| | | | | Exec summary: Ten days after the WSJ investigation, Steve Wynn has stepped down from Wynn Resorts... Plus, there's new "Star Wars" news, Snap earnings, and Viacom layoffs... | | Tronc is offloading the LA Times | | What, you thought the staff of the Los Angeles Times could have a quiet week for a change? No way. Tuesday's bulletin: Tronc "is in talks to sell the paper to a local biotech billionaire," Dylan Byers reports, citing "sources familiar with the matter."
More: "Michael Ferro, who controls the paper's parent company Tronc, is negotiating with Patrick Soon-Shiong, a Tronc investor and physician who has been dubbed 'the world's richest doctor.' The deal, if reached, could see Soon-Shiong buying both the LA Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune for roughly $500 million plus pension liabilities, according to one source with knowledge of the matter..." | | | At lunchtime the WashPost's Paul Farhi tweeted: "So great to get a hot news tip. So hard to actually confirm it." Four hours later, he revealed what he was talking about, posting his scoop about the sale talks on the Post web site... | | Does this valuation make any sense? | | | Consider this, from Dylan's story: "The $500 million price tag would put the two papers at twice the price of the Washington Post when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought it in 2013 -- a valuation that is likely to mystify industry observers..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: LAT employees have dreamt about local ownership and billionaire white knights practically since Tribune acquired it (when I was there). While reality probably won't match the fantasy, based on recent history it's hard to imagine the new boss being worse than the Tronc era has been... | | Right now the CNN banner says "KELLY: SOME DREAMERS 'TOO LAZY TO GET OFF THEIR ASSES.'" Yep, that's John Kelly. Some of Tuesday's OTHER headlines:
-- Trump said he would welcome another government shutdown over immigration...
-- The WashPost broke the news that Trump really wants the military to hold a parade in DC... A DOD spokesman confirmed that the Pentagon is "in the process of determining specific details..."
-- Kara Scannell's scoop for CNN: "New documents show how Mueller quickly expanded investigation"
-- What about Monday's remark accusing Dems of "treason" for not standing and applauding during the SOTU? White House aides said he was "clearly joking" and being "tongue-in-cheek..."
-- Then Trump's campaign put out a web video ad attacking the Dems for sitting, keeping this narrative going, a full week after the speech... | | | Chuck Todd tweeted Tuesday: "If we live in a 'post-truth' world (see yet more examples just today) where do we go next? Post post-truth? Post-reality? That's the next evolution from post-truth?" | | Nunes taking a page from Trump's playbook | | "You know the rules," Devin Nunes told reporters on Monday, "we don't talk about committee business." But Nunes DOES talk about his work -- with hand-picked interviewers from President Trump's favorite media outlets. He has given three interviews to Fox since the release of the GOP memo last Friday. He has also called into Rush Limbaugh's show. Meanwhile, he has declined other interview requests and dodged Q's from the Capitol Hill press corps.
--> Bottom line: The congressman's media strategy seems to be focused on the conservative echo chamber, rather than the public at large. This suggests his goal is affirmation -- reinforcing preexisting beliefs on the right -- rather than persuasion. Here's my full story about it... | | Meanwhile, Fox is attacking Schiff | | At 8pm, Tucker Carlson led his show with an anti-Adam Schiff segment, assailing the Dem for appearing on Putin's RT channel back in 2013. At 9pm, Sean Hannity repeatedly called Schiff a "wannabe MSNBC contributor."
Both shows highlighted this new Daily Mail story about the pranksters who called Schiff with bogus claims about Trump last year. The only problem? The Atlantic's Julia Ioffe wrote about this in December. It's not new. So why was it labeled a "Fox News Alert" on Hannity's show? | | WNYC and ProPublica are partnering to produce a twelve-episode podcast called "Trump Inc."
According to WNYC PR, journos from the two outlets "will lead an 'open investigation,' inviting everyone – including listeners – to help peel back the mysteries surrounding the Trump family businesses. Episodes will explore the record fines a Trump casino received around money laundering; the Trump Organization's foreign deals and financing; the Russian money trail; and much more." Episode one comes out on Wednesday... | | -- Happy book launch day to Bloomberg's Emily Chang, whose book "Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley" came out Tuesday... And to Steve Coll, whose latest book "Directorate S" is now out...
-- "Low-quality, extremist, sensationalist and conspiratorial news published in the US was overwhelmingly consumed and shared by rightwing social network users, according to a new study from the University of Oxford..." (The Guardian)
-- Just published: "Russian trolls ran wild on Tumblr, and the company refuses to say anything about it," Craig Silverman reports... (BuzzFeed) | | Viacom lays off about 100 people... | | | Cheddar's Alex Heath broke the news on Monday... An internal memo confirmed it on Tuesday... Variety said the "reductions will be focused on support employees and not those directly involved in content creation..." | | ...And makes a change at Nick | | Joe Flint and Keach Hagey's Tuesday night scoop: "Viacom is shaking up the leadership at its Nickelodeon Group children's television network, according to people familiar with the matter." Bob Bakish "is adding Sarah Levy as a high ranking company executive to be involved in operations and strategy for Nickelodeon." This means more power for Levy, and less for Nick president Cyma Zarghami. The story is pretty clear: Zarghami "is nearing the end of her contract..." And Levy is close with Bakish... Levy will "take on a similar role at BET as well..."
--> Viacom reports earnings on Thursday... | | "Disney Reports Mixed Earnings and a Full Project Pipeline" | | | That's the headline on Brooks Barnes' story in the NYT. The TV, movie studio and consumer products divisions showed some weak spots, but the parks division had a huge quarter... | | ESPN streaming app will cost $4.99/month | | | Bob Iger shared a bit of news on Tuesday's call: When ESPN Plus launches this spring, it will cost $4.99 a month. But let's be clear: "Subscribers won't be able to watch the most popular games for only $4.99," CNNMoney's Jill Disis writes. "Streaming ESPN TV networks will require a subscription to an existing service that offers those channels. Instead, the ESPN Plus service comes with what Iger called a 'greatly expanded array of programs' and live sports that aren't currently available on TV. He mentioned baseball, soccer, hockey, boxing, golf, rugby and cricket as examples." Still no specific date for the launch... | | No new updates on ESPN prez search... | | | It's been 50 days since ESPN president John Skipper abruptly stepped down. George Bodenheimer is the acting chair for another 40 days while Iger finds a replacement for Skipper. But the topic didn't come up on the earnings call, and Disney has nothing new to share... | | "Game of Thrones" creators take on "Star Wars" | | | Frank Pallotta emails about Disney's OTHER big news on Tuesday: Talk about worlds colliding! "Game of Thrones" creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are going to write and produce a new series of "Star Wars" films. So, yes, yet another series of films from a galaxy far, far away... Read more... | | What does this mean for "Confederacy" ? | | | Frank Pallotta adds: The "Star Wars" news led some to question if Benioff and Weiss' involvement would interfere with their work on HBO's "Confederate." The alt-history series, which takes place in a reality where the Confederacy won the Civil War, was announced in July and caused intense controversy. HBO did not respond to questions about the future of the drama on Tuesday, but I wouldn't be shocked if we hear some news about it in the coming days... | | "For the first time since going public in March, Snapchat's parent company posted quarterly sales and user growth that beat Wall Street's estimates," Seth Fiegerman reports. Key detail: "It added 8.9 million daily active users in the final three months of the year, more than any other quarter of the year."
--> On the earnings call, Evan Spiegel said the redesign and the Android improvements are working. Now the pressure is really on for Q1... | | What goes down must go back up? | | | The Dow closed up 567 points on Tuesday. This was my favorite headline of the day: "How the stock market went from boring to bananas in just one week," a story by CNNMoney's Julia Horowitz... | | -- Rebecca Traister's latest must-read: "No One Is Silencing Katie Roiphe" (The Cut)
-- By Ed Yong: "I spent two years trying to fix the gender imbalance in my stories. Here's what I've learned, and why I did it..." (The Atlantic)
-- Gerry Smith's latest is about how QVC is fending off Amazon and cord-cutting. One of the details in his story: QVC is in talks with to enable Comcast's "22 million subscribers to order items on the channel from their remote controls..." (Bloomberg)
-- "Facebook hired a full-time pollster to monitor Zuckerberg's approval ratings." Casey Newton reveals why "why Tavis McGinn quit after six months..." (The Verge) | | SpaceX launch nabs huge viewership | | | The live stream of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launch "was the second biggest in YouTube's history," The Verge reports. "The event reached over 2.3 million concurrent views on YouTube, coming in second to the Red Bull Stratos jump, which racked in a ridiculous 8 million concurrent views back in 2012." The SpaceX launch was also carried live by all the cable newsers on Tuesday... And the story led the NBC/ABC/CBS evening newscasts... | | | Later in the day, SpaceX live-streamed "Starman" traveling through space in a Tesla... The Atlantic called it a "clever show of cross-promotional marketing that only someone like" Elon Musk "is capable of..." | | About that Vegas shocker... | | | Why didn't the Las Vegas Review-Journal run Geer Thevenot's story about allegations against Steve Wynn back in 1998? Why was she told to bury it? "I always believed it was fear of litigation," she told CNNMoney for this new story by Tom Kludt and Hadas Gold. The WSJ investigation jogged Thevenot's memory... | | Rep says Adelson didn't know in advance | | Tom Kludt emails: When the Review-Journal published its incredible admission on Monday -- that prior management spiked Thevenot's story 20 years ago -- it was an immediate source of palace intrigue for those who have covered the city for years. Was this Sheldon Adelson, who bought the paper in a tumultuous takeover two years earlier, twisting the knife with a longtime rival? The proud staff at the Review-Journal insist otherwise; in fact, they take umbrage at the suggestion.
"He knew this story was coming when it landed on his driveway this morning," managing editor Glenn Cook said. Adelson's rep echoed that, saying on Monday night that the billionaire GOP benefactor didn't know the story was coming. In fact, the rep said, Adelson hadn't even read it... | | -- "Harry Enten, most recently a senior political writer for FiveThirtyEight, is joining CNN's Politics team as a senior political writer and analyst..." (Politico)
-- Megan Greenwell is the new EIC of Deadspin: "The site's fifth chief editor, and the first woman to hold the post at a site that has struggled in the past with gender diversity..." (THR)
-- "Veteran music journalist Alex Gale has been named head of editorial for Apple Music..." (Variety)
-- "Daniel Zwerdling, a veteran investigative journalist at NPR, has left the network amid allegations of sexual harassment." He denied the allegations... (Current) | | | Hadas Gold emails: Newsweek staffers were still tense on Tuesday, following the sudden firings of two top editors, but the situation felt "calmer," sources told me. Acting editor Nancy Cooper, brought over from IBT, addressed the staff in a meeting and tried to calm fears, and encouraged them to do good work. Some reporters in the meeting asked about continuing to report on the company, including on Monday's firings. But editors discouraged such reporting, suggesting that they didn't want to somehow cause more firings. Meanwhile, journos are still on edge, with many downloading their portfolios, saving contacts and firing up their networks to job hunt, worried about what might come next... | | | --> The departures continue: David Sirota said he resigned from IBT/Newsweek on Tuesday... | | Important note for Apple iCloud China users | | | Via CNNMoney's Jethro Mullen in Hong Kong: Reporters Without Borders is urging "journalists and bloggers who use Apple iCloud China to change their geographic region or to close their accounts by February 28, when control of their data will pass to the Chinese state..." | | | Last night we linked to Jonathan Chait's latest column in NYMag... Brian Lowry said it made an especially astute observation about the cumulative effect of decades of conservative criticism designed to discredit mainstream media outlets... But the link was broken! HERE is the column... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- "On Wednesday morning, Voice of America will debut a new show from contributor Greta Van Susteren called Plugged In With Greta Van Susteren..." (THR)
-- Tyler McCall has a new profile of the NYT's Styles editor Choire Sicha... (Fashionista)
-- And hey, one more link... I appreciated this Inquirer story about how some national news outlets overstated the amount of raucous behavior that broke out when the Eagles won on Sunday night... (Inquirer) | | Kian Lawley loses movie gig after racist comments | | | YouTube star Kian Lawley will not appear in the upcoming adaptation of bestselling young adult novel 'The Hate U Give' after a video of Lawley making racist statements began making rounds online," Sandra Gonzalez reports... | | Lowry reviews "The Gilded Age" | | Brian Lowry emails: PBS's doc "The Gilded Age" -- not to be confused with Julian Fellowes' upcoming NBC drama -- draws a pretty straight line from the period's income inequality and political tumult to the issues of today.
The doc premiered on Tuesday night... Read all about it here... | | Countdown to "Black Panther" | | Brian Lowry emails: Marvel looks to have another huge hit with "Black Panther," which shares some key traits -- beyond just the hero's royal lineage -- with DC's best movie to date, "Wonder Woman."
>>> Screenings begin Thursday night... The WSJ says the film's "resonance for African-American moviegoers is transforming a typical action-movie rollout into a full-blown cultural event..." | | | Quoting from Lowry's new review for CNN.com: "Black superheroes have reached the screen before, but seeing the collective weight of Marvel/Disney thrown behind a blockbuster like 'Black Panther' still feels like a cultural watershed, one that the movie exuberantly embraces. Boasting perhaps the strongest supporting characters yet among Marvel titles, director Ryan Coogler's visually dynamic film should transform a lesser-known comic-book hero into a household name." Read more... | | So what about the next "Cloverfield?" | | | "Paramount Pictures still plans to release future installments in producer J.J. Abrams' 'Cloverfield' series despite offloading 'The Cloverfield Paradox' to Netflix for digital release," TheWrap's Jeremy Fuster reported Tuesday, citing sources. "That includes the studio's upcoming WWII-set 'Overlord,' which the studio has set for theatrical release on October 26 and that one insider confirmed will be the fourth installment of the sci-fi horror series. The deal between Netflix and Paramount for 'The Cloverfield Paradox' was a one-off 'that makes the film immediately profitable,' according to another individual, a welcome injection of cash for a studio that has performed weakly at the box office of late..." | | | Chloe Melas emails her latest story: Days after an investigation found no evidence to support a claim of inappropriate behavior made against Ryan Seacrest by a former colleague, Seacrest has written about the experience in a guest column published by THR. He called being accused of misconduct "gut-wrenching." Here's the column... | | Here's how to catch up on Sunday's "Reliable" | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... I love the feedback, corrections, suggestions, and tips. Thank you... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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