Wednesday, February 07, 2024 |
The Kremlin embarrasses Tucker Carlson , The NYT and Fox Corp. report weak ad revenue, Sean Hannity's anti-immigration segment falls apart, X deals with another fake nude celebrity scandal, Jeremy Renner talks about his near-death experience, and so much more. Plus, an exclusive excerpt of Zoë Schiffer's book on Elon Musk's chaotic takeover of Twitter. But first, the A1. |
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The Happiest Place on Earth | CNN Photo Illustration/Charley Gallay/Getty Images |
Bob Iger never fails to deliver a healthy dose of news on Disney earnings day.
The king of the Magic Kingdom sent Disney's shares climbing Wednesday — as if they were heading up to Space Mountain — more than 7% in after-hours trading on an earnings beat and slew of news about ESPN, Epic Games, future film plans, and more. Plus, Iger responded (sort of) to the two brewing feuds saddling him these days with Elon Musk and Nelson Peltz. Here's a comprehensive recap: ► On the numbers: Disney reported better-than-expected earnings, said it is "on track to meet or exceed" its $7.5 billion cost-cutting target by the end of 2024, and predicted that earnings per share will grow this year "at least 20% versus 2023." The board also authorized a cash dividend of 45 cents a share, which will be paid out in July. "Our strong performance this past quarter demonstrates we have turned the corner and entered a new era for our company," Iger said. CNN's Samantha Delouya has more. ► On Epic Games: Iger announced a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games, in which the video games creator will "create transformational games" and an "entertainment universe that integrates Disney's world-class storytelling into Epic's cultural phenomenon, Fortnight." As Iger put it, the partnership will allow consumers "to play, watch, create, and shop for both digital and physical goods" in the Fortnight universe. IGN's Adam Pankhurst has more. ► On ESPN: Iger told CNBC's Julia Boorstin that ESPN will launch its much-anticipated direct-to-consumer product in fall 2025. Iger had previously said the service would launch by that year, but had not offered further detail. Hyping the future streamer, Iger said it will have "many more features" than the just-announced sports super streamer ESPN has partnered with Fox Corporation and Warner Bros. Discovery to build. CNBC's Alex Sherman has more here. ► On Disney+: That price hike chased away some customers. Specifically, 1.3 million of them. But it helped Disney narrow its streaming losses by $300 million. Variety's Jennifer Maas has more here. ► On content: Iger teased two major films. He announced that the sequel to the 2016 hit-movie "Moana" will be released in theaters November 27. And, in a major coup, Iger said Disney+ had nabbed the rights to Taylor Swift's record-breaking "Eras Tour" concert film. The Swift film will land on Disney+ on March 15, Iger said, and feature four songs not included in the theatrical release. THR's Pamela McClintock has details here. ► On his nemeses: Asked by CNBC's Boorstin whether he had a response to Musk vowing to sponsor additional lawsuits against the Mouse House, Iger flatly replied, "No." Iger, however, was willing to stick the knife into Peltz. He said he has not had any recent conversations with the activist investor and does not plan to. And he accused Peltz and his allies of not understanding the very "essence of the Disney brand." Ouch. |
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CNN Photo Illustration/Seth Wenig/AP |
Corrected by the Kremlin: How embarrassing! Tucker Carlson's claim that Western journalists are not interested in interviewing Vladimir Putin was so absurd that it was even corrected by the Kremlin. Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who confirmed Carlson scored an interview with the Russian authoritarian, spoke to reporters about the sit-down on Wednesday. Peskov flatly stated, "No, Mr. Carlson is wrong. Actually, he can't know that. We receive a lot of applications for interviews with the president." Instead, Peskov conveyed precisely why Carlson's request was granted, while interview requests from actual journalists were not: He has "a position that is different from the rest" of Western media. No kidding. |
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- Herb Scribner pointed out that "in his MSNBC days, Tucker Carlson was a Putin cynic." ( WaPo)
- And Brian Bushard has a list of the pro-Russia comments that Carlson has made in recent years. ( Forbes)
- David Brennan cited members of European Parliament to report that Carlson "could face sanctions" over the interview. ( Newsweek)
- "That's a lie":Abby Phillip repeatedly fact-checked Carlson's ridiculous rationale for interviewing Putin. ( CNN)
- Christiane Amanpour pushed back on Carlson's claims as well, noting plenty of Western journalists have tried to interview Putin. ( CNN)
- Chris Cuomo blasted Carlson, noting his "point of view" is often "not aligned with the facts." ( The Hill)
- Joe Scarborough: "The Republican Party now in the House is doing Vladimir Putin's bidding." ( The Hill)
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- Shares in The NYT Company's stock slipped more than 7% after the publisher reported advertising revenue fell 8.4% year-over-year and forecasted a soft market for early 2024. (NYT)
- "It was a challenging year on the ad market for publishers," The NYT boss Meredith Kopit Levien noted. (TheWrap)
- Shares in Fox Corporation fell more than 6% after the company also reported advertising revenue down. In Fox's case, a staggering 20% year-over-year. ( THR)
- Addressing investors, Lachlan Murdoch said the newly announced sports super-streamer Fox has partnered with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery on is targeted at cord-cutters and should not jeopardize "undermining the traditional bundle." (Deadline)
- But is that really possible? And does this sports offering have a huge target audience? CNBC's Alex Sherman explores all the questions the new offering has brought to the forefront. (CNBC)
- Switching topics to the Super Bowl: Ahead of the big game, Paramount employees around the world were treated to a "game day" surprise when all office screens — including those in the lobby of the company's 1515 HQ in Times Square — were converted to the Super Bowl build out in Las Vegas that features a big "Yellowstone" activation, among other high profile visuals. The company, I'm told, wanted team members to feel like they too were on the ground getting to experience it in real time.
- Synergy: "CBS Mornings" and "CBS Evening News" will broadcast from Las Vegas on Thursday and Friday ahead of the Super Bowl.
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- Former staffers from The Messenger created a GoFundMe to help ex-employees who were laid off without severance or health insurance. ( GoFundMe)
- Phyllis Zorn, a reporter for the Marion County Record, the Kansas newspaper raided by police last year, slapped her hometown and local officials with a $950,000 lawsuit, John Hanna reports. (AP)
- Claire Atkinson reports on an uncomfortable reality for those in the television news business: The falling salaries. ( The Ankler)
- "My front-row seat to a slow-moving catastrophe": Don't miss Kara Swisher piece — adapted from her forthcoming "Burn Book" — about how "over three decades, tech obliterated media." ( NY Mag)
- Kate Knibbs sat down with Nebojša Vujinović Vujo, the Serbian entrepreneur who buys abandoned news sites and fills them with A.I.-generated articles. ( WIRED)
- Spotify's deal to allow Joe Rogan's podcast to appear across all platforms brings the company full circle, Nicholas Quah notes. ( Vulture)
- Linda Wertheimer, considered by many to be one of NPR's "Founding Mothers," announced her retirement from the network. ( Deadline)
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- CNN hired Dr. Mark Esper as a global affairs analyst and political commentator. ( CNN)
- The Boston Globe hired Matthew Karolian as vice president of platforms, research, and development. ( Threads)
- Bloomberg News hired Paul-Alain Hunt to cover metals and mining in Australia and hired Carmeli Argana as a reporter in its Australia operation. ( TBN/TBN)
- The Chicago Tribune hired Olivia Olander as a state government reporter. (TBN)
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CNN Photo Illustration/AP/Getty Images |
The Fight on Fox: Right-wing propagandist Sean Hannity was interviewing Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, a New York City-based vigilante group that targets migrants, when a violent clash broke out. At Hannity's direction, the camera panned over to show the physical altercation. "Well, in fact our guys have just taken down one of the migrant guys right here on the corner of 42nd and 7th while all this has taken place," Sliwa told Hannity. "They've taken over!" Hannity then excoriated Democrats "for the surge of Joe Biden's unvetted illegals in New York." The only problem with the anti-immigrant segment, which later was featured at the top of Fox News' website? The man the Guardian Angels members attacked was not a migrant. And, despite what Sliwa said, he had not been "shoplifting." That's according to the NYPD. Fox did not offer a comment, but the outlet did later update its digital story (albeit, not very well). Jon Passantino has details.
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- This seems like a big deal? Republican Sen. James Lankford said a "popular commentator" in right-wing media warned him weeks ago, "before they knew any contents" of the border deal bill, not to support it. "They told me flat out, 'If you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election.'" ( Mediaite)
- Another day, another conspiracy theory: Charlie Kirk wondered if members of the GOP who voted against the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas were blackmailed and "compromised." ( MMFA)
- "The president of the far-right cable network One America News solicited additional information from an anonymous tipster who provided 'stolen' passwords of Smartmatic employees after the 2020 election," Marshall Cohen reports, citing court documents. He wrote, "The revelation builds on CNN's previous reporting that OAN President Charles Herring forwarded the purported Smartmatic passwords to ex-Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell within days and later passed it to Mike Lindell." ( CNN)
- Don't miss Donie O' Sullivan's latest: "An A.I.-generated deepfake surfaced during a tight Chicago mayoral race. Candidate Paul Vallas doesn't know what impact the fake audio had, but thousands of people saw it. So how are states preparing for an onslaught of deepfakes?" (CNN)
- "Following a string of excessive controversies, spanning from antisemitic rants to showing pornography to Yeezy staff in meetings, [Kanye] West says he has had a hard time booking arenas to perform in," Larisha Paul writes. (Rolling Stone)
- Police believe posts by Chaya Raichik and her "Libs of TikTok" account catalyzed at least 21 bomb threats, David Ingram reports. (NBC News)
- A disinformation campaign from Russia is focused on boosting calls for a civil war over the Texas border crisis, David Gilbert reports. (WIRED)
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| 'Extremely Hardcore': If you only read a single journalist's account on Elon Musk's chaotic takeover — and destruction — of Twitter, make sure it is Zoë Schiffer's. Since Musk stormed into Twitter's San Francisco headquarters with a literal kitchen sink and upended the once beloved social media platform, Schiffer's reporting has been essential. Now, she is out with a detailed book, "Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter," which reveals the astonishing behind-the-scenes drama that unfolded at the company in the wake of Musk's acquisition. You can pre-order the book here. Meanwhile, to hold you over until the book's debut next week, below you'll find an excerpt exclusive to Reliable Sources readers. |
On February 12, 2023, Elon Musk sat on his private jet, fuming. He was flying home from the Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, but his mind wasn't on the game. Earlier that day, both he and President Joe Biden had tweeted their support for the Philadelphia Eagles. But according to Twitter's engagement metrics, Biden's tweet had three times the number of views. What the hell? Four months earlier, Musk had acquired Twitter, making him not just the social media platform's most powerful figure, but also its most ubiquitous. He posted constantly recycled memes, missives about free speech, promises about upcoming features. Day in and day out, he was the indisputable main character of Twitter. But after the acquisition, Musk's engagement started tanking. The richest man on Earth simply couldn't fathom why. His photos of rockets were awesome. His jokes were never not funny. Plus, he had more followers than anyone else — and nearly a hundred million more than @POTUS. How could he lose to a damp sock puppet in human form who happened to be president of the United States? Musk had already called multiple meetings to demand answers from Twitter employees. "Jesus H. Christ," they'd heard him muttering. "The app makes zero fucking sense." As the Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs traded touchdowns at State Farm Stadium, the engineering team at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco scrambled to come up with an answer. Musk suspected foul play. Had a spiteful employee planted a bug in the algorithm to suppress the Like count on his posts? One week earlier, one of Twitter's highest-ranking engineers had dared to say what many understood to be obvious: that the drop in engagement was organic. "If you look at Google Trends, interest in your name is on the decline," the engineer, Yang, told Musk. He showed Musk a graph with an impressive spike in April— when he'd first announced his plans to buy the platform. It was followed by a jagged downward slope. Interest had gone from a score of one hundred to a score of just eight. "You're fired, you're fired," Musk hissed. Yang walked out. Then Musk turned to the rest of the team. "This is ridiculous," he said, according to three employees who were present, "I have more than a hundred million followers, and I'm only getting tens of thousands of impressions." No one said a word. "Why is nobody else here speaking?" Musk said, sounding exasperated. He told the group they'd reconvene tomorrow. If he didn't get a straight answer, they'd all be fired.
After that, no one else tried to challenge Musk's reality.
Musk's fraught takeover of Twitter had captivated the country all spring. The genius behind Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink had grandly declared that his next mission was to restore free speech to the world's most important free speech platform. "This is a battle for the future of civilization," Musk tweeted in November 2022. "If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead." But now, in early 2023, after months of firing staffers, banning journalists, and twisting content policies into pretzels, the acquisition increasingly looked like a vanity project. Twitter had never been a great business (a modest $5.08 billion in 2021), but now its revenues were collapsing, down 40 percent from the year before. Advertisers had fled the platform. The circle of people who saw Musk as a visionary was shrinking — not that Musk seemed to realize it.
After Musk's jet touched down in Oakland, his cousin, James Musk, jumped into action. The Tesla autopilot engineer had joined Twitter the previous October to help usher the app into its new era.
"@here we are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform," James wrote cryptically on Slack at 2:36 a.m. "Any people who can make dashboards and write software please can you help solve this problem. This is super high urgency. If you are willing to help out please thumbs up this post."
One of Twitter's core values had been "defend and respect the user's voice." Now, the only voice that mattered was Elon Musk's. Many employees viewed the late-night demand as a desperate attempt to placate an insatiable ruler. But Randall Lin, a machine learning engineer, saw the message for what it was: an opportunity. Lin's job was to make Twitter's home timeline as relevant and engaging as possible. He didn't have to drop everything to prioritize Musk's urgent project —he wanted to. Musk was mercurial; a high achiever like Lin could easily rise up the ranks if he played his cards right. "Everything else you are focusing on is great," James had told him before the Super Bowl, "but there is nothing else on Elon's mind but the engagement issue?"
Lin and around eighty colleagues worked through the night rewriting the Twitter algorithm. First, they applied a special signature to Musk's profile to ensure he showed up in almost every user's feed, whether they followed him or not. Then they applied a "power user multiplier" to artificially boost his tweets by a factor of one thousand.
The next day, a Monday morning, Twitter users logged on to see an entire feed of Elon Musk. His replies to obscure right-wing accounts were showing up at the top of the app. People were furious.
"why the absolute fuck is elon musk all over my for you on twitter?" asked Twitter user @kenminkim. "My 'For You' page is literally just Elon Musk replies and ads Imao," wrote @TayInLA_. "Is Twitter literally just his personal mouthpiece now?" asked @johnjsills.
The outrage made Musk more ecstatic. He roamed the halls of Twitter HQ, thumbing through his feed, delighted. "It's just like that meme of that girl pouring milk down her friend's throat," he told employees happily, shaking his head. "That's like me with the tweets." Moments later, he tweeted the meme, labeling the blond girl pouring milk as "Elon's tweets" and the brunette being force-fed "Twitter." |
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CNN Photo Illustration/Carlos Barria/Reuters |
X Marks the Nudes: After tumbling down the list of the App Store's most downloaded apps, X has rocketed back to reclaim the top spot. But it's not for a reason worth celebrating. The Elon Musk-owned social media company, which just struggled to rid its platform of A.I.-generated nudes of Taylor Swift, is experiencing a sudden rise in popularity as alleged nudes of rapper Drake spread. X executive Joe Benarroch told The Verge's Lauren Feiner that the platform was had removed thousands of posts and was "actively monitoring the situation." But Feiner reported she was still "able to find seven at least day-old posts — some with millions of views — featuring the purported Drake video by searching 'Drake' in the video tab and barely scrolling." Yikes! Read Feiner's full story here. ► Drake has not commented. But, without mentioning the reason why, Musk boasted: "X is now the #1 most downloaded app of any kind!" |
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| - Bluesky subscriptions surged after the platform announced anyone could join, with 800,000 users signing up on the first day alone. ( TechCrunch)
- Meanwhile, Threads boss Adam Mosseri said the app is testing letting users save posts. ( The Verge)
- "Can Snapchat's stock snap back?" Martin Tillier wonders. ( Nasdaq)
- Snap boss Evan Spiegel is trying to boost growth by improving ad interactions, Ivan Mehta notes. ( TechCrunch)
- Meta "has joined the dividend club," writes Hardika Singh. "Are its best days behind it?" ( WSJ)
- Could Mark Zuckerberg's dividend move prompt other companies, such as Amazon and Alphabet, to do the same? ( CNBC)
- Anita Ramaswamy writes about the looming Reddit IPO: "A dearth of profit this late into its existence portends the lack of a real business model, suggesting it's still not ready for public company life." ( Reuters)
- Clamshell iPhones?! Could that really be a reality one day? Wayne Ma reports via a source that Apple "is building prototypes of at least two iPhones that fold." ( The Info)
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CNN Photo Illustration/Jennifer Rose Clasen/Silk |
Renner Rebuilt: Jeremy Renner, starring in a Super Bowl ad this Sunday for dairy-alternative Silk, opened up to THR's Julian Sancton about the snowplow accident that nearly took his life last year. In the interview published Wednesday, Renner discussed how he has quite literally had parts of his body — including an eye-socket — rebuilt with metal. "A lot of screws. A lot of metal," the actor explained to Sancton. "It's like Titanium Man, I suppose." Renner said he has not received a call from Marvel to resume his role as Hawkeye, but that if he were to get such an offer, he would accept. "Yeah, is the answer," Renner said. "If I'm welcome back, I'm always gonna say, 'Yeah.'" Read the full interview here. |
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| - Enty Unmasked: Enty Lawyer — the lead Crazy Days and Nights blogger who broke several major stories while cultivating mystique among mainstream media, conspiracy theorists, and celeb-watchers alike — has been identified as John Robert Nelson, a California attorney who ran for Congress in 2018. (Daily Beast)
- "It's the hardest role I've ever had to play": Ramin Setoodeh interviews Ryan Gosling about "Barbie" and so much more for Variety's cover story. ( Variety)
- Stephen Colbert remembered his friendship with Toby Keith: "He taught me not to prejudge a guest." ( THR)
- Sia released "Dance Alone," a track off her new LP, "Reasonable Woman," the musician's first album since 2016 that's due out on May 3. ( Pitchfork)
- Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell will star in "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey." ( Deadline)
- Netflix landed "The Chaperone," starring Jason Bateman. ( Deadline)
- Macmillan is releasing an audiobook version of "The Three-Body Problem" ahead of Netflix's show. ( The Verge)
- Demi Moore will star in Taylor Sheridan's "Landman" opposite Billy Bob Thornton, produced by MTV Entertainment Studios, 101 Studios, and Bosque Ranch Productions. (TheWrap)
- Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans are in talks to star in Celine Song's romantic comedy. ( Variety)
- Jason Momoa's Max show "On the Roam" was renewed for a second season. ( THR)
- Whoopi Goldberg revealed that a "Sister Act 2" reunion is on the horizon. ( The Wrap)
- Naomi Watts, Tye Sheridan, Michael Imperioli, and Norman Reedus joined the cast of "The Housewife" ( THR)
- Paramount Pictures dropped its official trailer for "A Quiet Place: Day One." ( YouTube)
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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. |
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