| | | | | Top of the morning! I was under the weather last night, but I'm heading into work now for "New Day," so consider this a special A.M. edition of the newsletter... Here's what is driving the day... | | "Time magazine is about to have new owners -- including the billionaire Koch brothers." The details via David Goldman's story for CNNMoney:
-- Meredith has agreed to buy 95-year-old Time Inc. for $2.8 billion...
-- The two media companies are worth roughly the same on the stock market. To finance the deal, Iowa-based Meredith is taking on some serious debt, borrowing about $3.6 billion from an assortment of lenders...
-- It also plans to sell a sizable chunk of the combined business -- $650 million worth -- to a company owned by Charles and David Koch...
-- Meredith is holding a conference call with investors at 8am ET... | | Will the Kochs be active or passive investors? | | Recode's Peter Kafka asks the key Q: "Why do the Kochs want to get into the publishing business? Do they think it's a good financial bet? Or do the brothers, a powerful force in conservative politics, like the idea of influencing one of the world's largest publishers, even if it's nothing like the powerhouse it used to be?"
-- From the press release: Meredith says the Koch brothers will not have seats on the board "and will have no influence on Meredith's editorial or managerial operations..."
-- A Koch Industries spokesman says "this is a passive financial investment made through our equity development arm..."
-- What to watch: "See if Meredith, which publishes titles focused on women and the advertisers who want to reach them, ends up hanging on to the titles it has traditionally been uninterested in -- particularly Time and Fortune," Kafka writes. "If Meredith -- the publisher behind Family Circle and Better Homes and Gardens -- now decides it is interested in the news business it wanted no part of for years, it doesn't automatically mean the Kochs plan on having an active hand in the news business. But it would be an obvious answer..." | | | In his internal memo Sunday night, Time Inc. CEO Rich Battista didn't claim to be "thrilled" or "excited" about the news. Props for candor, I suppose. "I believe in our strategic transformation plan and in our ability to write the next great chapter of this storied company," but "as a publicly traded company, and one operating in such a dynamic industry as media, we know circumstances can change quickly," he said. Battista is holding two town halls for staffers today... | | | Per Kafka's story, "Battista is supposed to leave when the deal closes -- the two companies say that will happen in the first quarter of 2018 (though AT&T thought it would own Time Warner by now, too)." And Battista "won't be the only employee leaving the combined company. Meredith says it can pull out 'cost synergies of $400 million to $500 million in the first full two years of operation...'" | | New York meets Des Moines | | Of course, Meredith has been pursuing Time for years. The company's president and COO Tom Harty says this is a "transformative transaction." But it's also something of a culture clash.
The two publishers have "long courted different audiences, seeking readerships that echoed the places they called home," Sydney Ember and Andrew Ross Sorkin write in Monday's NYT. "Time Inc. is New York to its core" while Meredith is a "Midwestern publisher through and through." Its first title was Successful Farming, followed by Better Homes and Gardens... | | This just in: "Britain's Prince Harry and American actor Meghan Markle are engaged," CNN's team in London reports. "The wedding will take place in spring 2018... More details about the wedding will be released in due course but they will make an official engagement appearance on Monday afternoon before taking part in a broadcast interview which will air in the evening." Photo op coming up at 9am ET...
--> Funny moment between two hosts on the BBC: "We note some people don't like over the top reporting about royal weddings, but it's going to happen!" "It is, yes..." | | | --> "It's a big royal year" in 2018, Victoria Arbiter said on the "Today" show... "The royal baby is due in April..." | | The broadcast A.M. shows led with the engagement news... NBC and ABC had detailed packages and live shots outside Kensington Palace, while CBS just mentioned it briefly... "Congratulations, Harry and Meg! We don't know you, but congratulations," Gayle King said with a smile...
Meantime, the cablers led with the CFPB showdown... | | Another Trump v. the media flashpoint | | The opening to Sunday's "Reliable Sources," Twitter reveals the real President Trump. His tweets reveal his real disdain for the press. We're at another flashpoint now, with his tweets over the weekend deriding CNN and Time magazine. It's more of the same: He's promoting his friends -- the media outlets that tell him how great he is -- while trying to punish media outlets that report the news and challenge him.
"We shouldn't normalize the spectacle," John Avlon said on "Reliable," because "it is a serious, constant attack at our democratic norms, going after the press, going after individual entities..."
-- More from the segment: Olivia Nuzzi suggested that the president's Twitter habit is getting nastier: "We've seen sort of a throwback in his tone, to almost 2013-style Trump tweets." Avlon: "Yes, this is YOLO Trump..." | | Trump slams CNN International -- and journalists fire back | | "This is another way that Trump recklessly hurts us in the world." That was Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik's reaction to the president's tweet about CNN's international programming. Many journalists inside and outside CNN came to the network's defense in the wake of this Trump barb:
"Fox News is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!"
A few minutes later, CNN's PR department fired back: "It's not CNN's job to represent the U.S to the world. That's yours. Our job is to report the news." That reply has amassed three times as many retweets and nearly three times as many likes as the original Trump tweet. Here's my full story...
🔌: I'll be talking more about this on "CNN Newsroom" around 9:45am ET... | | | After our conversation on TV, he followed up with a blog post for the Sun: "This is part of Trump's larger disinformation campaign, and journalists have an obligation to fight it. Trump's effort to cause confusion and even chaos in our information ecosystem is as fundamental a threat to democracy as you can get..." | | Hadas Gold emails: Trump aligned himself with Vladimir Putin on Saturday when he tweeted about CNNI. The tweet came on the same day that Putin signed a new media law, a precursor to designating international media as "foreign agents" subject to some very intense restrictions. American-funded outlets like Radio Free Europe and American-based outlets like CNN have been singled out by Russian politicians as possible targets of the law...
-- More: AFP White House correspondent Andrew Beatty tweeted: "Why is Trump doing this on the same day Putin cracks down on foreign media in Russia — including CNN International?" And Washington Post reporter Karoun Demirjian said Trump's critique "should help Russia's plans to muzzle certain media outlets along quite nicely..." | | "I think Donald Trump knows that for his supporters, Donald Trump is a feeling. And nothing that he says, really, is going to change the way that they feel about him. They think that everything that he does is for their greater good..."
--Olivia Nuzzi on Sunday's "Reliable..." | | Quite a scoop buried in this Martin/Haberman/Burns story about why Trump is standing by Roy Moore: "He sees the calls for Mr. Moore to step aside as a version of the response to the now-famous 'Access Hollywood' tape, in which he boasted about grabbing women's genitalia, and the flood of groping accusations against him that followed soon after. He suggested to a senator earlier this year that it was not authentic, and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently..."
--> Sarah Sanders will be asked about this at the next W.H. briefing, right?
-- Related: On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," we showed how Trump "shades the truth..." There's a spectrum between a true statement and a lie, with lots of shades in between... | | "Trump Tweets Link to Conspiracy Theory Website" | | New week, new stories, but this can't be overlooked: "President Trump tweeted Saturday night a link to a sycophantic website that traffics in conspiracy theories and has aligned itself to the alt-right and white nationalist movements," Michael Warren of The Weekly Standard writes. When Trump saw the link to the "MAGAPill" list of his accomplishments, he wrote, "Wow, even I didn't realize we did so much. Wish the Fake News would report!"
-- J.M. Berger, a/k/a @Intelwire, tweeted his reaction: "In cybersecurity news, you can get the President of the United States to click on a link from his phone by praising him..." | | -- Since this is a morning edition, lemme take a minute to recommend Michael Calderone's always-in-the-morning media newsletter for Politico... Here's his latest edition...
-- Margaret Sullivan's Monday column: "If cops can get phone data without a warrant, it could be a nightmare for journalists — and sources..." (WashPost)
-- Important piece by Julie Bosman in Monday's NYT: "Journalist Who Told Laquan McDonald's Story Faces Fight Over Sources" (NYT)
-- Jeff Glor now has a start date: He'll officially begin anchoring the "CBS Evening News" next Monday... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Tuesday morning: the 2018 Grammy nominations will be announced...
-- Tuesday evening: CNN's town hall debate about taxes...
-- Wednesday: Randall Stephenson speaking at the luncheon meeting of the Economic Club of New York...
-- Thursday evening: The National Christmas Tree lighting outside the W.H... live on the Hallmark Channel...
-- Friday: "The Disaster Artist" and "Wonder Wheel" in theaters... | | Bret Stephens' latest NYT column contains an interview with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. Key quotes about AT&T's battle with the DOJ over the Time Warner deal:
-- "I don't know if there has been political interference, but it's logical to ask questions. You'd have to be naïve not to..."
-- "I have no evidence that there's been inappropriate behavior. What I have is a really peculiar timeline..."
-- Re: DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim: "Temperatures change rather quickly, and Delrahim's own attitude changes rather quickly..." | | About the "mixed messages..." | | On Sunday's "Reliable," I spoke with David Gelles about the DOJ's hard line against AT&T at the same time the FCC is moving to repeal "net neutrality," a move AT&T and other internet providers are cheering.
"What we have is one administration, two agencies, and two very different messages about just how much power big companies like AT&T should be allowed to amass," Gelles said... Watch the full Q&A here... | | 📺 Catch up on Sunday's show | | NYT says it regrets offense caused by 'Nazi sympathizer' story | | Jackie Wattles writes: On Sunday NYT national editor Marc Lacey addressed the backlash to a piece posted online Saturday. It described an Ohio man as "the Nazi sympathizer next door."
"We regret the degree to which the piece offended so many readers," Lacey wrote to readers. "We recognize that people can disagree on how best to tell a disagreeable story. What we think is indisputable, though, is the need to shed more light, not less, on the most extreme corners of American life and the people who inhabit them." He continued: "That's what the story, however imperfectly, tried to do." Read Jackie's full story about the controversy here...
-- Recommended: For much more on this, check out CJR's morning newsletter...
-- Erik Wemple's take: The story was "half-baked..."
-- Charlie Warzel says something was missing from the story: An examination of the Internet's role in radicalizing people... | | The NYT reporter's POV... | | | Richard Fausset's piece was accompanied by a Times Insider column by the author. "Sometimes a soul, and its shape, remain obscure to both writer and reader. I beat myself up about all of this for a while, until I decided that the unfilled hole would have to serve as both feature and defect. What I had were quotidian details, though to be honest, I'm not even sure what these add up to..." | | | This photo from Instagram raised eyebrows over the weekend... Was Bret Baier visiting President Trump to lobby for an interview? Fox News says no: "Bret Baier and his wife attended a dinner at Mar-a-Lago as a guest of Jack Nicklaus, whose home they were staying at for the weekend," the network told reporters. "He was asked to take a photo with Nicklaus and the President and obliged..." | | -- Brent Scher's scoop over the holiday weekend: "Washington Post reporter Janell Ross gave a presentation at a secretive California gathering where Democratic politicians, liberal activists, and their biggest donors plotted the future of the progressive movement without notifying her superiors that she would be attending, according to a Post spokesman." The Post says Ross has been "reminded" about its policies... (Free Beacon)
-- Do you know the "media mogul of Maine?" He "owns 18 weeklies and four of the seven daily newspapers in Maine, and his presses print the other three..." (NYT)
-- Premiering tonight on MTV: "Floribama Shore." Hank Stuever is not impressed... (WashPost) | | "Charlie Rose Has Honors From Two Journalism Schools Rescinded" | | Via the NYT: "Two journalism schools on Friday rescinded honors they had previously awarded to the news broadcaster Charlie Rose..." Arizona State University's J school and the University of Kansas...
-- Related video from Sunday's "Reliable:" "How CBS covered the Charlie Rose scandal..." | | "House of Cards" staff still in limbo | | In the wake of the Kevin Spacey scandal, "House of Cards" remains on hiatus... And Media Rights Capital told crew members in an email Sunday that the show will remain on hiatus for the next two weeks, Jill Disis reports.
-- Details: The show's writers and a small group of office and accounting staff are working in the production office... Everyone else is off... MRC told crew members that it will update them again by December 8... | | | Ronan Farrow on "CBS Sunday Morning:" "I don't think most people are aware of the exotic and extreme tools at the disposal of the most powerful and wealthy men in the world when they are bent at silencing accusations against them..." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- On CJR, a Q&A with Linda Greenhouse on her new book, "Just a Journalist," her thoughts on objectivity and on the current political moment... (CJR)
-- Digiday looks at how the BBC has been driving up its mobile video traffic through vertical video... (Digiday)
-- Recode says Snapchat is launching a new advertising tool, Promoted Stories, right on time for the holidays... (Recode) | | | "Diageo, Mars, Hewlett-Packard, Deutsche Bank and Mondelez were among brands to pull advertising from YouTube and its owner Google after campaigns appeared alongside videos featuring children and sexualised comments," the FT reported over the holiday weekend... YouTube now says it's cracking down on the exploitative content... | | "Coco" #1 for the weekend | | | "'Coco,' a vibrant, multicultural film from Pixar set in Mexico, drew $71 million domestically over the five-day holiday weekend, beating out 'Justice League' for the No. 1 spot," Andrew R. Chow writes for the NYT. "The results reinforced Disney's Thanksgiving dominance and proved that stories with Latino themes can have wide international appeal..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: An interesting footnote to "Coco's" strong weekend: the social media response included some Hispanics urging others to support the movie, on the grounds that such quality fare needs to perform to encourage Hollywood to produce more like it. The perception lingers that minority-driven projects carry an added burden in terms of impacting opportunities down the road and having to demonstrate broader commercial viability... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... I appreciate every message. The feedback helps us craft the next day's newsletter! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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