Media Blackouts, Film School Sellouts, & Wall Street's Big Short

Happy Friday. You're reading The Daily Courant, spotlighting all of our latest and most important journalism at Puck.

Today, we direct your attention to Dylan Byers' recent reporting on the growing ennui inside MSNBC over what one producer at the network described as a cable news division “on autopilot.” And make sure to look out for another media world dispatch later this evening—if you're not already receiving Dylan's private email, In the Room, sign up here to get the next edition in your inbox.

Below the fold, Baratunde Thurston offers a provocation: What about all the Ukraines we ignored? Plus, on a new episode of The Powers That be, Peter Hamby sits down with Matt Belloni to discuss Gavin Newsom, the Emmys, and why NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell won this week in Hollywood. (Listen on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify.)

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Is MSNBC on Autopilot?

CNN’s remarkable coverage of Ukraine has evidenced its sizable advantage over its nearest rival, MSNBC, begging the two-fold question: who is in charge over there and what are they doing, exactly?

Early on the morning of February 2nd, I sent a text to an NBCUniversal executive asking, as diplomatically as possible, how MSNBC was going to address its slate of seemingly monumental challenges. The network’s sole primetime star, Rachel Maddow, had just announced that she was going on hiatus for at least a month, a surprise move that underscored her immense value—ratings for her show cratered by 50 percent in February, and by 62 percent in the demo—and presaged the crisis that the network will face after she leaves primetime for good later this year. Brian Williams had also abandoned the network, depriving it of another marquee name and reliable standby for breaking stories and special events. The evening lineup seemed programmed mainly for the leftmost wing of the Democratic party, which constantly bewildered the more centrist journalists on dayside. 

Meanwhile, the network’s myriad streaming services felt like B-side extensions of the linear offering, mostly populated by lesser-known talents. So, I asked via text, was there a strategy? At that point, after all, the network’s most creative programming decision was bequeathing a fifth hour of air to the network’s one other star, Joe Scarborough, presumably to at least partly placate his agent, Ari Emanuel, who seems to preside over the network these days like a feudal lord.

Shortly after I sent the message, however, the news broke that Jeff Zucker had resigned from CNN after acknowledging a consensual relationship with his top aide, Allison Gollust. In response to my inquiry regarding the state of MSNBC, the executive replied simply: “This still the biggest story?” No, I replied. Decidedly not...

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