have seen a bump amid all the bundling discussions, Drew Richardson notes. (CNBC)
Nexstar boss Perry Sook said at the UBS conference that The CW will break even by the end of 2025 — with a combined ad recession and the recently wrapped Hollywood strikes having presented challenges for the broadcaster. (THR)
Peacock now has 30 million subscribers, Comcast boss Mike Cavanaugh said at the UBS Global Media and Communications conference. (THR)

MEDIA MOVES

The Ankler welcomed Gregg Kilday as a contributing editor overseeing the new newsletter Prestige Junkie. (The Ankler)
The NYT hired Milton Tookes Jr. as post-production coordinator for the video team at NYT Cooking. (NYT)
The Associated Press hired Graham Lee Brewer and Terry Tang as reporters for its race and ethnicity team and named Cara Rubinksy its global business editor. (AP/AP)
The LAT promoted Dawn Burkes and Amy Hubbard to deputy editors on its breaking news desk. (LAT)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images

Tucker Producer's Trouble: Tucker Carlson's top producer at Fox News, who left the network and now works with him on his Twitter/X vlogging venture, was accused on Monday of sexual assault over an incident that allegedly occurred in 2008. The WaPo's Will Sommer reported that Andrew Delancey claimed in a complaint that the producer, Justin Wells, assaulted him in his apartment. The complaint, filed before the New York Adult Survivors Act expired, further alleged that Delancey was discouraged from filing official complaints. Wells' attorney, Harmeet Dhillon, said in a statement to The Daily Beast's Justin Baragona that her client "denies the allegations unequivocally, and will contest them vigorously." A spokesperson for Fox News did not return a request for comment.

► Carlson, however, is defending Wells: The fired Fox News host dismissed sexual assault allegations brought to light years after the fact, telling Mediaite's Diana Falzone and Sarah Rumpf, "As a general matter, if you believe you've been the victim of a sex crime, you have a moral obligation to alert police, so it doesn't happen to someone else. If a man waits 15 years to cash in with a civil suit, no one should take him seriously. I certainly don't."

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

"The cancellation of Mehdi Hasan's show is the latest in a series of recent moves by MSNBC that are pushing the network in the direction of being the television arm of the Democratic Party leadership, as opposed to a news outlet that upholds left-wing values and perspective," Perry Bacon Jr. argued. (WaPo)
"Trump (still) rates. ... At the same time, the threat Trump poses cannot be laughed off or dismissed any longer," Chris Cillizza wrote. "All of which puts the media in a very tough spot. It is a business. But it is also a public trust and service." (So What)
Steve Bannon went off on Fox News after the right-wing broadcaster cut away from Donald Trump's election denial speech in Iowa. (MMFA)
Megyn Kelly spoke to Maxwell Tani ahead of her role co-moderating Wednesday's GOP debate, teasing that she wants to put Trump "in the mix" more: "He's crushing all of them. Why is no one doing that?" (Semafor)
House Speaker Mike Johnson "is set to receive an award and speak at the National Association of Christian Lawmakers annual meeting and awards gala alongside a range of right-wing media figures who have pushed extreme anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion, and Christian nationalist rhetoric," Payton Armstrong reported. (MMFA)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/CNN

Joan of Harvard: Top disinformation researcher Joan Donovan on Monday alleged in a filing with the Department of Education and the Massachusetts attorney general that Harvard University bowed to pressure from Meta when it forced her out earlier this year. Donovan, who led a Shorenstein Center project at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, tied her ouster to a $500 million donation the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative gave to the school for an A.I. initiative, as The WaPo's Joseph Menn first reported. Harvard denied the claims, with a spokesperson saying Donovan's "narrative is full of inaccuracies and baseless insinuations, particularly the suggestion that Harvard Kennedy School allowed Facebook to dictate its approach to research." Meta declined to comment. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan and Clare Duffy have more here.

► Donovan spoke on-camera to O'Sullivan: "Harvard tried to destroy my career," she told him. "I believe it was just the decision of the dean to terminate me because I was making trouble for the donors." Donovan became visibly emotional later in the interview, saying the whole experience had been "gutting." Donovan explained, "Here I am at Harvard believing they would protect the sanctity of the truth ... but what I didn't imagine was that I would need protection from Harvard itself."

TOO MANY TABS

A group of 83 Spanish media organizations is suing Meta for $600 million, alleging unfair competition. (Reuters)
Jobs Wrapped: Spotify laid off 17% of its staff, or some 1,500 employees, in its third round of job cuts this year. (TechCrunch)
Threads downloads have been booming as the ad exodus continues at Elon Musk's X. On Monday night it was the second most popular free app in the Apple App Store. (TechCrunch)
Adam Mosseri walked back his declaration last week that Threads would not allow search results to appear in chronological order. "We are definitely exploring all of the options," he said, later adding that the team is going to "try to figure out" how to support a version of real-time search. (Threads)
YouTube continues to be outfoxed by open-source hackers in its war on ad blockers, Anthony Ha writes. (Engadget)
Microsoft is sitting down with partners as it looks to launch a mobile gaming store that can rival Apple's, Rachel Gamarski, Dina Bass, and Cecilia D'Anastasio report. (Bloomberg)
Asking ChatGPT to repeat a single term "forever" — a technique used by researchers to show the A.I.'s training data — is now banned by OpenAI. (404 Media)
Runway, an A.I. start-up company, inked a deal with Getty Images that will permit the company to make a more "commercially safe" iteration of its text-to-video platform available, Ina Fried reports. (Axios)
A.I. will take its place in the center stage during this year's COP28 climate summit, Ryan Heath notes. (Axios)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Jill Connelly/Bloomberg/Getty Images

SAG Sets the Stage: It's almost time. The 160,000 members of the SAG-AFTRA union will wrap up voting Tuesday on whether to ratify the tentative agreement struck with studios to end its historic strike. The deal is likely to be ratified, but the margin remains unclear, given the opposition some members have expressed about the A.I. portion of the deal. NBC News' Chloe Melas reported Monday that it "could be close." Puck's Matt Belloni, meanwhile, wrote in his newsletter that he's "expecting ratification in the 75 percent to 85 percent range." But, Belloni noted, such a percentage would still be "significantly softer than the high 90 percent range, which is what one might expect without organized opposition." The vote ends Tuesday at 5 p.m. PT.

OFF STAGE

Stephen Colbert said on Threads he is "listening to my doctors and continuing to rest and heal." In other words, the "Late Show" hiatus has been extended. (Threads)
Marvel boss Kevin Feige said Robert Downey Jr. will not be resurrected as Iron Man, explaining that the studio "would never want to magically undo" his final moments in "Endgame." (TheWrap)
But Marvel needs to do something. Case in point: "The Marvels" is leaving the box office as the lowest-grossing MCU movie. (Variety)
"Barbie" will be available for streaming on Max on Dec. 15. (Variety)
It's been a big month for "Godzilla" fans, with "Godzilla Minus One" bringing in $11 million at the U.S. box office, major feat for a Japanese-language film, AppleTV'+'s "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" receiving critical acclaim, and a first look at Warner Bros. Pictures' "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" having just dropped. (TheWrap)
Nicolas Cage said he's almost done with Hollywood, specifying that he only has "three or four more movies left." (THR)
Kim Kardashian, however, is just getting started, with the reality TV star-turned-entrepreneur-turned-silver screen favorite set to star in Ryan Murphy's legal drama for Hulu. (THR)
Billie Eilish accused Variety of "outing" her on the red carpet. (Daily Beast)
A George Santos movie is in the works over at HBO. (Deadline)
Prime Video has given the green light to a "Cruel Intentions" series based on the 1999 movie. (THR)
Michael B. Jordan is said to be doing well following a car crash in Hollywood over the weekend. (THR)

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.