There are so many insights in this story... so I'm going to thread them:

https://twitter.com/drewharwell/status/1779483571842953719

"For shareholders like McLain, investing in Truth Social is less a business calculation than a statement of faith in the former president and the business traded under his initials, DJT." So far the plunging stock price "doesn’t seem to have shaken that faith." For example...

When I began writing about TV news 20 years ago, NBC's news division cared about two rivals: ABC and CBS.

Info was still scarce and the internet was still slow.

But then came broadband and Facebook and YouTube and iPhones and chatbots. Where does NBC fit now? That's what I wanted to explore: The present-day NBC... and the creation of the NBCUniversal News Group... led by Cesar Conde, who has been on a rocket ship-like trajectory — from Univision president to chair of Telemundo to head of all of NBC’s news assets.

LOTS of misinfo flying around this site today about International Transgender Day of Visibility, which is not a White House thing and not an Easter thing. Maybe this thread can clear it up >>>

https://twitter.com/megbasham/status/1774087781167288638

As Reuters notes here, "International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) takes place annually on March 31 to celebrate transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. It was not designed intentionally to fall on Easter Sunday" as some are claiming. reuters.com/fact-check/tra…

>> @Maddow: Ronna McDaniel was part of a project to reject U.S. elections. "It didn't work to overthrow the government the last time, but as long as you can build on that first effort... you are priming the American public to not accept the results of the NEXT election, either." "I want to associate myself with all my colleagues both at MSNBC and at NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn't just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government. Someone who still is trying to convince Americans that this election stuff, it doesn't really work. That this last election, it wasn't a real result. That American elections are fraudulent." –@Maddow

"This will be a NEWS interview," @kwelkernbc says before her Ronna McDaniel sit-down – McDaniel's first since stepping down as RNC chair.

"In full disclosure... this interview was scheduled weeks before it was announced that McDaniel had become a paid NBC News contributor." Q: "Is it appropriate for Donald Trump to ask donors to pay for his legal bills?"

A: "As long as the donors know that that's what they're doing."

Most people don't really know anything about IVF. This morning, on a trip for our tenth wedding anniversary, while @JamieStelter is sleeping in (a rarity!), I'm rereading an essay she wrote when Sunny was almost 2 and Story was on the way. Some quotes: "First comes the tourniquet and needle. I've been squeezed, poked, and prodded so many times that I barely notice this part..." glamour.com/story/after-fi…

Lots of talk this week about Fox, Trump, and DeSantis. So here's a thread of my reporting, starting with a candid comment from a Trump White House veteran about Fox. "They are servants," the aide said. "They simply serve the audience." "When Trump was considered a joke" during the early campaign days of 2015, "they were against him," the aide said. "The second they noticed that Republican voters liked him, they embraced him."

It took a bit longer the second time, in 2022/23, as Fox took a shine to DeSantis...

THREAD: The first lesson of crisis management is that every minute counts. On January 6, hours were wasted. “I realized at 1 pm, things aren't going well. I'm watching my people getting slammed,” chief of police Steven Sund recalled. Then the violent confrontations worsened... At 1:30, police officers standing along the West Front of the Capitol were overwhelmed, and protesters charged up the steps. At 1:40, Brit Hume said on Fox that some people are “trying to storm the building.” I want to timestamp this moment, 1:40, because it was so alarming...

By the time Trump spoke at the Ellipse on January 6, right-wing media had been promising a showdown in DC for *weeks.* For my book NETWORK OF LIES, I rewatched Fox's coverage. Here are a few key observations... On the morning of Jan. 6, Fox's Pete Hegseth was stationed along the National Mall to cover/promote the “March to Save America” rally. He was more or less indistinguishable from the participants. Speaking on Fox & Friends, he likened DC to a “constitutional tinderbox.”

Let's talk about January 5, 2021. This thread comes from my book NETWORK OF LIES. It draws from on the record sources: Text messages, sworn testimony, and television clips.

Big news outlets have standards and practices. They have processes for approving the use of anonymous sources. They have checks and balances. Fox mostly does not; thus, its claim about a Niagara Falls "terrorist attack" was rushed onto the air and online, wrongly and recklessly Fox's reporter claimed that "high level police sources" said an "attempted terrorist attack" had occurred. She said "sources," plural. But Fox's on-screen banner said "source," singular. That's the type of discrepancy that makes you go 🤔

3 years ago today...

Trump disparaged Dominion Voting Systems for the first time.

His friend Sean tipped him off: "Must see @seanhannity takedown of the horrible, inaccurate and anything but secure Dominion," Trump tweeted. (1/5) Dominion – an obscure voting tech company – was the villain Trump and Fox needed. Biden won, ergo Trump was the victim of a stolen election, ergo Dominion was at fault. Trump tweeted on Nov. 12, 2020 that "tens of thousands of votes were stolen from us and given to Biden." (2/5)

The recruiters of CNN's next CEO should pose this question to every candidate:

What should an anchor do when a guest says something untrue?

Here's my brand-new piece for @washingtonpost: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/… Backstory: I pitched this column to the Post before Licht was fired. I rewrote it today to note that Licht was never fully in charge of the network. His boss David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, was — and still is...

A little bit of backstory here. @TheAtlantic story about Chris Licht shocked many staffers, but the people who worked closest with Licht weren't surprised, they were relieved. They felt like the "absolute truth" had finally been compiled and would now have to be addressed. When the profile hit, I called someone in Licht's inner circle and asked, "How can he possibly stay on?" I meant practically speaking. Even if Warner Bros. Discovery thought Licht was the perfect leader for CNN, how could he still lead this staff? The exec was quiet. They knew.

CNN's 9am editorial call is starting a little bit late. Top lieutenants learned of Chris Licht's exit earlier this morning. So there's obviously a lot going on. David Zaslav is now addressing the CNN staff. He says "I met with Chris and he will be leaving CNN. We're in the process of conducting a wide search, internally and externally, for a new leader."

WSJ: "Some of CNN’s highest-profile hosts are expressing concerns to management about Chris Licht’s ability to keep leading the network, people close to the situation said." wsj.com/articles/top-c… "Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav — who has previously voiced support for Licht — is also losing patience with the number of self-inflicted wounds and missteps, a person close to Zaslav said. CNN declined to comment."

Lots of new details in @joepompeo's story about the CNN situation. He says David Zaslav "isn’t happy about where things are at with CNN in general and that his concerns have been percolating for several months now." vanityfair.com/news/2023/06/c… Pompeo talked with "sources who are plugged into the thinking at the top" to assess whether Licht's time at CNN is up. "I didn’t come away from those conversations thinking that he’s definitely a goner; it may just be too early to gauge one way or another."

Chris Licht began today's 9am editorial call by congratulating @jaketapper and the town hall production team for last night's Nikki Haley town hall. Then he addressed @TheAtlantic article and signaled he is staying on as CNN CEO. Here is what he said... "I know these past few days have been very hard for this group. I fully recognize that this news cycle and my role in it overshadowed the incredible week of reporting that we just had, and distracted from the work of every single journalist in this org. And for that, I am sorry."

Chris Licht is expected to speak at 9am to a staff that's saying things like this:

"I feel like a quarterback without a coach"

"Incompetence and tone-deafness is what we’ve been dealing with for a year now"

"Something has got to give"
nymag.com/intelligencer/… There IS sympathy for Licht inside CNN. Staffers feel like he's been carrying out someone else's orders. But in the words of one of his confidants, "he was dealt a bad hand, and then he played it badly." That's the story @TimAlberta told in The Atlantic in devastating detail.

For @NYMag's @intelligencer, I wrote about the questions everyone at CNN is asking right now: Can Chris Licht survive as head of the network? Should he? Here's a thread about my reporting >>> nymag.com/intelligencer/… Employees at all levels of CNN are startled, angry, sad, despondent. The Atlantic story was an unforced error by Chris Licht; an exposé of what some staffers already knew; a wake-up call to others. "How can he lead us now?"

Axios: "Chris Licht, chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, felt so confident in his plan to reinvent cable news that he allowed extraordinary, months-long access to a magazine writer. The result is devastating." axios.com/newsletters/ax… 24 hours after @TheAtlantic published its CNN-meltdown piece, and it's the lead story in @mikeallen's widely-read newsletter. This is becoming much more than an "insidery" media conversation.