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Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Mark Thompson announces overhaul of CNN, Ingrid Ciprián-Matthews says she will step down as CBS News president, Joe Kahn talks to Clare Malone about how The NYT would cover a second Donald Trump presidency, the NBA reportedly finalizes its new media partners, Candace Owens is blasted for casting doubt on Holocaust atrocities, Elon Musk emerges victorious in a Twitter-related lawsuit, opening arguments take place at Alec Baldwin's "Rust" trial, and more. But first, the A1.

THE A1

Tinseltown Turns on Biden

CNN Photo Illustration/David Livingston/WireImage/Getty Images

Joe Biden is losing a particularly influential corner of support: Hollywood.

On Wednesday, George Clooney became the latest — and perhaps most notable — member of the Tinseltown elite to express misgivings about Biden's candidacy, calling on the embattled president to drop out of the 2024 race.

"I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him," Clooney wrote in a blunt piece for The New York Times. "Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he's won many of the battles he's faced."

"But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can," Clooney added. "It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

Clooney, a major Democratic donor and one of Biden's most high-profile supporters, concluded his piece by writing, "Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024."

The unreserved take from Clooney added even more pressure on Biden to exit the race. More importantly, Clooney's candid assessment is representative of the mounting pressure Biden is facing out west, where his all-important and deep-pocketed support in Hollywood is quickly eroding.

The potential loss of Hollywood spells major problems for the president, who has not only counted on the City of Angels for the strong surrogates it has offered him, but also for the film industry's ability to raise millions of dollars to power his campaign. In fact, the Hollywood fundraiser that Clooney headlined last month and referenced in his piece, raised a staggering $30 million — more than any other Democratic fundraiser in history.

Now that crucial support is in flux. Since Biden's hard-to-watch performance at the CNN debate, a number of influential Hollywood voices have gone public with their concerns about his candidacy, with many calling on the president to exit the race.

Director Rob Reiner shared Clooney's op-ed Wednesday on X, writing that "democracy is facing an existential threat" and that Biden "must step aside" to make way for "someone younger to fight back" against Donald Trump. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings told The Times last week that Biden needs to "step aside." The "LOST" creator Damon Lindelof wrote a piece for Deadline, saying Biden "has to go" and urging fellow Hollywood denizens to stop writing checks until a new candidate is named. Disney heiress Abigail Disney also said she would withhold donations until Biden is replaced. And Endeavor boss Ari Emanuel said at a conference that he was "pissed off at the founding fathers" for having never put an age limit on the presidency.

"Donald Trump said, 'I'm the only one.' Right? 'I alone can make all these problems go away.' And now Biden is saying, 'I'm the only one that can beat Trump.' Seems like it's pretty similar here, [but] we have a great bench in the Democratic Party," Emanuel said last week. "We're looking at a man who's saying the other guy's a liar, and he's telling us malarkey!"

Turing the tide in Hollywood will be a difficult challenge for Biden, who is simultaneously struggling to keep Democratic members of Congress and governors from expressing concerns about his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term in office. I'm told that the Biden campaign has actively been making phone calls to Hollywood supporters, working to maintain their support in this turbulent moment.

As for Clooney, a senior Biden campaign adviser told me, "POTUS won't be sitting front row at 'Oceans 14.'" But, the person added, Biden is "encouraged by the strong grassroots support we're seeing and he's determined to earn every vote and win this election."

BIDEN IN PERIL

Coming Up: Biden is set to deliver a press conference Thursday, which will obviously be closely watched.
After the Thursday press conference, Biden will sit for a one-on-one interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt. That interview will tape and air on Monday. It's unclear how long the interview is slated to be, Hadas Gold reports. (CNN)
Biden, of course, has a lot of work to do to change minds. Jon Stewart said in the latest episode of his podcast that he believes Biden is "becoming Trumpian." (Variety)
Reporters continue to vent at the White House: "There's very little trust right now, and it's really frustrating," one correspondent told Jeremy Barr. "I think everyone is pissed. It's the lid coming off after 3½ years of pressure-cooking, of us being shut out." (WaPo)
And the op-eds keep coming. The WaPo published a piece Wednesday night from Sen. Peter Welch, calling on Biden to withdraw. I'm told that Welch's camp said they chose The WaPo to publish the piece because it's a newspaper they know Biden "is reading at the White House." (WaPo)

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Mike Coppola/Warner Bros. Discovery

The Thompson Transformation: The fog is starting to lift on Mark Thompson's strategy to revamp CNN for the future. The network boss on Wednesday, nine months into his tenure, announced a set of sweeping changes to the iconic outlet. They include plans to build a billion-dollar digital business, experiment with artificial intelligence, and overhaul key newsroom structures. The measures, which Thompson described to staffers in a memo as a "key milestone in the transformation of CNN," will result in about 100 employees, or about three percent of the workforce, being laid off. Impacted staffers, who were notified if they had been part of the cuts on Wednesday, will receive severance, Thompson said. Details in my full story here.

🔎 Zooming In: While Thompson outlined the broad contours of his plan, the nitty-gritty details still remain quite fuzzy. What precisely is the plan to build a billion-dollar digital business? Thompson indicated that a subscription component will be part of the roadmap to get there, and he said that CNN will send its first digital subscription product to the market by year's end. But he did not offer any further information on what it will entail. A newsletter? A vertical like the Cooking section he helped build at The NYT? All of that remains unclear. In his memo to staffers, Thompson himself acknowledged that some key components of what he was announcing remain nebulous. "Turning a great news organization towards the future is not a one-day affair. It happens in stages and over time," Thompson said. "Today's announcements do not answer every question or seek to solve every challenge we face. However, they do represent a significant step forward and I hope you will read about them in that spirit." That's, of course, fair. But staffers are certainly hoping for more concrete answers soon.

📺 On the TV front: Somewhat buried in the lengthy memo Thompson sent out was yet another acknowledgement that CNN's television programming is in need of some assistance, to put it kindly. Thompson said that Charlie Moore, the longtime "Anderson Cooper 360" executive producer who was recently promoted to vice president of prime time programming, will "find ways to further develop and strengthen" the network's linear offerings. Suffice to say that Moore has work to do, given that CNN's prime time ratings have been hovering at lows for some time. How he will breathe new life into the lineup remains to be seen.

THOMPSON TIME

When asked by Isabella Simonetti and Joe Flint if he would try to recreate a product bundle similar to what he did at The NYT, Mark Thompson answered, "It's a logical possibility." (WSJ)
"CNN already reaches a massive audience through its digital platforms, but all of the content is currently free and does not generate the kind of ad rates attainable through traditional TV," Stephen Battaglio pointed out. (LAT)
"While the specifics around CNN's first subscription offering were not clear from the memo, Thompson did emphasize that rather than the text-based experience it currently leans on, CNN will focus more on video in digital going forward," Alex Weprin noted. (THR)
Joshua Benton: "Is the CNN Digital brand — as huge as it is — distinctive enough to get people to add another subscription to their credit cards?" (NiemanLab)
As part of the cuts, CNN will say goodbye to Brian Lowry, the widely respected movie and television critic, Brian Steinberg reported. Readers of this newsletter know Lowry's work very well. His exit is a loss for CNN, but a gain for whoever welcomes him aboard next. (Variety)

THE INDUSTRY

CNN Photo Illustration/Michele Crowe/CBS/Getty Images

Change at CBS: Executive turnover has once again struck CBS News. Ingrid Ciprián-Matthews, the three-decade CBS News veteran who ascended to the role of president in 2023, announced to staffers Wednesday that she will exit her position in the next few weeks. Ciprián-Matthews, who replaced Neeraj Khemlani after his own short two-year stint in the job, will transition to the newly created role of senior editorial adviser, where she will help guide the outlet's politics coverage during the election. The announcement, of course, comes days after CBS parent Paramount Global accepted an offer from Skydance Media that will see the two companies merge. Following the merger, Skydance Media plans to install its own leadership team. Ciprián-Matthews alluded to the corporate uncertainty in her memo to staff. Here's my full story.

🔎 Zooming In: The decision by Ciprián-Matthews to vacate her role means two of the nation's biggest broadcast news organizations will be without a chief heading into the high stakes November elections and amid a particularly turbulent period in the media industry. Earlier this year, Disney ousted Kim Godwin as ABC News chief and has yet to announce a replacement.

PLAYING AT PARAMOUNT

Will former CNN boss turned Redbird IMI chief Jeff Zucker run CBS after the Paramount-Skydance merger completes? There is certainly buzz in media circles about the possibility, given Redbird's role in the Skydance deal. Redbird honcho Gerry Cardinale cautioned William D. Cohan it might not be as simple as some believe it to be. "He's a fiduciary for over a billion dollars of deployed capital with the IMI sleeve that I have," Cardinale said. "It's not so straightforward that he just walks away from that to go do this." But, Cardinale said, he has "a year to think about it." (Puck)
The Paramount-Skydance merger will "test DOJ's tolerance for Big Media consolidation," Winston Cho reports. (THR)
Skydance boss David Ellison said Tom Cruise "is supportive of the planned merger," adding the "outreach we have received from the entertainment community has been pretty remarkable." (Deadline)
"Superlatives come easy when the ink is fresh on the sale agreement, but that doesn't change the reality that there are monumental challenges ahead for Paramount and other legacy Hollywood brands," Matt Donnelly writes. (Variety)

ON THE COURT

🏀 "The NBA and network executives finalized contracts that will make NBC and Amazon Prime Video new partners, while maintaining ESPN as the home of the NBA Finals, under agreements that will extend for 11 seasons and be worth $76 billion," Andrew Marchand reports. (The Athletic)
The ball is now in the hands of Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav, who has publicly underscored that the company does hold matching rights and may very well use them. Marchand reports that if Zaslav tires to match a deal, it is expected to be Amazon's package. A spokesperson for WBD declined to comment.

THE FOURTH ESTATE

The NYT's top editor, Joe Kahn, participated in a lengthy and wide-ranging Q&A with Clare Malone. In it, Kahn defended launching an investigation aimed at identifying Israel-related leaks ("It did, in my view, warrant an inquiry to find out how that happened") and commented on how the paper would cover a potential second Donald Trump presidency: "Fasten your seatbelts. If Trump wins again, the New York Times will be committed to covering every aspect of that story as it unfolds. It would be, as our reporting shows, a disruptive Presidency if he wins. We will have a full-time job covering the implications of that." (New Yorker)
In the U.K., police apprehended the 26-year-old suspect wanted for the killing of the wife and two daughters of a BBC commentator. (CNN)
Russia declared The Moscow Times to be "undesirable." (AP)
Democracy Now's interviews about the Israel-Hamas war were scrubbed by Instagram, Max Tani reports. (Semafor)
"This American Life" will start selling its podcast ads on National Public Media, shifting away from New York Times Co., Ashley Carman reports. (Bloomberg)
TUAW — the tech blog that shuttered 10 years ago before being sold to a private equity firm and then a Hong Kong-based company — is "publishing A.I. articles under the names of its old human staff," Jason Koebler reports. (404 Media)

MEDIA MOVES

The NYT named Max Strasser its Ideas editor. (NYT)
Bloomberg News hired Dave Sebastian as a reporter. (TBN)
Reuters hired Jessica Donati as a correspondent. (TBN)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

Owens' Holocaust Outburst: Right-wing extremist Candace Owens, who was ousted from The Daily Wire earlier this year after her embrace of antisemitic rhetoric, has earned fresh scorn this week over new commentary casting doubt on Holocaust atrocities. The reprehensible remarks — which were made in an episode of her show titled, "Literally Hitler. Why Can't We Talk About Him?" — drew pushback from the Combat Antisemitism Movement, which noted Wednesday that SS officers, such as Josef Mengele, did indeed perform "deadly experiments" on the Jewish people during the Holocaust. The group condemned Owens' comments as "utterly repugnant," noting she is trying to "rewrite history by denying these depraved acts ever happened." Mediaite's Alex Griffing has more here.

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Elon vs the Employees: The world's richest man has succeeded in avoiding paying $500 million in severance payments to the thousands of Twitter employees he gleefully laid off after purchasing the social media platform. A judge ruled Tuesday that the employees were not covered under a federal law key to their suit, paving the way for Elon Musk's victory in the case. TechCrunch's Maxwell Zeff has more here.

TOO MANY TABS

Microsoft and Apple abandoned plans to take OpenAI board seats as the companies face antitrust scrutiny. (Bloomberg)
Aisha Malik wrote about how Instagram remains focused on short-form content as TikTok chases YouTube on longer videos. (TechCrunch)
Goodbye physical security keys? Google said that it will now allow users enrolled in its Advanced Protection Program to use the service with just a phone. (The Verge)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Ross D. Franklin/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Baldwin on Trial: Alec Baldwin on Wednesday was in court as opening arguments got underway in the "Rust" involuntary manslaughter case. During the opening arguments, the prosecution accused Baldwin of having violated the "cardinal rules of firearm safety" by pointing the gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin's lawyers acknowledged the shooting death of Hutchins was an "unspeakable tragedy," but insisted the actor "committed no crime." The trial is expected to last about two weeks. CNN's Josh Campbell, Eric Levinson, and Ray Sanchez have more here.

OFF STAGE

Sean "Diddy" Combs hired Marc Agnifilo, the high-profile criminal attorney, as a Manhattan federal grand jury mulls sex-trafficking allegations against the disgraced rapper, Laura Italiano reports. (Business Insider)
Pixar's "Inside Out 2" passed the $1.25 billion mark at the global box office, outperforming all of the animation studio's other films to date and assuaging anxieties about its prospects. (LAT)
The Aug. 16 theatrical debut of Kevin Costner's Western epic "Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2" was aborted after the saga's first chapter flopped at the box office. (THR)
The reviews for "Twisters" are out, with the film seeing a generally positive reception. With 21 reviews, it currently boasts a 76% score on Rotten Tomatoes. (RT)
Katy Perry said she will release her sixth album in the fall. (Billboard)
Pat Sajak will return for one final spin during "Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune." (Deadline)
Ellen DeGeneres said she will step out of the spotlight for the final time following her Netflix special. (CNN)
Lena Dunham will not return to Netflix's "Too Much" series, saying, "I was not willing to have another experience like what I'd experienced around 'Girls' at this point in my life." (Deadline)
Emilia Clarke will star in a Prime Video crime drama, titled "Criminal." (Variety)
A24 released the trailer for "We Live In Time," starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. (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. You can follow us on Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn. We will see you back in your inbox tomorrow.

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