MEDIA
Dylan Byers
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November 1, 2024
Render Unto Cesar…
Inside 30 Rock, word that Comcast is considering spinning out NBCU’s lesser cable assets—potentially severing MSNBC from NBC—has kicked off a furious sequence of questions about the future of both networks, and about the fate of NBC News Group boss Cesar Conde.
Dylan Byers
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October 31, 2024
Bezos’s Inferno
The latest news, notes, and hunger cries from within The Washington Post, which finds itself embroiled in a largely predictable self-immolation of its own design—the latest scandal produced by an owner, management team, and rank-and-file that appear to operate a little too comfortably in opposition to one another.
Dylan Byers
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October 26, 2024
Washington on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
The decisions by Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong to spike endorsements of Kamala Harris have created an uproar inside The Washington Post and LA Times, respectively. Is this a genuine gripe, an assault on democracy, or simply the latest grievance consuming a legacy media industry mad as hell and unwilling to take it any longer?
Dylan Byers
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October 24, 2024
Playbook’s New Playbook
As Ryan Lizza remains mired in Nuzzigate, Politico’s leadership has been reassessing its Playbook franchise and accelerating long-standing plans to overhaul it.
Dylan Byers
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October 17, 2024
McMahon on Wire
The nightmare on 57th Street continues as CBS News chief Wendy McMahon preps for a meeting with incoming Paramount leaders David Ellison and Jeff Shell amid a series of ongoing scandals and micro-scandals that have the newsroom and media chattering class in an uproar.
Dylan Byers
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October 11, 2024
Dangling McMahon
The Tony–Ta-Nehisi drama consuming CBS News couldn’t have flared up at a worse time for its now-embattled chief executive, Wendy McMahon, as David Ellison and Jeff Shell begin taking meetings with Paramount division heads to familiarize themselves with the business—and, presumably, decide who among them is expendable.
Dylan Byers
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October 9, 2024
The Tony–Ta-Nehisi Affair
Inside the totally predictable, somewhat absurd, and quasi-tragic fallout from Tony Dokoupil’s aggressive questioning of Ta-Nehisi Coates, the furious response inside CBS News, and the latest round of navel-gazing media existentialism.
Dylan Byers
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October 4, 2024
The Great TV News Comp Depression
The industry-wide resetting of TV news contracts is now firmly underway, it seems, and most talent will be affected—at best by a smaller-than-anticipated cost-of-living raise, often by a pay cut, and, at worst, by a delicately choreographed defenestration.
Dylan Byers
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October 3, 2024
Anchorman
Brian Williams’ latest return to television—well, to streaming—is not only a first step toward a possible career revival, but also a potential harbinger of the future of cable news.
Dylan Byers
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September 28, 2024
Hoda to a Nightingale
Yes, Hoda Kotb deserves to ring in her seventh decade by sleeping in past 4 a.m. But the truth is that the star left her cushy $20 million-plus per year deal only after NBC proposed a pay cut. “This is the age of the great resetting of TV news contracts,” one veteran media executive told me. “Everyone is getting their pay cut or their jobs eliminated.”
Dylan Byers
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September 26, 2024
All the Nuzzi Fit to Print
The latest news and notes on the depressing media plot consuming the political-media class: the Olivia Nuzzi-R.F.K. Jr.-Ryan Lizza demure selfie lust triangle.
Dylan Byers
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September 21, 2024
We Need to Talk About Olivia & Ryan
News and notes on one of the more implausible and totally depressing political-media sagas in modern memory. Plus, the Tyrangiel non-news at CNN.
Dylan Byers
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September 19, 2024
Woj’s Own Woj Bomb
It seemed implausible that Adrian Wojnarowski would leave more than $20 million on the table for the prospect of unlimited family time and his sanity—this is television, after all! But the craziest part of this story may be that there is no crazy part, after all.
Dylan Byers
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September 13, 2024
This Too Shall Zaz
David Zaslav may be trumpeting a face-saving deal with Charter, but the forthcoming face-off with Comcast isn’t going to be any easier.
Eriq Gardner
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September 11, 2024
Netflix on Trial & CNN’s Financial Colonoscopy
Republican-appointed judges are greenlighting a surge of defamation cases against the likes of CNN, Netflix, ABC News, and Media Matters, revealing everything from private communications to the most sensitive internal documents.
Dylan Byers
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September 7, 2024
Mark Thompson Prepares to Show His Hand
A year after Mark Thompson took over, he’s finally on the verge of revealing the first signs, such as they are, of his master plan.
Dylan Byers
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September 5, 2024
Brian’s Song
The backstory on Brian Stelter’s return, and the real drama inside CNN: the potential arrival of former wunderkind Josh Tyrangiel.