Well this is a mouthful: CBS is merging its national news division with its local TV stations and naming two execs -- Neeraj Khemlani and Wendy McMahon -- to jointly run it all.
The pitch for this new structure: "It speaks to our ability to scale newsgathering, production, technical and operational resources to serve both national and local, linear and digital, with the agility to deliver trusted information to every platform." businesswire.com/news/home/2021…
CBS says "Susan Zirinsky will continue as President of CBS News until the new leadership has started and will assist with the transition. The Company is in discussions with Zirinsky for a significant role at a new CBS News Content Studio to be launched later this year."
From George Cheeks' memo to staffers: "This content studio is another exciting part of reimagining our CBS News brand for the future. I look forward to sharing more about the studio in the days ahead."
ViacomCBS says it wants to "maximize the power of CBS' newsgathering and production operations." But this new structure will surely raise questions about potential overlap and possible cuts cnn.com/2021/04/15/med…
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Just announced: "Former VP Mike Pence will publish his autobiography with Simon & Schuster." It's part of a two-book deal. "The first book is tentatively scheduled for publication in 2023," the publisher says.
A peek behind the curtain: We'd been working on a story about this book deal for the past day, and were waiting for Simon & Schuster to respond to requests for comment when PR pulled the trigger on the press release. Exclusive details coming shortly...
Fox led the opposition to Obama 12 years ago, but network execs fought that portrayal. Resisted it. In January 2009 Bill Shine told me they would "cover the news in a fair and balanced way and put on a very good product."
When I wrote about Fox as the "voice of the opposition" for NYT, Fox execs denied it: nyti.ms/3sNM65U
Living through history, day by day, "it feels like you're in the middle of the ocean with with waves pouring over you constantly," @RonBrownstein says. But "history will have no trouble" identifying the "big structural factor driving the politics of our era" (1/4)
The big-picture theme, he says, is demographic eclipse – the eclipse of White Christian America, the rise of a majority-minority society, and the vicious response to this change. That's what we dug into on this week's RS podcast (2/4) podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id4…
"The fundamental dividing line in American politics," @RonBrownstein says, "is between those who welcome and those who fear the way America is changing." What some perceive as progress, others perceive as loss. (3/4)
He entered office with 20 million Twitter followers. He is leaving office with zero.
Trump granted 119 interviews to Fox News, per @markknoller. He granted zero to CNN. This chart reminds me of a middle finger.
Trump began his term with a 44% approval rating, according to CNN polling, and ended with a 34% approval rating. @FiveThirtyEight's data shows relative steadiness across hundreds of polls by scores of outfits.
NBC's @oneunderscore__ said "Please realize that in six months, there will be a part of pro-Trump media that becomes full 1/6 Truthers." I decided to turn on One America News, and I saw that it's already happening. On one of the president's favorite channels.
I watched ten random minutes of @OANN in the 10am hour and heard the pro-Trump riot sanitized as "the Capitol Hill incident;" heard it was a "very small crowd" of "troublemakers;" heard the scene was "nothing like" a war zone; and heard "there were clearly agitators in there."
"Antifa did it" lie is big on OAN. TWICE today, anchors said these exact words: "A self-described member of Antifa from New York is facing charges for allegedly stabbing 2 people during the protest at the Capitol." That happened in ALBANY, NEW YORK. But they made it sound like DC
First: @JakeTapper becomes the network's "lead anchor for all major Washington events." Translating newsroom lingo: When it's time to project the winner of the 2024 presidential election, Tapper will break the news.
>> @JakeTapper's @TheLeadCNN expands to TWO hours, 4 to 6pm ET, beginning in April. Tapper will continue on Sundays, now as the CO-anchor of @CNNSOTU, with @DanaBashCNN anchoring every other week.