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Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your pocket guide to Puck’s best
new reporting.

First up today, Dylan Byers assesses the anxieties of the political media class at the dawn of the second Trump era. Despite the genuflecting from billionaires and C.E.O.s toward the president-elect, the harsh realities of the journalism business remain incredibly complex. So what’s actually needed for legacy media institutions to endure? 

Plus, below the fold: Rachel Strugatz charts the downward spiral of Blake Lively’s haircare line, and the backstory of Ulta’s executive shake-up. Matt Belloni breaks the news that Peacock’s president Kelly Campbell is stepping down. Bill Cohan anticipates the Wall Street M&A deal heat ahead of Trump II. And in an Inner
Circle-exclusive dispatch, Marion Maneker rifles through proprietary data that signals where the art market is headed in the new year. 

Meanwhile, on the podcasts… Tara Palmeri chats with former Trump administration appointee Matthew Bartlett about the president-elect’s infatuation with Greenland and the viability of his ambitious agenda. John Heilemann hosts disinformation analyst Jiore
Craig on Impolitic to talk deepfakes, A.I., and foreign influence campaigns. And on The Powers That Be, Dylan joins Peter Hamby to discuss the harrowing wildfires that are ravaging Los Angeles—and the hard questions coming down the barrel for Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom.

On Monday morning, Norm Pearlstine, an elder statesman of American journalism, sent an email to
about 150 old friends and associates with a copy of his new essay for Columbia Journalism Review, a cri de coeur for fearless journalism in the second Trump era with a straightforward thesis: “The billionaire class has proved itself a poor steward of media. Journalists must redouble their efforts to expose the threat to democracy.” And yet, while Trump’s first term was a golden era for #Resistance journalism, that marketplace has been decimated. What Norm should really
be pining for, Dylan argues, are successful business models that will allow journalistic institutions to endure—and to do so independent of the generosity of any billionaire benefactor. 

Read Now

It’s been a hectic start to the year for the C.E.O.s of publicly traded beauty concerns. On
Monday, Ulta Beauty announced that C.E.O. David Kimbell would “retire” effective immediately, and that Kecia Steelman, current president and C.O.O., would replace him. Ulta’s shares, after all, dipped nearly 14 percent over the last 12 months, and Kimbell simply wasn’t as successful at engineering a turnaround as many had hoped. Meanwhile, as all of Hollywood fixates on the increasingly ugly Blake Lively–Justin Baldoni lawsuits, Target, which partners with Ulta Beauty, is counting the
lost riches from Lively’s haircare line…

Read Now

Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU is “A Perfect Film in Every Way”
| Now Playing Only In Theaters |
Upcoming
Screenings, Read Robert Eggers Screenplay, Listen to Robin Carolan’s Score and Learn More.

As Comcast prepares to spin off its declining cable networks and reorganizes its NBCUniversal
media unit, Matt breaks the news that Kelly Campbell, president of Peacock and direct-to-consumer at NBCUniversal, is leaving the company—and won’t be replaced. Under her purview, Peacock has grown to 36 million subscribers in the U.S. (the only country in which it operates), thanks to such major NBC Sports events as the Paris Olympics and an exclusive NFL playoff game last winter. Is Campbell’s exit the first of many as NBCU remakes its TV and streaming
business?

Read Now

Wall Street is gearing up for a big year in M&A. The self-proclaimed dealmaker-in-chief is
returning to the White House, regulations will supposedly be easing, the U.S. stock markets remain near all-time highs, and interest rates seem to have stabilized along with inflation. While bankers are typically the winners in all the dealmaking frenzy, and manage to haul in billions in fees, shareholders of the companies being acquired and sold often get left holding the bag. Given all the what ifs surrounding the incoming administration, should the C.E.O.s who’ve caught the
Wall Street fever hold on, or run for the exits?

Read Now

There were reasons to believe that the comparatively successful November auctions signaled that
the art market had turned a corner. But new data provided to Marion by market insights firm ARTDAI shows that the overall auction performance of art and design objects was lower in the second half of ’24 than during the same period in ’23, continuing a slide that began two and a half years ago. In a special Inner Circle exclusive, Marion uncovers the good news buried in these metrics: Although the dollar volume of the auction market is down, the number of lots offered is near its
all-time peak…

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Tara is joined by former Trump administration appointee and political consultant Matthew
Bartlett to discuss the viability of Donald Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda as we approach Inauguration Day. They analyze Trump’s provocative Mar-a-Lago press conference from earlier in the week, speculate on what his first days in office will be like, and shine a light on the tech-bro swagger currently infecting the Hill.

Listen Now

Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU is “A Perfect Film in Every Way”
| Now Playing Only In Theaters |
Upcoming
Screenings, Read Robert Eggers Screenplay, Listen to Robin Carolan’s Score and Learn More.

John is joined by Jiore Craig—next-gen Democratic digital strategist,
counter-disinformation specialist, and senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue—to discuss the role of social media in the 2024 election and where the political information ecosystem is headed in 2025. Jiore argues that, for all the focus on deepfakes, A.I., and foreign influence operations in last year's campaign, the online action that mattered more was subtler and more pervasive; the Harris campaign’s digital playbook was wildly out of date and the Trump
team’s vastly more in tune with how voters consume information today; and the rise of right-leaning podcasts as a medium for reaching men (especially young men) should have surprised no one—complete with a must-hear deconstruction of the Jordan Peterson phenomenon.

Listen Now

Dylan Byers joins Peter to discuss the devastating wildfires and winds that are ravaging Los
Angeles. While Dylan praises the local media for their commendable coverage, Peter criticizes the lack of leadership from Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom.

Listen Now

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