Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s best new reporting. Here’s what you need to know… and stick around for more on the Epstein-adjacent microscandal dividing The New York Times.

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EP Jonathan Nolan and EP/ showrunner / writer Geneva Robertson-Dworet discuss their commitment to expanding the world of Fallout and the consequential choices their characters are faced with in Season Two. “Our emphasis on how we write and structure our seasons is very much on constructing narratives out of moral dilemmas,” said Robertson-Dworet. “There’s an opportunity to have an honest conversation about what’s the world that we want to rebuild out of the ashes,” added Nolan.

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For your consideration in all categories including Outstanding Drama Series.

Meanwhile, on the pods…

And now, a little more on the latest drama rocking the Times…

MEDIA

Late last week, several New York Times reporters independently reached out to Dylan with the same complaint: The paper’s Opinion section had done it again. On Thursday, Opinion published a lengthy piece by independent legal analyst Ankush Khardori based on his interview with Kathy Ruemmler, the top Goldman lawyer and former Obama White House counsel whose friendly emails with Jeffrey Epstein have drawn scrutiny in the Times’s own pages. The piece acknowledged that the emails had painted “a damning picture”—then effectively gave Ruemmler the floor to contextualize her dealings, arguing there was no sense in “castigating” her for doing her job.

As Dylan recounts, many inside the newsroom were outraged and humiliated. Times reporter Robert Draper had spent months chasing Ruemmler’s Epstein ties to no avail, while Khardori, an acquaintance, got the sit-down. “Why are we letting her use the Times to whitewash her reputation?” one journalist asked. Khardori and the paper strongly deny end-running the newsroom, but with reporters still smarting from the recent Nick Kristof affair, many see it as yet another case of Katie Kingsbury’s Opinion fiefdom intruding on their sandbox. But the episode also crystallizes a deeper dilemma: The more the Times leans on Opinion to drive influence and audience, the harder it becomes to police where reporting ends and advocacy begins.

Click here to read Dylan’s full story.

HOLLYWOOD

The marquee Pixar and Illumination franchises are up against each other this summer, but a look at previous face-offs suggests that a rising tide lifts all boats.

SPORTS

As Congress tries to prevent streamers from taking NFL market share, they’ve increasingly homed in on the anachronistic Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which includes the antitrust exemption that allows the league’s teams to collectively market their games. But as the recent House Judiciary Committee hearing made clear, no one knows what they are talking about.

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“I want to see something spark. And I want it to be treated with the regard that I would treat any other masterpiece.” — Nicolas Cage

Step behind the scenes of the groundbreaking new series with star Nicolas Cage, EPs Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and co-showrunner/EP/writer Oren Uziel. The creative team reveals how they reinvented a classic hero in a noir-inspired universe to create something entirely "fresh, gutsy, and new."

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For your consideration in all categories including Outstanding Comedy Series.

WASHINGTON

An eye-opening conversation with Maya Wiley, the renowned lawyer and civil rights activist, about the president’s plans to contest the midterm elections, his legal assault on nonprofits, and her pressing thoughts on Platnergate.

FASHION

Moschino, the irony-pilled Italian fashion label, has a new set of creative directors who theoretically better understand the assignment. But in a world that’s rapidly moving on from wholesale, is that enough to revive the brand?

HOLLYWOOD

Matt is joined by Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw to discuss Fox’s $22 billion acquisition of Roku, why it happened, how connected TV devices are the secret gatekeepers to streaming, how this will affect the consumer, and what it says about the larger deal landscape in Hollywood.

WASHINGTON

Leigh Ann Caldwell joins Peter to break down Graham Platner’s momentum and the public restaurant blowup between Chuck Schumer and David Krone over the candidate Schumer reluctantly inherited. Then they discuss Trump’s Iran ceasefire, which has already been downgraded from “peace deal” to a “memorandum of understanding.”

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