Zuck’s A.I. Gambit, CNN Magical Thinking, Trump Trial Fantasies

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon digest featuring Puck’s latest reporting.

First up today, Dylan Byers takes a close look at Mark Thompson’s finally unveiled strategy to resuscitate CNN, and whether the plan’s relative familiarity is a sign of uninspired thinking or merely what the times require. Plus, inspecting The Daily Beast and WaPo tea leaves.

Then, below the fold: John Heilemann shrewdly articulates the stakes of Trump’s hush money trial. Baratunde Thurston digs into Meta’s gargantuan A.I. gambit. Marion Maneker chronicles a topsy-turvy week for the art market. William D. Cohan sleuths out S.B.F.’s appeal strategy. And on The Powers That Be, Jon Kelly joins Peter Hamby to examine the NFL’s latest micro-aggressions, Tom Brady’s Fox impact, and CNN’s presidential debate calculus.

DYLAN BYERS

So many newsrooms seem to be waiting on newly appointed leaders—a number of them British—to swoop in and restore their swagger. Alas, the more you parse their pablum-laden marketing pitches, the more it all looks like the same old playbooks applied to new platforms.

JOHN HEILEMANN

Sure, Trump’s New York criminal trial has been more riveting and revealing than expected. But outside the Acela corridor, where Trump’s tawdriness was fully priced in a long time ago, the hush-money case feels like very old news—and almost no one is paying attention. The only question is whether a guilty verdict would be enough to change all that.

BARATUNDE THURSTON

And we don’t feel fine.

MARION MANEKER

Selling art isn’t easy, and it’s a lot harder in a market that appears to be declining. A look back at a week of hard work as the auction houses tried to sell the art they had well while also cultivating growth for a future market.