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Wednesday, October 22, 2025 |
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Hey, good morning. Here's the latest from the Washington Times, PRRI, DealBook, Netflix, Samsung, Anthropic, OpenAI, OnlyFans, and more... |
Tension in the MAGA media ranks |
President Trump benefits enormously from the MAGA media platforms that promote his agenda and punish his adversaries, so it's always revealing when right-leaning columnists and commentators break with the party line. We saw some of this over the summer regarding Jeffrey Epstein. We saw it last week when many Trump-aligned media outlets rejected Pete Hegseth's Pentagon restrictions. And we're seeing some noteworthy examples this week:
>> The Washington Times, one of the newsrooms that handed in a Pentagon press pass, is out with a buzzy story titled "Generals, senior officers say trust in Hegseth has evaporated." Ben Wolfgang's report cites many anonymous sources.
>> Trump's demolition project at the White House is raising concerns. Washington Examiner chief political correspondent and Fox contributor Byron York wrote on X yesterday, "The president needs to tell the public now what he is doing with the East Wing of the White House. And then tell the public why he didn't tell them before he started doing it."
>> The president's latest commutation is also earning a bit of conservative criticism. The "Fox & Friends" crew asked Rep.
George Santos some tough questions the other day, and the New York Post hasn't forgotten about what Santos did, calling him "Lying George" in headlines and a "disgraced" "serial liar" in stories.
>> And there's more. National Review's Andrew McCarthy is writing a series of posts about the indictment of James Comey. He plainly says, "The case should be dismissed."
>> The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon is out with a piece for The Free Press titled "The foolishness of 'no enemies to the right.'" Bari Weiss called it "an essential essay" about "standing up to evil, even on your own side."
I never want to overstate the importance of these items. Day in and day out, pro-Trump shows and social media streams prop up an alternative reality where the president is always right and his critics are always wrong. But these exceptions demonstrate how the MAGA media machine can't always suppress dissent from within the ranks.
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WSJ editorial board's latest |
Politico's lead headline this morning: "Ingrassia withdraws nomination after racist texts." The WSJ editorial board says the texts "are a lesson for young MAGA," adding, "Beyond the failure of vetting, it would be useful if President Trump made clear that this kind of garbage isn't wanted" in his political movement.
But the fact that "the nomination got this far" — despite damning reporting by CNN's KFILE and others — "illustrates how much antisemitic and hateful rhetoric has been normalized, explained away or rewarded by Republicans in power," the NYT's Katie Rogers says.
See, while the WSJ is decrying "garbage," Breitbart's lead story today says, "Trans Americans Threaten to Leave Country. Trump Voters Say 'I Voted for This.'"
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'Go check this corner out' |
It was a "chaotic scene" on Canal Street in NYC yesterday: Federal agents fanning out and detaining people in an operation "focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit goods."
Buried toward the bottom of most stories about the raid was the likely reason why it happened: "In recent weeks, pro-Trump social media influencers have recorded videos of African vendors on Canal Street that spread widely online, and led to calls from some users for ICE to deport the vendors," the NYT noted.
"Perhaps @ICEgov should go check this corner out," Savanah Hernandez wrote on X on Sunday, in one of several such messages that tagged government agencies. Last night, she took partial credit for the sweep...
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🫧 Info bubbles shape Trump approval? |
PRRI's latest poll, "Trump’s Unprecedented Actions Deepen Asymmetric Divides," is chock full of important findings. I want to highlight the "chicken or egg?" dynamic in this data about Trump's approval rating.
No surprise here, but "Americans who most trust far-right news, including Newsmax and One America News, for accurate political information show the highest level of approval of Trump's job as president (92%), followed by 86% who most trust Fox News," PRRI says.
"Smaller majorities of Americans who most trust the radio (67%) and who do not trust any media source also approve (61%). Far fewer Americans who most trust YouTube or podcasts (46%), social media (42%), mainstream TV news (25%), and newspapers (19%) approve of the job Trump is doing as president."
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The NAB Show will get underway in Manhattan...
NY1, WNYC/Gothamist, and The City will host the final NYC mayoral debate of the campaign season...
"Inside the NBA" will air on ESPN for the first time...
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'Hollywood's latest cliffhanger' |
☝️ That's what DealBook calls the fate of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Shares of WBD are trading higher again this morning as investors hope that a bidding war "could help finally get them above water after a three-and-a-half-year merger misadventure," Deadline's Dade Hayes wrote. "Above water" references the fact that WBD started trading in 2022 at around $25 a share, then lost more than half its value. The stock is now back above $20 as the WBD board considers "interest from multiple parties" in a sale, spin or some other outcome.
It became clear yesterday that Paramount has made multiple bids to take over WBD, and that the WBD board has rebuffed them all. It also became clear that Comcast is going to take a look at WBD's assets, and maybe Netflix, too, though Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos played it cool on the company's earnings call.
"We've been very clear in the past that we have no interest in owning legacy media networks," Sarandos said. There is reason to believe that he is interested in owning the Warner Bros. studio, though.
Still, "Wall Street analysts see Paramount as the heavy favorite," Hayes wrote. Trump's friendliness toward Paramount and hostility toward Comcast is cited in several analyst notes — a stark reminder of how the president has weaponized the government for his own ends.
>> Bottom line: We don't know who will own CNN a year or two from now.
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Following the Murdoch model? |
"Warner Bros. Discovery chief executive David Zaslav is in the fight of his professional life to stop the company from being swallowed by Paramount," Joe Flint and Lauren Thomas write on the front page of today's WSJ.
Much of the intrigue now centers on the idea that WBD could merge its streaming and studios with a deep-pocketed buyer (like Paramount's David Ellison) and spin off CNN and the other cable channels.
Quoting Business Insider's Peter Kafka: "Instead of splitting itself into two companies, it will just sell off the part of the company people really want. Which is, more or less, what Rupert Murdoch did in 2017, when he sold much of his Fox empire to Disney — an example people around WBD are happy to float right now."
>> Speaking of Murdoch, Breaker's Lachlan Cartwright reports that Trump and Rupert recently chatted at a WH dinner party.
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📉 Netflix dips despite profit surge |
Netflix shares are down more than 7% in premarket trading. While the streamer "saw its profits continue to surge in the third quarter, margins missed the company's own guidance due to an unusual dispute with tax authorities in Brazil," THR's Alex Weprin and Etan Vlessing explained here. The company made lots of other news:
>> Netflix touted "our best ad sales quarter ever" and said it is "now on track to more than double our ads revenue in 2025."
>> The company also said it is "very well positioned to effectively leverage ongoing advances in AI," and talked about testing new ad formats with AI tools.
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>> Speaking of streaming, HBO Max is "hiking prices" across all plans. (Variety)
>> A new Carnegie Mellon study finds "that a 'drip' release strategy leads to a 48% greater short-term retention of subscriptions vs. binge-drops." (THR)
>> Charter Communications "is laying off 1,200 employees," just over 1% of its workforce, "primarily in corporate and back-office functions." (WSJ)
>> The NYT is adding "a stand-alone destination within its main app that includes a curated mix of short-form, scrollable, vertical news videos, updated daily," Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
🔌: Fischer, Oliver Darcy and yours truly will be on stage at the NAB Show in NYC later today. Patrick Healy of the NYT will be the moderator. (NAB Show)
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OpenAI announced a web browser called Atlas yesterday, "putting the ChatGPT maker in direct competition with Google as more internet users rely on artificial intelligence to answer their questions."
>> Atlas "promises to make surfing the internet smarter," and in exchange, it "wants permission to watch — and remember — everything you do online," WaPo's Geoffrey A. Fowler explains. "The implications for privacy are vast, and the controls for managing what Atlas remembers are confusing at best..."
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>> "After condemnation from Trump's AI czar, Anthropic's CEO promised its AI is not woke." Emanuel Maiberg has more on the lengthy statement here. (404 Media)
>> YouTube's likeness detection technology, which "allows creators to request the removal of AI-generated content that uses their likeness," has rolled out to eligible partners. (TechCrunch)
>> Sora "might have a ‘pervert’ problem on its hands," Katie Notopoulos writes. (Business Insider)
>> Samsung's Galaxy XR, "Android’s first major rival to the Vision Pro," launched yesterday. Lisa Eadicicco tried it out. (CNN)
>> At a Bloomberg Tech event in London, OnlyFans CEO Keily Blair said the company "has paid out $25 billion to creators since it was founded in 2016." (Bloomberg)
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Entertainment world notes & quotes |
>> Netflix has struck "major deals with Mattel and Hasbro" for "KPop Demon Hunters" toys, games and products. (THR)
>> "Sinners" "will return to Imax theaters in time for Halloween." (Variety)
>> Broadway musicians "say they are prepared to strike immediately if they do not reach an agreement with the Broadway League on Wednesday." (THR)
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