Forward

EXEC SUMMARY: Hey there, this is Oliver Darcy, summing up Wednesday's coverage and previewing Thursday's...

The first draft of history

This is one of those days when newspapers are made to be framed for history. Will there be a rush to buy copies of these front pages?

"TRUMP IMPEACHED," declared Page One of both The New York Times and The Washington Post.

USA Today just went with the word "IMPEACHED."

Meanwhile, the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post's cover showed Nancy Pelosi with the headline "IT'S YOUR FUNERAL..."

There's no way to deny this fact...

Brian Stelter emails: On Trump's first weekend in office, Kellyanne Conway coined the term "alternative facts." Rudy Giuliani later said "truth isn't truth." Trump famously told a crowd that "what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening." And as WaPo's Aaron Blake wrote here, the GOP's closing impeachment argument on Wednesday was "denying basic facts." But there is no way to deny the facts of Wednesday evening's vote.

People say we live in a post-truth world. But I tend to hate that term. Some truths cannot be denied...

Headlines from across the web

How it was covered on TV

The broadcast networks aired much of the day-long debate in the House, but because the proceedings stretched into the 8pm ET hour, some network bosses had some tough decisions to make.

While "NBC stuck with the news," the NYT's Jim Windolf wrote, CBS showed "Survivor" on the east coast and ABC "dropped its Washington feed to start airing back-to-back live recreations of the 1970s-vintage Norman Lear sitcoms 'Good Times' and 'All in the Family.'" Later in the hour, CBS broke back in, while ABC briefly interrupted "Good Times" for a special report.

>> TV newsers were at their best when they zoomed way out. Margaret Brennan on CBS: What is "so unique" about this impeachment is that it "gets to the very premise of the president's first role, which is to protect the national security of this country and the American people..."

Notable quotes from CNN and MSNBC

>> Jake Tapper: "It is a moment of immense gravity, solemnity, and history..."

>> Jeffrey Toobin: "Trump was impeached for one reason: Because he deserved it..."

>> Rachel Maddow: "You are not asleep. This is not a dream. This is really happening. This is your life. This is our country and our time. It is Wednesday, the 18th of December in the year 2019 and President Donald Trump is impeached..."

>> Chris Hayes: "This is the first time in the man's life that he is facing any concrete judgement on the nature of his behavior..."

Fox hosts lash out

No surprise here: Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham spent Fox's prime time hours recycling their usual anti-impeachment talking points. Carlson wondered if the Democrats have psychological problems. Hannity said it was part of a "disgusting pattern that has gone on for three straight years." And Ingraham compared it to a "lame circus" and "cheap traveling carnival that never leaves town."

Chyrons on the screen matched the hosts' bombastic and deceptive rhetoric. "DELUSIONAL DEMOCRATS WALK OFF IMPEACHMENT CLIFF," one read while Hannity ranted. A chyron on Ingraham's show stated, "LEFT'S IMPEACHMENT LIES EXPOSED."

>> Of note: I found it interesting that Fox News brass allowed Tucker to anchor during the impeachment vote. Sure, it took place during his time slot. But, given the historical nature of it, one would think network execs would want Bret Baier, Fox's chief political anchor, in the anchor chair. Apparently not...

Flashback: What Trump told Fox about impeachment in 2014

While on the topic of Fox, it's worth pointing out what Trump told the network about impeachment back in 2014, video which Andrew Kaczynski resurfaced. "He would be a mess," Trump told "Fox & Friends," referring to if Obama were impeached. "He would be thinking nothing but. It would be a horror show for him. It would be an absolute embarrassment. It would go down on his record permanently."

"One more way station in a four-year struggle"

Dan Balz on Page One of Thursday's WaPo: "The impeachment of a president is a rare moment in the history of the country, and so Wednesday's vote in the House puts President Trump into the annals of the nation in the most ignominious of ways. The stain of the House action on his biography and legacy, whatever the final resolution in the Senate, is now part of his permanent record."

But Balz went on to contend that impeachment is "likely to become one more way station in a four-year struggle between those who oppose this president... Given the near-certain outcome in the Senate, where Trump is expected to be acquitted by a party-line vote, the issues that resulted in the impeachment vote on Wednesday will fold into the ongoing political conflict as the nation heads toward the 2020 presidential election."

How it compares to previous impeachments

I asked Princeton historian and CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer for his perspective on the day. He wrote: "Every time the nation has gone through an impeachment, Americans have felt the historic nature of the moment. The near removal of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 felt like a fierce culmination to the tensions brewing over Reconstruction. The trauma was so immense that Americans would not use the process for over a century. After President Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974, before the House could vote on articles of impeachment, a shell-shocked would regain its trust in government institutions and they would continue to see every scandal through the prism of Watergate. The impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998 and 1999 left an equally dramatic aftertaste, in that case with the public disgusted by how far Republicans had gone in their partisan wars."

"But it isn't clear that Americans will feel very differently tomorrow than they did earlier today," Zelizer wrote. "For all the talk on the television panels about this being a historic moment and feeling the weight of this day, partisan positions will only harden and it's not clear that this will change political feelings in any dramatic way. The fault lines that have remained stable throughout this presidency won't go away. One of the main reasons that this case has to do with a media that will interpret the historical moment through the lens of partisan conflict and to translate the events as just another example of how the parties operate. It's unclear whether our news media even has the capacity to convey to the public momentous occasions any more or whether the news cycle collapses everything—even something as grandiose as impeachment—into the ongoing saga of partisan conflict that floods our daily news."

This time, no talk of resignation at all

Brian Stelter emails: The morning after Clinton was impeached, the front page stories in the NYT and WaPo noted that Clinton was facing calls for his resignation and said he vowed to stay in office. This time, there's barely even any mention of the R-word in the news coverage...

Thursday morning's live event

Mitch McConnell will speak at 9.30 a.m. ET about the articles of impeachment passed by the House. By the end of the week, McConnell is expected to announce a start date for the impeachment trial. It's unclear when it will begin, but it's not expected until the new year...

>> Pelosi, for her part, did not commit on Wednesday night to sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate...

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Rachael Bade, Mike DeBonis, and Josh Dawsey go "inside the decision to impeach Trump..." (WaPo)

-- Peter Baker: "For the most unpredictable of presidents, it was the most predictable of outcomes. Is anyone really surprised that President Trump was impeached? His defiant disregard for red lines arguably made him an impeachment waiting to happen..." (NYT)

-- Meanwhile... Mark Leibovich and Katie Rogers: "Wednesday — a clear and cold December morning — hit with a special punch. It was one of those 'step back' days when history stands out from the pile of routine chaos..." (NYT)

-- The Daily Show's reaction to impeachment: "HISTORIC: Donald Trump just won a popular vote for the first time..." (Twitter)

-- "In Justin Amash, a litmus test for partisan media's influence..." (CJR)

-- A great piece on why "Trump's lies in the media work." Brian Klaas writes, "If you let the lie slide, people will wrongly believe it is true. But if you correct the lie, the airtime is sucked away from the bigger truth. The battle gets fought on Trumpian fantasy turf instead of on the plane of reality. And that's the point..." (WaPo)

-- Juan Williams said the arguments his Fox colleagues were making on "The Five" was "Republican blindness on display..." (Mediaite)

-- A Denver talk radio host was fired after he said he wanted a "nice school shooting" to interrupt coverage of "the never-ending impeachment..." (ABC)

Report to show how Trump's "Fox obsession reshaped the political universe" in 2019

The progressive media watchdog Media Matters will release a report on Thursday that documents how Trump's "Fox obsession reshaped the political universe" in 2019. "More than ever before, Trump's Fox fanatacism this year drove the federal policymaking process and political reality, with a tangible impact on the lives of the American public," Matt Gertz will explain in the report.

The report will be posted on the Media Matters website Thursday morning...

IN OTHER NEWS...

PBS-Politico debate set for Thursday

Get ready for another prime time political event on Thursday. The PBS-Politico debate is set to start at 8 p.m. ET. It will be moderated by Judy Woodruff, along with Tim Alberta, Yamiche Alcindor, and Amna Nawaz.

Ahead of the debate, Woodruff shared some thoughts with LAT's Stephen Battaglio. Woodruff said moderators planned to " keep the focus on the candidates and to let them talk about the most important issues." More here...

'Bombshell' argument brewing

Brian Stelter emails: With "Bombshell" in theaters, "there's an argument brewing over who deserves credit" for triggering Roger Ailes' demise, WaPo's Paul Farhi reports. Gretchen Carlson 's supporters "say the movie insufficiently credits Carlson" and inflates Megyn Kelly's role; "people close to Kelly counter that it more or less accurately portrays the real sequence of events." Read Farhi's full story here. My sense, after talking with many sources, is that the involvement of Carlson and Kelly were both necessary elements, along with the accounts of other women, some of whom have never been named publicly...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Lift Our Voices, the group founded by former Fox News personalities Gretchen Carlson, Julie Roginsky and Diana Falzone, sent a letter to presidential campaigns Wednesday asking them to speak out "loudly and publicly against NDAs..." (NYT)

-- "Several firms have expressed interest in acquiring Univision," WSJ reported Wednesday... (WSJ)

Coming Thursday from the NYT...

Charlie Warzel tweeted this preview: "7 months ago a source gave @NYTOpinion a trove of data. They were alarmed at what they'd seen. It sparked an investigation that sent us around the country from Mar-a-Lago to California." The results will start to be published on Thursday morning. "It might change how you see your phone forever," Warzel wrote...

Investigation finds hundreds of "pink slime" local news websites

An investigation published Wednesday by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School found that there are at least 450 "pink slime" local news websites operating across the country. At least 189 of the outlets, which are partisan operations disguised as local news sources, were set up in the last year by an organization called Media Metric, according to the report. CJR reported the networks can be traced back to conservative businessman Brian Timpone. More here...

>> Key point: "Websites and networks can aid campaigns to manipulate public opinion by exploiting faith in local media. The demise of local journalism in many areas creates an information vacuum, and raises the chance of success for these influence campaigns..."

Time's $20K Davos ticket

Kerry Flynn emails: Time is launching a membership program next year, and it's quite exclusive. Digiday's Max Willens reports that the invite-only program will have three tiers...

>> $20,000 = invite to Time 100 event, private dinners with Time 100 members and a Time-hosted Davos event

>> $3,500 = one summit, other events and briefings of Time 100 events

>> $1,750 = one event

It's pricey but an interesting bet on monetizing their brand loyalty and franchises like Time 100. While other publishers are building paywalls, Time appears to be taking a different tack. Time CEO and EIC Edward Felsenthal told Digiday, "I am not bullish on the three to five [articles] free, then you hit the wall. I think there's subscription fatigue at that general level."

My question is, how much do I need to pay for an all inclusive trip to Hawaii with Time's owner Marc Benioff?

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- A correction from Stelter: Yesterday I wrote that Chris Wallace would be co-anchoring impeachment coverage on MSNBC. D'oh! Thank you to everyone who wrote in about the Matthews/Wallace mix-up...

-- The Miami Herald is dropping its Saturday print edition and offering expanded editions on Friday and Sunday... (Miami Herald)

-- Sinclair is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour. The change will kick in for employees at the end of this month... (THR)

YouTube creators struggling to cope with burnout

Kaya Yurieff emails: Over the past few years, creators have started openly discussing feeling burnt out, often resulting from the pressure of constantly churning out new videos for their fans. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki recently urged the platform's stars to invest in recovery and take a break. But for some creators, that's not always an option. Here's my full story...

While on the topic of influencers...

Instagram influencers can no longer promote vaping and guns

"Influencers on Instagram and Facebook will be banned from promoting branded content about vaping, tobacco and weapons," Kaya Yurieff reported Wednesday. "On Wednesday, Facebook said such products have 'long' been prohibited in its advertising policies, but it will start enforcing the ban in the 'coming weeks.' Branded content promoting alcohol and diet supplements will require special restrictions, although Instagram didn't specify what those will entail."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Joe Coscarelli profiled Gary Vaynerchuk, VaynerMedia CEO and "social-media sensei" who "has found a side hustle playing both mentor and middleman between hip-hop artists and brands..." (NYT)

-- CNN's Melissa Koehler: "As 2019 winds down to a close this was a powerful moment for us at CNN. This meeting was comprised of ALL women leaders across several different ethnicities, timezones, & backgrounds..." (Twitter)

-- Check out this deep-dive on Etsy: "Even Disney's lawyers can't stop an army of bootleg Baby Yodas..." (OneZero)

"Skywalker" rises to rough reviews

Frank Pallotta emails: "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," Disney's final chapter in the latest saga, hits theaters Thursday night, and critics aren't feeling it. The film has a 58% score on review site Rotten Tomatoes.

That's a steep drop from the critical scores of "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi," which had a 93% and a 91% critical score. The critical consensus seems to be that film is too safe, has too much fan service and is too convoluted for its own good. That said, not everyone hated it. Here's a sampling of reviews...

>> NYT's A.O. Scott: "'The Rise of Skywalker' isn't a great 'Star Wars' movie, but that may be because there is no such thing. That seems to be the way we like it..."

>> AP's Jake Coyle: "For a movie predicated on satisfying fans, 'The Rise of Skywalker' is a distinctly unsatisfying conclusion to what had been an imperfect but mostly good few films..."

>> WSJ's Joe Morgenstern: "[A] vast, convoluted, sometimes cluttered, intermittently thrilling and thoroughly entertaining production that brings the Skywalker trilogy to a heroic close..."

>> WaPo's Michael O'Sullivan: "Panders wildly, closing out this last chapter of the nine films that have come to be known as the Skywalker Saga with a story that delivers to the faithful exactly the movie they wanted..."

Lowry says the film rises to the occasion

Brian Lowry emails: As expected, critics who were enthusiastic about "The Last Jedi" haven't embraced "The Rise of Skywalker," the final movie in the latest trilogy. I had the opposite reaction, feeling that director J.J. Abrams brought the franchise to a satisfying conclusion.

But I would stipulate this: In hindsight, Lucasfilm erred by not entrusting the new trilogy to a single creative vision, which would have created more continuity throughout, as opposed to having "Jedi" veer away from key elements in "The Force Awakens," and "Rise of Skywalker" do the same with its predecessor. Let the arguing begin, but I think the sense of fun that Abrams rediscovers will benefit this movie's legs over the long haul.

Frank's thoughts

Pallotta adds: "Rise of Skywalker" is an intricate but satisfying conclusion to one of cinema's most beloved stories. It has a lot of fan service, and is definitely not perfect, but it's an epic finale that caps a trilogy I enjoyed. At its best, Star Wars is transformational, but on average it's just kinda, well, average. For me, "Rise of Skywalker" is better than most — and a fun way to spend 2.5 hours — nothing more, nothing less.

Will the bad reviews matter at the ticket booth?

Pallotta sends one more: Maybe not! "Rise of Skywalker" could make north of $175 million this weekend in North America, with some industry experts predicting it might bring in as much as $200 million or more. Disney says it expects a three-day opening in the $160 million range. A $200 million opening would less than the debuts of "Force Awakens" and "Last Jedi."

If "Rise of Skywalker" does cross the $200 million mark, however, it would be the second biggest opening of the year behind "Avengers: Endgame." Only seven films have opened to more than $200 million ever, and two of those films belong to Star Wars.

FIRST LOOK:

Speaking of Star Wars... The new cover of THR features none other than Baby Yoda. Here's a preview...

"Cats" leaves behind a memory that's best forgotten

Lowry emails: "Cats" isn't quite the unmitigated disaster that some feared -- or perversely hoped -- but it's not good, delivering a mostly incoherent adaptation of the long-running musical. An eclectic roster of stars claw out a few meager moments, but as screen experiences go, this is a memory best forgotten.

The bottom line? The near-absence of a plot might work well enough in a live context, but in a movie, it's an awfully tedious way to spend time for those with only one life. Read Lowry's full review here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

By Brian Lowry:

-- Nine months after leaving Starz, former HBO chief Chris Albrecht has resurfaced, heading an international production venture in concert with Legendary Television... (Variety)

-- As awards season heats up, the South Korean thriller "Parasite" seems destined to make Oscar history. The question now is just how much history Bong Joon-ho's film will make... (CNN)

Thank you for reading! Send me your feedback via email or connect with me on Twitter. Brian will be back tomorrow!