EXEC SUMMARY: Welcome to 2020! We're back. Scroll down for New Year's Resolutions from Jack Dorsey, Nikole Hannah-Jones, David Muir, Judd Apatow, Margaret Sullivan, and many more, plus some news you might have missed during the holidays...
| | We resolve...
I asked titans of media and tech to share some resolutions, and they definitely delivered:
ABC "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir: "My resolution is to remember to come up for air, be in the moment, and to truly appreciate what it is we all get to do -- as we all brace for an insane pace in this year ahead."
CBS News president Susan Zirinsky: "Every day I will take 5 minutes to be grateful for each person at CBS News – whether they are risking their lives in a war zone or doing battle for a taped piece. I am resolved to do everything in my power to help everyone tune out the noise and focus on what's important – bringing truth and honest reporting to audiences on every platform available."
WSJ editor Matt Murray: "For me personally, more time with our journalists and less reliance on email! For our growing newsroom, while journalism is always job one, in 2020 we must accelerate digital progress with more new formats and platforms, better engagement, more experimentation, more diverse newsroom talents and structural tweaks we're implementing early this year."
ProPublica president Richard Tofel: "Two resolutions from me in this critical election year: That Electionland again do journalism that safeguards people's right to vote, and that we consistently report and publish revealing stories about issues voters actually care about, like health care, immigration and trade. That's awfully earnest, I know, but you did ask the guy from ProPublica..."
NYT journalist and "1619 Project" architect Nikole Hannah-Jones: "My New Year's resolution for 2020 is to stop arguing with trolls who have 10 followers on Twitter and to try to drink more bourbon!"
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Filmmaker Judd Apatow: "My resolution is to work to elect people who do not lie, steal and cheat on a daily basis. We all need to get deeply involved in our democracy or we will lose it. This all ends if we vote."
The Bulwark founder Charlie Sykes: "Read more... tweet less. Spend more time with grandkids and dogs. Remember two things: 'Put not your faith in Princes,' and 'This too shall pass.'"
Tim Graham, the executive editor of NewsBusters: "Let's resolve to define 'facts' and 'reality' in broader terms than whatever the Old Media is reporting. A 'reality-based' press would include facts that conservative journalists are reporting... If the Old Media lived up to its own hype as enlightening the public, it wouldn't squash, spike, or omit conservative scoops. It would seek to confirm them and then incorporate them."
"To End A Presidency" co-author Laurence Tribe: "I resolve to feel some joy and gratitude each day."
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WaPo media critic Margaret Sullivan: "I'm resolving to amplify good journalism (almost) as often as I criticize or point out the flawed or bad — all in the spirit of 'catch them doing something right.'"
NPR "Morning Edition" co-host Steve Inskeep: "To better pace myself. Get proper sleep, delete social media on weekends, think about one thing at a time when the job allows."
"The Takeaway" host Tanzina Vega: "To figure out a work/life balance even if it means asking for help. (Gasp!)"
Rogers & Cowan/PMK chairman Cindi Berger: "I'm going to try to balance my news addiction with soothing spa music. 😬 p.s., and you know this is going to be VERY hard for me!!!"
⭐⭐⭐ An alternative to resolutions
Last but not least, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded with this: "Happy new decade! I'm not one for resolutions unfortunately. Like to take smaller daily steps!"
Here's what took effect today...
Kerry Flynn notes that California's new privacy law CCPA went into effect at midnight. Here's what you need to know about it...
CNN.com has a list of other new laws...
In other January 1 news, Jeff Shell is now running NBCUniversal...
And "Friends" is temporarily offline: The classic sitcom left Netflix on Wednesday "and won't be available to stream until the May launch of HBO Max," THR noted...
Since the president is tweeting about my ratings...
Normally, only a very small number of people care about cable news ratings wars. 😉 But these days, misleading ratings #'s get weaponized by Trumpworld. And on Wednesday night the president shared a highly misleading story about the ratings for my CNN program. So here's my take.
The pro-Trump media invested in a narrative that proclaims other sources of news are dead or dying. I've seen countless MAGA tweets cheering the imminent demise of CNN and MSNBC, when in fact ratings for all the cablers remain strong. Fox News is the highest-rated of all.
In December, "Reliable Sources" was #1 in the 25- to 54-year-old demo in its time slot two of five weeks, and Fox's show was #1 the other three times. So, no surprise, on Monday Fox's website wrote about my lowest-rated week. I recognize they'll never write about the other weeks. The result: Their readers are misled about the actual ratings race. Trump is now one of those misinformed readers, and he is spreading the info even more widely. 🤷♂️
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- "The usually staid Japanese media lambasted the 'cowardly' Carlos Ghosn on Wednesday, after the tycoon jumped bail and fled to Lebanon to avoid trial in Japan..." (AFP)
-- Jabari Young's headline: "With football ratings on the rise, NFL officials look to raise TV broadcast fees on multiyear media deals." He says the NFL "is likely to ramp up negotiations on new media rights deals in 2020, long before its current agreement with network partners ends in 2022..." (CNBC)
-- Personal news: My wife Jamie is heading back to work on Thursday after a blessedly long maternity leave. She wrote this heartfelt post addressed to Story, our 5-month-old boy... (Instagram)
Month ahead calendar
The Senate gets back to work on Friday, and it is still unclear when the impeachment trial will begin...
NFL Playoffs kick off on Saturday the 4th...
The Golden Globes are this Sunday the 5th...
CES news conferences begin on Sunday the 5th and the conference program begins on Monday...
The criminal trial of Harvey Weinstein starts Monday the 6th...
Brian Lowry notes that the Oscar voting window closes on Tuesday the 7th, with the nominations to be unveiled Monday the 13th...
The next #DemDebate is slated for Tuesday the 14th...
Sundance starts Thursday the 23rd...
NOW LET'S GO BACK IN TIME...
REVIEWING THE 2010s
One last look at the last decade...
You could reflect on the past ten years of change through its creations: the iPad and Instagram and Kickstarter in 2010, Twitch and BuzzFeed News and The Verge in 2011, Snapchat and NowThis in 2012, Google Glass in 2013, Vox in 2014, Apple News in 2015, AirPods and Tiktok in 2016, Axios in 2017...
Or through new additions to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in the past 10 years: Alt-right, bingeable, screen time, cybersafety, clickbait, emoji, meme, truther, deep state, idiocracy.
-- The single best reflection on the 2010s that I read over the holidays was Dan Zak's "The decade has ended, but it will never be over..." (WaPo)
-- "The biggest casualty of the decade was trust," Michiko Kakutani wrote in this must-read... (NYT)
-- Tara Lachapelle says "it was the decade that altered the very definition of 'TV' -- Noun: Netflix. Verb: to stream." The story is titled "What a Decade of Netflix Did to Hollywood..." (Bloomberg)
One last look at 2019...
On this special "Reliable Sources" podcast episode, I sat down with Oliver Darcy, Chloe Melas, Kerry Flynn, and Frank Pallotta to reflect on 2019's biggest stories in media, culture and entertainment. Tune in to the conversation via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn, or whatever podcasting app you use...
In defense of year-end lists
I agree with the WSJ's John Jurgensen. He noted that the "seasonal deluge of best-of lists has been heavier than usual" and said that's in part because lists are increasingly "a mnemonic necessity, a way to simply remember the releases washing over us at an ever-faster rate in the age of streaming media..."
FOR THE RECORD, 2019 EDITION
-- Media and entertainment stocks "staged something of a comeback in 2019, even though high-fliers like Apple, Roku and Facebook posted bigger gains," Dade Hayes notes... (Deadline)
-- The top five regularly scheduled cable news shows in 2019: Hannity, Tucker, Maddow, Ingraham, and "The Five..." (Axios)
-- Don't miss Daniel Dale's list of President Trump's 12 most notable lies of 2019, one per month... (CNN)
-- Unusual: The three best-selling books on Amazon in 2019 all came out in 2018. Delia Owens' "Where the Crawdads Sing" was No. 1, Michelle Obama's "Becoming" was No. 2 (it was No. 1 in 2018) and Tara Westover's "Educated" was No. 3... (Amazon)
On source diversity...
NYT reporter Ben Casselman's thread about diversity went viral on New Year's Eve. He wrote: "One of my goals this year was to be more aware of the diversity (or lack thereof) of my source list. To that end, I've been tracking (as best I can) the gender and race of everyone I quote in my stories." His results: "Of the ~400 people I quoted this year, 42% were women and 15% were people of color. Close to half were white men." He said he'll continue collecting the stats in 2020...
The Trump-Fox merger remained in effect in 2019
"Fox News remained Mr. Trump's news venue of choice" in 2019, the NYT's Michael Grynbaum noted, "despite the president's occasional carping about the channel's insufficient loyalty. Of Mr. Trump's roughly 70 interviews in 2019, 23 took place on Fox News, according to Mark Knoller... Fox Business interviewed Mr. Trump an additional four times... Sean Hannity, the Fox News star, interviewed the president on seven occasions. ABC, CBS, and NBC each had one interview; CNN was shut out..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- One of the best parts of CNN's NYE special: Cheri Oteri as Barbara "this is 2020" Walters... (CNN) | | -- First great "CNN Newsroom" moment of the new year: Gen. Wesley Clark flinging his cell phone across the room when it started ringing during his hit... (CNN)
-- A "West Side Story" revival, a Michael Jackson musical and a Bob Dylan musical are among Broadway's "most anticipated shows in 2020," Greg Evans reports... (Deadline)
During the holidays...
News you might have missed between Christmas and New Year's:
-- President Trump retweeted a post with an unsubstantiated name of the whistleblower in a burst of bellicose and conspiratorial retweets. I wrote about it here.
-- Veteran broadcaster Don Imus died on December 27, several days after being hospitalized. Robert D. McFadden's obit for the NYT described him as a "irascible, confrontational growler who led pranks and parodies that could be tasteless, obscene and sometimes racist, sexist or homophobic..."
-- Spotify announced it will stop running political ads in 2020, saying it doesn't have the ability to "responsibly validate" them. Kerry Flynn wrote up the news here...
-- More from Kerry: Alex Jones and Free Speech Systems, the parent company of his fringe right-wing website Infowars, must pay about $100,000 in his adversary's legal expenses as a penalty stemming from a defamation suit...
-- This Bret Stephens column titled "The Secrets of Jewish Genius" was "a new personal low" for the oft-criticized columnist, Jack Shafer opined. The NYT appended an editors note...
-- No more six-day work weeks for Sheinelle Jones: She bid adieu to the Saturday edition of "Today." She will continue to co-host the 9am hour on the weekdays...
-- Rep. John Lewis announced a pancreatic cancer diagnosis and said he is preparing to undergo treatment. He gave the Atlanta Journal-Constitution an exclusive interview on New Year's Eve...
-- CBS News had to apologize for showing a photo of Rep. Elijah Cummings during a segment about Lewis. "We deeply regret the error," the "Evening News" Twitter account said...
-- Vox Media announced a new first-party data platform called Forte...
-- Netflix published a list of "the 10 most popular shows and movies it started streaming in the US in 2019..."
Remembering Sonny Mehta
Sonny Mehta, editor-in-chief of Knopf and chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, died December 30 at the age of 77. Knopf said the cause was complications from pneumonia.
"He indelibly shaped U.S. and world culture," Sarah Weinman wrote in this appreciation for WaPo... "Mehta was a gentleman, an exemplary publisher and a great reader. Both the authors who must go on without him, and the readers who will no longer be able to benefit from his love of books, will miss him terribly."
Mehta "told people on most days he felt like he had the best job in America," author Wil Haygood recalled. The NYT has remembrances from Bret Easton Ellis, John Banville, Omar El Akkad, Carl Hiaasen, Salman Rushdie, Jane Smiley, and others...
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Wise words from Chief Justice John Roberts at the close of one decade and the dawn of another:
"In our age, when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public's need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital."
Are the Australian fires being undercovered?
David Wallace-Wells says so, and his story is the most-viewed item on NYMag's website right now.
He says the images of the fires are "disconcertingly familiar," reminiscent of the California wildfires of 2017 and 2018. "Those California fires transfixed the world's attention, but while the ones still burning uncontrolled in Australia have gotten some media attention outside the country, in general they have been treated as a scary, but not apocalyptic, local news story," he writes. "What accounts for the difference? There are all the usual factors — the desire to look away, to avoid contemplating the scariest aspects of contemporary life or what they portend for our future, the shortsightedness of the media, reluctant to cover climate disasters, at least as climate disasters, and the forces of denial... But two additional explanations suggest themselves to me, neither at all encouraging. The first is that the duration of this climate horror has allowed us to normalize it even while it continues to unfold." Read on...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Michael Bloomberg isn't just carpet-bombing TV -- he is also "spending millions each week in an online advertising onslaught," Jeremy Peters reports... (NYT)
-- The WSJ's Christina Poletto has a new look at how luxury developers are "turning the page" on old newspaper HQs... (WSJ)
-- "Matt Lauer is dating glamorous marketing guru Shamin Abas after finalizing his divorce from longtime wife Annette Roque..." (Page Six)
| | The "Quiet" sequel
This is a superb trailer...
"In the clip for "A Quiet Place: Part II," released Wednesday, Emily Blunt's character and her children (Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe) are exposed to the threats that lurk around every noisy corner after being forced to leave their home following the events in the first movie," Sandra Gonzalez writes...
Holiday box office winners
Brian Lowry emails: There were a couple of domestic box-office milestones of note on New Year's Day, as "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" and "Jumanji" were expected to top $400 million and $200 million, respectively...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- "Not even the potent combination of the Avengers, Buzz Lightyear, and Luke Skywalker could push the 2019 box office to new heights. When the year wraps up, domestic ticket sales will be down more than 4% at $11.4 billion..." (Variety)
-- "Universal Pictures is bracing to lose at least $70 million after its critically panned movie 'Cats' bombed over the holidays," Anousha Sakoui reports... (LAT)
-- There's so much insight from Jimmy Iovine in this interview by Ben Sisario... (NYT)
'Messiah' asks provocative Q's, without giving many answers
Brian Lowry writes: Netflix dropped a new series on Wednesday, "Messiah," which raises the provocative question of what would happen if a Jesus-like figure appeared in the social-media age. The show -- from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, who produced "The Bible" -- deals with the material in a respectful manner, but given the headaches associated with the subject matter, the show's merits don't necessarily justify tiptoeing up to that cultural third rail...
Controversy over Kevin Hart's new docuseries
"Kevin Hart has pulled back the curtains on his life and not everyone is loving what they see," Lisa Respers France writes. "Netflix recently released the docuseries, 'Kevin Hart: Don't F**k This Up' in which the comedian gets candid about some of his controversial behavior, including cheating on his then-pregnant wife and stepping down from hosting the Oscars after a series of old homophobic tweets resurfaced." Read on...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Post Malone got a new face tattoo for the new year...
-- "The Witcher" has us singing the now viral song "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher..."
-- Kathy Griffin announced a surprise New Year's engagement -- and then she got married...
-- And here's some of what's streaming in January!
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