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Good morning,
Thanks for reading The Backstory, our weekly review of the best new work at Puck.
It was another really amazing week here at Puck: Matt Belloni scooped the news about a brain trust reunion at Disney; Lauren Sherman assessed Gwyneth Paltrow’s potential executive decisions at Goop; Tina Nguyen reported on DeSantis’s descent; Julia Alexander analyzed which streamers are most susceptible to the strike; Eriq Gardner had the skinny on a $16 billion lawsuit; and Teddy Schleifer detailed Gabe Bankman-Fried’s lucky break.
Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it all came together.
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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| “The 1619 Project” from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones, is now nominated for three Emmys, including Outstanding Documentary Series. Based on the groundbreaking New York Times multimedia project, the series examines how the legacy of slavery in America has shaped society today in order to move us towards a more equitable future. Variety calls it “a story that deserves to be told.” The 1619 Project is for your Emmy consideration for Outstanding Documentary Series, and Outstanding Picture Editing and Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program. |
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FASHION:
Lauren Sherman parsed the executive decision making of Gwyneth Paltrow.
WALL STREET:
Bill Cohan offered a talmudic reading of S.B.F.’s latest legal hellscape.
and…
Eriq introduces the world to the litigation investor looking at a potential $16 billion windfall.
MEDIA:
Dylan Byers revealed the destinations of the CNN diaspora.
HOLLYWOOD:
Matt Belloni breaks the news on Iger’s new advisers—and then breaks even more news on the latest chapter in Hollywood’s epic labor fight!
and…
Julia Alexander explains which streamers are best positioned to ride out the rest of the strike.
SILICON VALLEY:
Teddy Schleifer reveals the biggest fish in the latest round of the ’24 donor wars.
WASHINGTON:
Tara Palmeri scoops the Democrats preparing for the post-Biden era.
and…
Peter Hamby reports on DeSantis’s zombie comeback tour.
and…
Tina Nguyen scrutinizes Casey DeSantis’s role in the campaign.
and and...
Julia Ioffe reveals the latest inner rumblings of The Blob.
PODCASTS:
Matt Belloni discusses the Barbie effect on female filmmakers on The Town.
and…
Peter Hamby and Abby Livingston chat about Mitch McConnell’s health scare on The Powers That Be. |
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| August, that odd and uneven time, as Sylvia Plath once wrote, gets a bad rap, or at least an apocryphal one. In the cultural imagination, we tend to think of this summer denouement as the quiet recess of the year, that moment when bankers take to their second homes in East Hampton and politicians flee Capitol Hill, while the rest of the world subsequently goes on pause, awaiting the revival of fall: kids off to school, Fashion Week, new entertainment lineups, the familiar rhythms of it all.
And yet, as someone who has spent the last two decades in the media, I know that the precise opposite is true. Not only does the news never stop, but the events of August often foreshadow the maneuvers of the months ahead as the hegemons of our culture, now with a little time and leisure on their hands, begin to plot their next moves—the dealmaking, the announcements, the personnel decisions, and so forth. This year, in particular, the omens already appear to be upon us, cascading one by one, and that has become the leitmotif of Puck. |
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| And I’m not even talking about the obvious ones… You don’t need a Puck subscription to comprehend what Elon Musk is doing with X, or to appreciate the uncharted territory we’ve entered with a presidential candidate fresh off his third indictment. Instead, I’d turn your attention elsewhere, such as a pair of scoops that the peerless Matt Belloni delivered this week.
On Sunday night, Matt broke the news that Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger was bringing back former deputies Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer in a consultative fashion to help him assess the company’s portfolio of heritage assets with respect to its streaming future. Iger Brings Back His Old Heirs Apparent popped the Disney stock price at market open on Monday morning, perhaps a leading indicator that Iger has the right advisors in place. Matt finished the week by publishing the brilliant, news-breaking piece, The Studios-Streamers Coalition of the Willing, itself the most forward-looking story about Hollywood’s summer of labor unrest.
Elsewhere, in The Ukraine “Israel Model” & Its Discontents, the extraordinary Julia Ioffe penetrated the inside conversation permeating Official Washington regarding one creative potential endgame for Ukraine. It’s a concept, based on America’s support of Israel, that would arm the European nation to the hilt and, Julia notes, protect it from potential abandonment in the case of a Trump election. Speaking of which: perhaps the most startling story published at Puck all week was Tara Palmeri’s examination of the latent shadow political infrastructures currently being prepared by J.B. Pritzker and Gavin Newsom—just in case Biden decides to pull out for some reason. Tara tracks their moves, and artfully depicts the delta between the talking points and the reality, which can be a chasm in Washington. After all, politics is a sport that favors the opportunistic.
If you’re eagerly anticipating this fall’s trial of the century, as S.B.F. finally gets his day in court, I’d suggest curling up to Bill Cohan’s masterful talmudic reading of the latest report filed by new FTX C.E.O. John Ray. The blistering assessment is almost certain to guide federal prosecutors come October. Meanwhile, Dylan Byers’ acerbic CNN Senioritis notes how the blues at the network have spilled from the corporate suite to the on-air stalwarts. Julia Alexander runs the numbers to figure out which media companies are the most exposed to labor mayhem in The Streamers’ Strike Vulnerability Index. Fortunately for Zaz, Max ranks as one of the most bulletproof.
But if you only have time to read one story, I’d urge you to sit down with Lauren Sherman’s incredible reported analysis on the changes taking place at Kering, the luxury fashion conglomerate, and perhaps some others that investors might fantasize about. Whether you work in the business, or an adjacent one, or simply care about having an informed view of a multi-trillion dollar industry, please spend some time with The House of Gucci Gets a Tickle. It’s one of the great stories of our time, and precisely what you should expect from Puck.
Have a great weekend,
Jon |
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