Chris Licht begins CNN's 9am editorial call by praising @kaitlancollins for a "masterful performance last night." He says "I couldn't be more proud of her" and the whole team in NH. Then he says he's aware of the backlash... More to come
"You do not have to like the former president's answers, but you can't say that we didn't get them," Licht tells staffers, many of whom are angry about the town hall. "Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news. Made a LOT of news." And "that is our job."
"While we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that was also an important part of the story," Licht adds, because those folks represent "a large swath of America," and the media screwed up by missing that part of the story in 2015/16.
Covering Trump is "tricky and messy," Licht says, and it will "continue to be messy and tricky, but it's our job." He confidently says "America was served very well by what we did last night." Many CNN employees strongly disagree.
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Attorney Bryan Freedman is speaking for the first time about his client Tucker Carlson: "The idea that anyone is going to silence Tucker and prevent him from speaking to his audience is beyond preposterous." axios.com/2023/05/07/fox…
As @mikeallen reports for @axios, Carlson "needs Fox to let him out of his contract, which expires in January 2025." It's increasingly apparent that Fox "wants to sideline him by paying him $20 million a year not to work."
One theory is that Fox is slow-walking the standard exit talks — or refusing to talk much at all — to keep Carlson on the bench while the network tries to woo his fans back. Carlson has played nice for two weeks but...
I was in the print edition of today's @nytimes with an essay about the recent Fox and CNN chaos. I argued that we think about cable news all wrong 👇🏼
The power of cable news is in its reach and repetition, not its hour-by-hour ratings. And I say that as someone who used to care way too much about the ratings!
Channels like CNN and Fox are under pressure, but they still attract many tens of millions each month. That's why I dismiss predictions — fashionable, even among staffers at these channels — that cable news is doomed to irrelevancy. nytimes.com/2023/04/26/opi…
The headline in print is "'Slur by Carlson Helped Seal Fate." As I said on Monday, Tucker really likes the C-word. So much that he WANTED it published in one of Dominion's legal filings. Fox lawyers got it redacted.
To put it bluntly, Tucker Carlson hates the Fox News PR department. Deeply hates. That's what some of this is about. The WSJ reports that Raj Shah was appointed to be an "intermediary" between Carlson and the PR team.
The reason for Tucker Carlson's termination can be found somewhere in the REDACTED portions of the emails and texts that Dominion obtained during the discovery process in its lawsuit against Fox. vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/t…
We all saw some of Tucker's texts (Trump's a “destroyer”) but there's a huge trove that remains out of public view. Three groups have seen the messages: Dominion's lawyers, Fox's execs, and obviously Tucker and his pals. So what was Tucker saying about, say, his bosses? Unknown.
Wash Post: "Dozens of communications from Carlson and other Fox personnel remain out of public view, redacted at the request of Fox attorneys, but they have been seen by top Fox executives..." washingtonpost.com/media/2023/04/…
Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News, effective immediately. This is an earth-shaking moment in cable news.
I have tried calling and texting Tucker Carlson for comment on his stunning departure from Fox. No response yet.
The biggest "tell" in Fox's press release about Tucker Carlson's exit is that he is not getting a final show. No chance to say goodbye on his own terms or point people to his next home. Fox says "Carlson's last program was Friday April 21st."
Another jam-packed day in Perugia. Here are some highlights from #ijf23 thus far
"AI will have profound impacts on newsrooms and jobs, and we should see this moment as an opportunity to consider how we approach AI and also to rethink what journalism is for..." reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/internati…
Vox's @MelissaBell gets it: "News avoidance doesn't stem from info overload as much as from the fact that people feel disempowered." Constant bad news leaves people feeling defeated. These problems are also big opportunities for news outlets