 Good evening, I'm Dylan Byers.
Welcome back to In the Room, my biweekly private email on the intrigue and inside story behind what’s going on in the media industry.
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In today’s email: Jen Psaki, Amy Entelis, Rebecca Kutler, Cesar Conde, Rashida Jones, Jay Sures, and a cable news bidding war...
 Biden’s spokesperson, who plans to leave the White House this year, is being feverishly courted by CNN and MSNBC, among others. And Psaki has ambitions to become a marquee star. Is she the next Maddow or Anderson? Earlier this month, while the cable news industry was consumed by the ongoing and seemingly never-ending Jeff Zucker-Allison Gollust-Chris Cuomo imbroglio, and as WarnerMedia C.E.O. Jason Kilar was flaccidly trying to calm the nerves of a restless newsroom staff, CNN interim co-president Amy Entelis and CNN+ programming lead Rebecca Kutler were in Washington for a top-secret and mission-critical recruitment assignment. The chaos embroiling their brand had not deterred their efforts to court a new potential on-air talent who, in their eyes, had the potential to become a marquee star both in the CNN lineup and its nascent streaming service.
They weren’t the only ones to hatch this novel idea. Less than one week later, NBC News Chairman Cesar Conde and MSNBC President Rashida Jones made a similar pilgrimage to Washington to meet with the very same talent, in the hopes that she might one day join their networks in a flagship role, and perhaps even take the top spot in primetime on MSNBC. CNN may be reeling from the Zucker mess, but MSNBC is imperiled in it’s own way, as Rachel Maddow prepares to exit her nightly show, prompting a presumed top-down re-think of primetime. The potential talent, of course, was Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary. In the last year, Psaki has achieved veritable celebrity status for her daily press briefings, which have restored sanity and professionalism to the office and earned her the adoration of the mainstream media, as well as a fervent following online...
FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT  The company behind the tokens abruptly shelved plans for more, but a mysterious new push could be smoke and mirrors. MATTHEW BELLONI  Either way, foreign policy experts in D.C. are already discussing how this crisis could forever reshape the region—and the world. JULIA IOFFE  Despite the evolving science, Democrats are struggling to relinquish the identity politics surrounding their own Covid-era precautions. PETER HAMBY  The smart money has already pulled out of Trump’s SPAC circus, just as Chamath Palihapitiya dumped his stake in Virgin Galactic. WILLIAM D. COHAN
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