EXEC SUMMARY: I'm at work late, about to join Don Lemon on "CNN Tonight." Scroll down for the day's media news... But first, a preview of Wednesday's historic testimony...
Episode one
The impeachment of President Trump will enter a new phase Wednesday at 10am ET when the House Intelligence Committee's hearing is gaveled in. Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent and US Charge d'affaires in Kiev Bill Taylor will be questioned for several hours.
I think this chapter in American history is fundamentally about three things, each of which can be summed up in three words:
-- Abuse of power.
-- Fact versus fiction.
-- Fitness for office.
Carl Bernstein's wisdom
"No one knows what is going to happen in the coming weeks or months, except likely impeachment by the House, because of the Democratic majority," Carl Bernstein says. "As for the results of a Senate trial or the remainder of Trump's term or the 2020 election, anything is possible."
Given his experience covering Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, I asked Bernstein to share what we should all keep in mind on Wednesday and in the weeks ahead. He started by saying this: Speculation about what might happen "is not the commodity we in news should be looking for right now. Rather, this is a time for more reporting, especially new avenues opened from the Ukraine facts now known to us. There's a lot to pursue, both substance and individuals we ought to be talking to — many of the latter apparently out of reach of the impeachment inquiry because of various privileges claimed by the White House and other lawyers."
Six key points
Here's what Bernstein said in an email message:
-- Nixon's fate "turned quickly in terms of evaporating Senate support for a criminal president -- but that is by no means predictive here -- but helpful to keep in mind."
-- "As every good reporter on the Hill knows, there is hardly anything like universal affection or deep respect for Trump (as opposed to fear of him) among Republican senators. (It is much different in the House.) Many Republican senators have raised questions in private about his stability, state of mind, etc."
-- "This looks like a clear case of attempted bribery by POTUS. Bribery and treason are the only two high crimes specifically named in the impeachment clause of the Constitution. Senators know that."
-- "Also, soliciting a foreign power to interfere in US elections has real constitutional weight as a possible high crime."
-- "But: Republican senators have made clear they won't abandon Trump unless their constituents/Republican voters begin to turn; how these televised hearings are perceived by Republican voters and independents is a big deal."
-- "Remarkable information related to Russia and Putin and Trump's deference to Putin -- whether witting, unwitting or half-witting -- continues to be revealed. Turkey's Syrian adventure-invasion with Trump's permission; his disdain for Ukraine through his whole presidency; and serving Russia's interest there (as opposed to established US policy) suggest more reporting (again) is called for."
Bernstein's final point
"It should never be forgotten," he wrote, "that all of this is taking place in a Cold Civil War in the US -- which pre-dates Trump, though he has brought it to point of near-ignition. Trump has demonstrated remarkable support, especially given the unprecedented nature of his words and actions and attitude as President. The impeachment push by Dems -- given this dynamic of Cold Civil War could conceivably backfire. Once again, real reporting is the priority."
Where to watch / listen / stream
Anywhere and everywhere. CNN's special coverage will begin at 8am ET. ABC, NBC and CBS will show the hearings live. So will all the big cable newsers, including Fox News, lest anyone wonder otherwise. As for local Fox stations, they'll have the option to carry hearing coverage anchored by Harris Faulkner. Some will, some will not. NPR stations will have a similar option: They can air live anchored coverage or run regular news programs "which will be updated constantly with information from the hearing," per a spokeswoman. NPR is also preparing a special recap at 8pm...
Seven cameras
"A ho-hum congressional hearing usually features three cameras," WaPo's Erik Wemple writes. But on Wednesday C-SPAN will have seven cameras "around the hearing room — two cameras for the chair and other members; two cameras for either side; one witness camera; and two high and wide cameras for that panoramic look." C-SPAN is the pool, meaning all the networks will be using these feeds.
>> "C-SPAN had to negotiate over positioning, but got all seven desired cameras," Wemple adds. The House Intel Committee "understood that this was a moment in history that needed proper coverage," C-SPAN's Jon Kelley told him...
Will Trump be watching?
On paper, he has a busy day on Tuesday, full of meetings with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and others. But the banner on "AC360" asked a key Q on Tuesday night: "Will Pres. Trump be able to contain himself as a parade of witnesses begins to speak?"
The hearing starts at 10am... And Trump's joint presser with Erdogan is scheduled for 3:10pm...
--> Maggie Haberman tweeted: "Question that could be put to Erdogan tomorrow at the joint presser: What did POTUS say to you on Oct 6 when you informed him you were invading northern Syria?"
--> "Don't rely on split screen Wednesday. Get a second TV," Mark Knoller of CBS advised his followers...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- The AP's Jonathan Lemire writes: "Trump is now up against the Constitution, but he's not the only thing on trial: So are we the people, as the preamble described us so long ago..." (AP)
-- Jeremy W. Peters and Kenneth P. Vogel are on Page One of Wednesday's NYT with a piece about John Solomon, noting that "his work helps shape how millions of Americans understand this moment..." (NYT)
-- Also on Page One: Peter Baker's look at what has changed since the Clinton impeachment. "The 24/7 world of trolling and Twitter has split America into warring camps..." (NYT)
-- Dan Abrams will host an impeachment debate on Thursday between Nick Ackerman, who served on the Watergate prosecution team, and Breitbart editor Joel Pollak. The debate will be live-streamed... (Mediaite)
Colbert's Christmas
"It's impeachment eve," Stephen Colbert declared on Monday's "Late Show." He said "I'm so excited, I won't be able to sleep -- so, like every other night of the Trump presidency."
Colbert's "impeachment tree" includes the transcript of Trump's "perfect" call, a "quid pro" snowflake, and a joke at Lindsey Graham's expense that you'll have to watch for yourself... | |
Televised hearings matter because...
Yes, we know what the impeachment hearing witnesses have already said behind closed doors -- but now we'll get to look into their eyes and judge their credibility for ourselves. Televised events also matter because they focus attention... they signal to casual news consumers that something really serious is going on... in short, they're hard to ignore...
EIGHT more witnesses next week…
The investigators announced next week's schedule on Tuesday evening. Here's the list via CNN's Jeremy Herb...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt's scoop, citing "four people familiar with the discussions:" Trump has discussed firing the inspector general for the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson... (NYT)
-- What?! "Republican senators are split on whether they will watch" Wednesday's hearing, Ted Barrett reports... (CNN)
-- "When Watergate Was Appointment TV:" James Poniewozik went back and watched the 1973 hearings, and here's what he learned... (NYT)
-- NBC's remarkable scoop: "Senior Trump official embellished résumé, had face on fake Time cover." (NBC)
"Tribal blindness"
Fox's Juan Williams called out his colleagues, and other Trump defenders, for their bogus attempts to claim the Ukraine scandal is boring. Per Mediaite, he said, "What this requires is for people, right now the Republicans, to say, 'Yes, there's a mountain of evidence, but don't look! Look at the rainbows, look at the rainbows in every direction!' It's tribal blindness..."
Wednesday's NY Post cover...
...Has Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi clowning around: | |
"Weaponized" propaganda
How did we get to this point? "Because of this plot," Ari Melber said on MSNBC Tuesday night -- a plot that involved Rudy Giuliani and John Solomon and Sean Hannity, a plot that began with "serious information propaganda and then was super-sized and weaponized, this is important, by the current president, and by his top advisers, and was allegedly deployed through the arm and the power of the U.S. government."
Our CNN.com story on Monday showed how right-wing media fingerprints are all over the Ukraine scandal... Get caught up here...
"A Warning" is already a hit
While the book won't be out for another week, the Twelve imprint at Hachette Book Group says "A Warning" has "garnered more pre-orders than any other nonfiction book at any imprint in the history of Hachette." The publisher provided the peek at pre-order sales in a press release on Tuesday. While exact #'s were not provided, pre-orders have totaled "well over 100,000 and climbing," a publishing world source told me. About 500,000 print copies will be ready to go next week. And that's just in English -- Hachette says "the book will also be published in French, German, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Dutch and Arabic." Here's my latest story...
Cooper calls out Nikki Haley...
...And rightly so. On Tuesday morning Savannah Guthrie asked Haley if she thought Trump was a "truthful person," and Haley said yes, "in every instance that I dealt with him, he was truthful, he listened, and he was great to work with."
Really? Cooper said: "Apparently he makes stuff up in front of all of us... but speaks truth to Nikki Haley. Bless her heart..."
Stephen Miller privately promoted stories from white nationalist and fringe media organizations
Oliver Darcy emails: Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller promoted stories from white nationalist and fringe media organizations to staffers of the far-right website Breitbart, a trove of leaked 2015 emails published Tuesday revealed. The emails were published by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
One of the emails showed Miller send a Breitbart staffer a link to VDARE, a prominent white nationalist website. In another email, Miller sent a Breitbart employee a link to the fringe right-wing media organization InfoWars. Miller sent the emails before he had ascended to the White House, but while he was working as a senior aide for then-Senator Jeff Sessions.
>> More coming: The SPLC said Tuesday's drop was the first in a series of reports it would be publishing on the leaked emails the group obtained.
Grisham: We have "not seen the report"
Darcy adds: I pinged Stephanie Grisham for comment Tuesday afternoon. She told me that she had "not seen the report" from the SPLC, but attacked the group as a "far-left smear organization." Hours later, I checked back in with Grisham. She told me she still had not reviewed the emails which showed Miller promoting content from extremist websites. Grisham did not provide comment when asked if she or anyone at the White House planned to look at the SPLC report on Tuesday.
Drudge mocks Jesse Watters
Oliver Darcy emails: Matt Drudge appeared to mock Jesse Watters on Tuesday after the Fox host suggested he had become anti-Trump. Watters recently hosted a segment on his show in which he questioned why Drudge "has recently played up Trump gaffes and downplayed his successes."
On Tuesday, Drudge linked to the segment with the headline, "FOX HOST: WHY IS DRUDGE COVERING NEWS?" (Hat tip to Hadas Gold for pointing that out to me.) That said, Watters has noticed something real. I reported back in October that Drudge had soured on Trump...
IN OTHER NEWS...
SNEAK PEEK
The TIME 100 Next comes out on Wednesday
On Wednesday morning, TIME is coming out with its first-ever TIME 100 Next list, what it calls a "new expansion of the annual TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world," identifying 100 "rising stars." There will be six covers, each highlighting a member of the new list, ahead of a big party in NYC on Thursday evening... It'll be up on TIME.com at 7am Wednesday...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- The lead story on Tuesday's CBS, ABC and NBC nightly newscasts: The Arctic blast, not impeachment eve...
-- Nick Miroff's newest scoop: The Trump admin plans to "set up web cams to live-stream border wall construction starting next year, despite objections from CBP and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers..." (WaPo)
-- You heard it here first: As the survey research technology firm Morning Consult continues to expand, Olivia Petersen is coming aboard as managing director of communications, based in NYC... Petersen is well known on the media beat thanks to her work at Whole Foods, NBC News and Politico...
The first female EIC in the FT's history
Hadas Gold writes: Longtime Financial Times editor Lionel Barber is stepping down – and his replacement Roula Khalaf, is the first female editor in the UK paper's history. Khalaf, who herself has been with the paper for more than two decades, has led important diversity efforts in the FT newsroom. She'll take over for Barber in January after the UK general election...
Introducing Protocol
Politico owner Robert Allbritton announced his new publication Protocol on Tuesday. It is being billed as "a new media company focused on the people, power and politics of tech."
The site will launch "sometime early next year," VF's Joe Pompeo reports. He says "it seems a heavy lift, given the number of tech sites that have flowered (and sometimes partially wilted) over the past decade or so. At the same time, Politico was greeted with skepticism when it debuted in 2007..."
Medill dean speaks out about student paper's wrong-headed apology
Journalists are still buzzing about The Daily Northwestern's apology for committing journalism. Many observers, like WaPo's Margaret Sullivan, are saying that the student journalists shouldn't have apologized for reporting, but shouldn't be pilloried either. The students "seem interested in learning something from all of what happened, including their mistakes. Which is, after all, what being a student is all about," Sullivan wrote.
Look, I can't say it any better than Medill dean Charles Whitaker already did. If you haven't read his statement about The Daily Northwestern yet, click here and read it in full...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- "Dozens of media employees have begun sharing a spreadsheet detailing salaries at different publications, seeking to shed light on pay disparities that could help some workers get a raise," Gerry Smith reports... (Bloomberg)
The Atlantic redesign + new app
Kerry Flynn emails: The 162-year-old publication released a new look and a subscriber-only app on Tuesday. | | The Atlantic EIC Jeffrey Goldberg published a Q&A with creative director Peter Mendelsund about the new design and logo: "It seemed obvious to us that what we needed was an emblem—a logo. A 'swoosh,' if you will. But what could that logo possibly be? At some point, we noticed that we had already been clicking on that very logo, every time we went to The Atlantic online, or on the app, or on Twitter—that is, a giant A."
The app is free to download but paywalled other than article summaries and previewing content packages. Andrew Phelps, The Atlantic's senior director of product, told Digiday the app is intended to be a "personal and habit-forming platform." It's run by a five-person editorial team, who curate and package the content.
AARP's "OK, millennials"
Kerry Flynn writes: Axios's Sara Fischer published a piece today about the success of "boomer" media company, AARP. As Fischer writes, AARP reported $174 million in annual media-based ad revenue last year with assets like the bi-monthly magazine, another magazine "The Bulletin," two new newsletters, a podcast, digital videos and a film.
The leading quote from AARP's svp and editorial director, Myrna Blyth, irked me and others in media Twitter. Referencing the meme "OK, boomer," Blyth said, "OK, millennials. But we're the people that actually have the money." Quite dismissive and also completely negating the idea that boomer as a meme is more about a mindset rather than an age.
Colby Nelson of AARP comms emailed me alleging the quote was taken out of context. "Blyth's point is that ad and marketing execs routinely pit generations against one another and overlook older people, especially older women. Resting on stereotypes that older people 'hurt their brands,' 'won't try new products' and 'aren't digitally literate.' They're just plain wrong."
Plepler in talks with Apple
The WSJ's Joe Flint broke this news on Tuesday: Former HBO boss Richard Plepler "is in advanced talks to sign an exclusive production deal with Apple's new TV+ streaming service, according to a person familiar with the matter. Under the terms of the agreement being discussed, Mr. Plepler's new company, RLP & Co., would create original content for Apple TV+. A deal could be finalized within the next few weeks."
>> Frank Pallotta confirmed the talks and wrote 'em up here...
Lowry's take on the news
Brian Lowry emails: Apple is still at that stage where a lot of Hollywood is skeptical about the company being serious about getting into the content business, as opposed to dabbling with a few of its billions. Almost regardless of what it generates, the Plepler deal reinforces the message that the company is truly committed to producing premium content...
| | Ups and downs on Disney+ launch day
Disney said consumer demand for Disney+ "exceeded our high expectations" -- that's how the company explained the error messages that popped up for some subscribers when the streaming service launched on Tuesday morning. But the service worked for most users, and the bumps were smoothed out quickly. Better to have too much demand than no demand at all, I suppose. Here's the full story by Frank Pallotta...
>> Plus, check out Pallotta's hands-on review of the new app...
Strong debut for "The Mandalorian"
Brian Lowry writes: The biggest weapon in the Disney+ launch -- in terms of original programming -- is clearly "The Mandalorian," the first live-action "Star Wars" TV series. It's a (not surprisingly) handsome effort, casting its bounty hunter lead character in what feels very much like a western -- a conscious decision, and one that's oddly appropriate, given the role that genre played in the early days of another medium, television.
And as THR notes, its success could wind up being pivotal in the "quieter future" of the "Star Wars" franchise, after what's now planned to be a bit of a cleansing breath after "The Rise of Skywalker" lays siege to the box office...
ESPN gets in on the Disney+ promos
Kerry Flynn writes: Walt Disney Co. was one big happy, celebrating family on Tuesday. With the launch of Disney+, SportsCenter ran a segment on the "top 10 Simpsons-sports moments," Sports Illustrated's Jason Schwartz tweeted. Several ESPN staffers also tweeted their excitement: Adam Schefter tweeted, "Big day for the new Disney+ service. It will change lives. For those interested, download the Disney Plus App or go to DisneyPlus.com."
>> An ESPN spokesperson told me: Disney+ "is a major company initiative, and as part of that we provided accurate and useful information to people, so that if they chose, they were able to inform fans about available content and products..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Kanye West is set to appear at Joel Osteen's mega church on Sunday.
-- Stan Lee was remembered Tuesday on the first anniversary of his death.
-- Call it Dolly, Ink: Dolly Parton says she has tattoos to "decorate" her scars.
-- Ricky Gervais will be returning to host the Golden Globe Awards for a fifth time.
-- Don't leave us Captain America! Chris Evans says he is "always looking for a way out" of acting.
Lowry recommends "The Preppy Murder"
Brian Lowry writes: Not that there isn't enough else to watch right now, but find time if you can for "The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park," a five-part documentary that will air on AMC and SundanceTV over three consecutive nights beginning Wednesday. The project looks at the 1986 murder of Jennifer Levin and the trial of Robert Chambers, but like "When They See Us," it's as much a consideration of media, the fascination with true crime and how Chambers' matinee-idol looks figured into and influenced the coverage. Although these events are decades old, you can draw a straight line from Ted Bundy to this case to the O.J. Simpson trial, all the way through till today...
People's Sexiest Man Alive is...
 John Legend. He's already an EGOT winner, so what does this make him?
People mag suggests "EGOTSMA."
He says the new title is a "lot of pressure."
"Everyone's going to be picking me apart to see if I'm sexy enough to hold this title," he says. And he's following Idris Elba, "which is not fair and is not nice to me!" Here's the feature...
>> Legend's better half Chrissy Teigen updated her Twitter bio to say she's "currently sleeping with people's sexiest man alive..."
LAST BUT DEFINITELY NOT LEAST...
A "Friends" reunion special?
"As mega-hit Friends continues to celebrate its 25th anniversary," sources tell THR's Lesley Goldberg "that the six core stars and the creators of the NBC comedy from Warner Bros. TV are in talks to reunite on HBO Max. Talks are currently underway for an unscripted reunion special that would feature Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, as well as series creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman. Sources caution that a deal is far from done and agreements with cast and creatives still need to be hammered out..."
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