Welcome back to In the Room and greetings from Indian Wells, where I’m drinking
palomas and watching some world-class tennis. If you’ve heard the pervasive rumor that Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace are on thin ice at MSNBC following Trump’s call for their resignations, I can assure you it’s not true. (Seriously, folks, use your heads.)
In tonight’s issue, more news and notes on Jeff Bezos’s journey at The Washington Post, why he severed ties with David
Shipley, and what comes next. Plus Lauren Sherman on the latest cutbacks at Condé Nast.
🍸 On today’s edition of The Grill Room, New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker drops by to assess the historic implications of Trump’s war against the media, Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post pivot, press corps impotence, and the Muscovian “chill” that has settled over the capital as
reporters and their sources grow fearful of presidential retribution. Follow The Grill Room on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you prefer to
listen.
Also mentioned in this issue: Marty Baron, David Maraniss, Fred Ryan, Will Lewis, Kamala Harris, Fred Hiatt, John Ridding, Jon Slade, Ronny Jackson, Shari Redstone, Larry Ellison, Stephen A. Smith, Elizabeth Herbst-Brady, Jonathan
Newhouse, Edward Enninful, and many more…
Let’s get started…
|
- FT succession chatter: The longtime Financial Times C.E.O. John Ridding is stepping down after nearly two decades on the job. He will now serve as an advisor to Nikkei, the news group’s parentco, and as honorary FT chairman. This move had been in the cards for some time, and Ridding is resigning on amicable terms. He noted that he’s leaving the FT Group in “strong shape,” stating that subscriptions, readership, and group
revenues are at “all-time highs.” Nikkei says it will announce Ridding’s successor soon. I’m reliably told that chief commercial officer Jon Slade is the internal favorite.
- CBS counters Trump suit: Paramount’s CBS has filed two motions to dismiss Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against the network over its (truly harmless) edit of the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The first and most significant
motion seeks to dismiss the case on the merits, arguing that Trump and Rep. Ronny Jackson are trying “to punish a news organization for constitutionally protected editorial judgments they do not like.” The second motion argues that the case should be transferred from Jackson’s district in Texas to the Southern District of New York, or dismissed due to improper venue.
Lest there be any confusion: These motions should not be read as a sign that Paramount owner
Shari Redstone has had a sudden change of heart about settling the lawsuit. The legal process is entirely separate from the settlement discussions, and, per my sources, she remains eager to settle the case, ostensibly to ensure a smooth sale of the company to Skydance. As I’ve noted before, it’s highly unlikely Trump would actually block the deal, given his ties to Larry Ellison. But that’s not to say that F.C.C. boss Brendan Carr won’t
make the process as painful or humiliating as possible.
- Stephen A. gets his bag: ESPN star Stephen A. Smith has finally agreed to the $100 million-plus, five-year contract with the network that he was offered last fall. The deal will keep Smith on First Take, making him the highest-paid talent at ESPN—albeit at a salary that is less than the $25 million a year he wanted. But as my partner John Ourand
noted back in December, what’s most notable about the deal is what’s not included: Stephen A.’s agreement is nonexclusive outside of sports content, meaning he can host other political or cultural shows outside of ESPN—the sort of concession that was once unimaginable in this business, but increasingly
feels like the new norm for top-tier needle-moving talent.
|
|
|
A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
|
The first of its kind, powered by innovation. Anchor is helping Chevron safely deliver more
energy from the Gulf of America, home to some of the world’s lowest carbon intensity oil and gas.
Learn More!
|
|
|
Now, here’s Lauren on Condé Nast layoffs…
|
|
|
|
Lauren Sherman
|
|
- Groundhog Day is
behind us, but Condé Nast layoffs never end: After a hefty restructuring at the end of last year that resulted in the exit of several longtime team players, Condé Nast is once again thinning out its staff. This morning, the union was informed that layoffs were imminent. I’m told the reduction will hit commercial-side folks and some editorial operations types, and that budgets are being slashed across the board. (So far, only three union members have gotten the ax, so I’m assuming it’s a
pretty small round.) Interesting that Condé management decided to pull the trigger a week before sales bonuses would be paid out, and immediately after they started requiring everyone to come to the office at least four days a week. In an email to her staff, chief revenue officer Elizabeth Herbst-Brady offered a litany of reasons for the layoffs, which all coalesced around the corporate pablum that “transformation is an ongoing process.” As she’s dug into the
role, it sounds like she’s found a lot of duplication among roles in the sales side.
Certainly it hasn’t helped that the commercial business around the Oscars wasn’t great. A person with firsthand knowledge told me that the combination of the L.A. wildfires and the less commercial slate of Academy Awards nominees—Anora is one of the lowest grossing films to ever win best picture—weighed down Q1 media and entertainment advertising opportunities. There are also the macro challenges
in the advertising market, which I wrote about earlier this week, that are affecting the entire media ecosystem. Vanity Fair’s big Hollywood issue was moved up to December partly to boost Q4 numbers and hit annual sales goals. A rep for the company did not respond to a request for comment regarding the layoffs.
In far more petty Condé Nast news, I recently got a tip
about a Wikipedia scoundrel named Butterfly3232, who has been messing with the bio pages of best buds Jonathan Newhouse and Edward Enninful. The edits, which were made in September 2023 but apparently noticed only recently by associates of the men, portray Enninful’s stint at British Vogue as “not widely seen as a success.”
Curiously, the only other edits Butterfly3232 made were to the bio page of Nicholas Coleridge, a real dandy who ran Condé Nast International prior to its merger with the parent company in 2018.
Anyway, why anyone would care about this beats me, but it feels like the old-school, for-no-good-reason Condé scheming that almost never happens now—mostly because people in corporate environments are incentivized to act far more professionally, but also because the company is no
longer any fun.
|
|
|
Jeff Bezos had been losing patience with The Washington Post’s
liberal predilection long before he mandated a purely pro-markets Opinion section, and even before endorsement-gate. In fact, the tensions that culminated in Opinion editor David Shipley’s resignation had been building for years.
|
|
|
Last September, during the now-fabled meeting at one of his Indian Creek Island
homes on Biscayne Bay, Jeff Bezos informed Washington Post leadership of his desire to see the paper forgo its quadrennial tradition of presidential endorsements—a decision that would, as everyone knows, go off like a nuclear bomb over the paper. When the decision was finally announced more than a month later, in the final days before the election, Bezos was memorably pilloried by the D.C. media establishment for what appeared to be a callous and brazen capitulation to
Trump. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of subscribers reportedly abandoned the paper.
Notably, Bezos’s only regret at the time seemed to pertain to the timing of the rollout: “I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it,” he wrote in an essay for the paper. “That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.”
In hindsight, the mismanagement of the endorsement decision actually
foreshadowed the far more significant changes that Bezos made to the Post Opinion section last week, when he declared that the paper’s once-legendary editorial page would now only vigorously support and defend “personal liberties and free markets.” The new mandate set off yet another round of impassioned protest from the Marty Baron–David Maraniss crowd as well as other veterans and the liberal Washington establishment, and triggered the
resignation of the Post’s Opinion editor, David Shipley.
|
|
|
A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
|
The first of its kind, powered by innovation. Anchor is helping Chevron safely deliver more
energy from the Gulf of America, home to some of the world’s lowest carbon intensity oil and gas.
Learn More!
|
|
|
The truth is that Bezos had been antsy about the paper’s ideological leanings for
years. According to sources familiar with his thinking, he’s long wanted to bring the paper closer in line with his own free market, libertarian worldview. In the Fred Ryan era, this was sometimes transmitted as “liberal on social issues, conservative on economic issues,” which probably failed to convey the nuances of his perspective. Anyway, both Shipley and Post C.E.O. Will Lewis had actually been supportive of Bezos becoming more engaged on
the editorial side, as that is the one area where publishers have historically been able to wield influence without infringing on the sacrosanct prerogatives of the newsroom.
At the same time, both Shipley and Lewis strongly disagreed with Bezos’s desire to pull the endorsement, arguing that such a dramatic move so close to the election would look bad and alienate the paper’s core audience. Rather than acquiesce to Bezos’s recommendation in late September, Lewis, and especially Shipley,
spent the next month trying to change his mind, all while keeping the editorial board in the dark about the fact that their endorsement of Kamala Harris might get spiked.
|
“Free Markets, Free People”
|
When the decision was announced, Shipley told his dispirited charges that, while he
consented to the “principle that you do not have to do presidential endorsements,” he disagreed with Bezos’s “timing, and the way in which the timing could be read.” But from Bezos’s standpoint, the bad timing had as much to do with Shipley’s protracted deliberations over what, in his mind, had been a pretty clear directive. Of course, Shipley had never shown the strong philosophical convictions of his predecessor, Fred Hiatt. He seemed to have stronger views about the editing
and editorial process than any specific political or policy issue.
Last month, when Bezos was ready to implement his version of The Wall Street Journal’s “free markets, free people” mandate, Shipley’s equivocation once again asserted itself, and again seemed to irk Bezos. In his statement announcing the mandate and Shipley’s resignation, Bezos noted that he’d suggested to his Opinion editor “that if the answer wasn’t ‘hell yes,’ then it had to be ‘no.’” On first glance, the
anecdote appeared to telegraph Bezos’s own enthusiasm for the new editorial posture, but in retrospect, it was also a subtle acknowledgement of his impatience with Shipley’s deliberations dating back at least as far as the non-endorsement.
Now, Bezos and Lewis have to identify a new Opinion leader who displays enthusiasm for the mandate that is commensurate with Bezos’s own. Alas, so far, all signs suggest that they have not yet identified who that leader will be—or that they’re at least
playing it close to the chest.
|
|
|
Join Puck’s chief political columnist, John Heilemann, as he roams the corridors of power and influence in
America on this twice-weekly interview show, taking you beyond the headlines with the people who shape our culture: icons and up-and-comers, incumbents and insurgents, moguls and machers in the overlapping worlds of politics, entertainment, tech, business, sports, media, and beyond. The conversations are rich and revealing, unrehearsed and unexpected… and reliably impolitic. A Puck-Audacy joint, new episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday.
|
|
|
A professional-grade, insider-friendly tip sheet from John Ourand, the industry’s
preeminent sports business journalist, covering the leagues, agencies, media deals, and the egos fueling it all.
|
|
|
Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.
You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with . To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click
here.
|
Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St, New York, NY
10006
|
|
|
|
