Confider #72: The Daily Mail-NY Post War, Chrises Licht & Christie, Jake Tapper’s A-List Book Tour

Welcome to this week’s edition of Confider, the media newsletter that pulls back the curtain to reveal what’s really going on inside the world’s most powerful navel-gazing industry. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.

EXCLUSIVE — TABLOID WARS!!!: A long-simmering feud between the Daily Mail and the New York Post has reached its apex with both outlets apparently instructing editors to avoid mentioning, attributing, or linking to the other, Confider has learned. Read the full story here.

EXCLUSIVE — CHRIS & CHRIS: Is Chris Licht looking to go from running a doomed CNN to running a doomed presidential campaign? That’s what our spy-witness was asking as they sent us a photo of the recently axed CNN boss dining with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at Theater District stalwart Becco last Wednesday. The pair can be seen seated together with a bottle of sparkling water, we assume talking about Christie’s incredibly longshot attempt to unseat Trump as GOP king by dishing the insults at his 2016 rival and eventual boss as fast as they come in. Licht and Christie did not respond to requests for comment.

TAPPER TAPS ALL HIS PALS: Did you know Jake Tapper has written a new thriller novel? If you watch CNN, you almost certainly know by now. That’s because it seems like all of the network has been roped into plugging it. Whether Instagram posts from Kaitlan Collins, John Berman, Alisyn Camerota, S.E. Cupp, and Kate Bolduan or on-air segments on CNN This Morning, and Fareed Zakaria, Abby Phillip, and Erin Burnett’s shows, the network has fully participated in promoting All the Demons Are Here: A Thriller. And fresh off his inclusion in the celebrity dinner party pic that “broke the internet,” Tapper has seemingly every A-lister pushing the thriller, as his compilations of the shoutouts on Instagram and Twitter constantly remind everyone. There’s Jake Gyllenhaal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Elizabeth Banks, Christian Slater, Paul Rudd, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Ben Stiller, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Adam Scott—let’s just stop there. We get it, Jake, you’ve got a new book. Congrats on that, by the way!

NEWSNATION IN THE NEWS: While self-described “centrist” NewsNation is still placing well behind its cable-news competitors in the ratings, the upstart network has continued to make major strides as its audience growth surges. According to Nielsen, Thursday night’s broadcast of Cuomo—which featured interviews with Trump challenger Chris Christie and recently departed Fox star Geraldo Rivera—pulled in 198,000 total viewers and 27,000 in the key advertising demographic of adults aged 25-54. (The repeat airing later that evening drew more than 100,000 extra viewers.) Though these numbers pale in comparison to Chris Cuomo’s former CNN show—something he’s previously lamented—it does represent a massive year-over-year increase of 371 percent in total audience and 440 percent in the demo. Cuomo outdrew Fox Business Network’s airing of Cops and HLN’s Forensic Files, among other cable offerings that night. Making this latest feat even more impressive is the fact that NewsNation’s parent company Nexstar is currently in a bitter contract dispute with DirecTV, meaning NewsNation is currently in millions of fewer households than normal. While NewsNation makes astonishing gains, however, not everyone is impressed. Former NBC News host Joshua Johnson, whose streaming show was canceled less than a year after it debuted, took to Twitter last Thursday to jab at NewsNation. Sharing video of a combative interview between Leland Vittert (who joined NewsNation from Fox News) and vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez about the COVID lab leak theory, Johnson revealed: “After my time at NBC ended, I had a long chat with a @NewsNation recruiter. I asked them which hosts on the network they liked the most: who typified the channel’s potential. They said this guy, Leland Vittert, was high on the list. In that instant, I resolved to be my own boss.” Separately, Confider has learned that Federico Quadrani, the former exec producer of Jake Tapper’s CNN show who was fired earlier this year for hooking up with a subordinate, has found a new gig helming Vittert’s NewsNation show.

Tips? We’re all ears: confider@thedailybeast.com or call/text us 551 655 2343.

WE HEAR WHISPERS: The Messenger, Jimmy Finkelstein’s brand-new media startup, has already lost more employees, this time from its D.C. bureau, including reporters Leah Askarinam, Lili Pike, and Maggie Severns.

MORE FROM THE BEAST MEDIA DESK

—Fox News’ “new” post-Tucker Carlson primetime lineup, which debuts tonight, reveals more than anything just how little has changed at the conservative cable giant, even with the firing of its most popular and influential ideological voice. More here.

—The Associated Press has long experimented with artificial intelligence, but last week it fully jumped aboard the OpenAI train, despite controversy over the ChatGPT creator and a federal investigation into its practices. Read about that new partnership here.

—Ron DeSantis’ charm(less) offensive on Fox News continued to flounder this weekend, as he bizarrely claimed to Howard Kurtz that despite a flurry of stories about his unlikeability, voters actually really do like him—once they meet him in person. Read about that here.

RECENT READS

—Joe Bel Bruno reported on his Substack that billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong is holding talks to sell the Los Angeles Times to media mogul Jay Penske. In turn, Soon-Shiong blasted the story as “completely fabricated.” And Times staffers themselves wasted no time bashing the article, with courts reporter James Queally tweeting about “assuming our jackass ex-colleague’s story is incorrect.”

—The British media market’s most prestigious broadcaster—the BBC—and its most salacious tabloid—The Sun—were awash in scandal last week after the paper reported that a top anchor solicited nude photos from a teen. Days later, the alleged victim denounced the claim and anchor Huw Edwards was off the air. Read The Guardian’s excellent summary here.

—The LAPD still seems incapable of understanding how journalism works. After its police chief complained about two Los Angeles Times reporters knocking on the door of a sergeant, multiple media experts told the paper they were just doing their job. Read about that here.

***WHAT ARE WE OUTRAGED ABOUT NOW?***

The moment the Daily Mail published photos from the set of Disney’s upcoming live-action Snow White film revealing the seven dwarves had been replaced by a “diverse band of merry men and women,” it was clear the right-wing outrage-industrial complex would have a field day. And that they did. “So they have one little person playing a dwarf to be more ‘politically correct’? So six other little people didn’t get the job or the check and somehow this is more ‘sensitive’? Disney is a joke,” Fox News contributor and professional rage peddler Tomi Lahren screeched on Twitter. “Get this. It’s called ‘Snow White and Her Seven Companions’ now. They took six of the dwarves away. There’s only one dwarf now, the other six have been bounced and replaced by quite the diversity crew,” Newsmax host Eric Bolling snarked on Friday night. “I'd say firing six dwarves, Disney should be sent to media diversity training for being dwarfist! I mean, firing all those dwarves, not cool.” And on Monday morning, Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney wondered if Disney “had gone woke” while Fox News host Todd Piro mockingly noted the live-action adaptation of a fairy tale features a “Hispanic actress” as the titular character, followed by her “brightly colored friends of various genders, races, and sizes.”

Confider will be back next week with more saucy scooplets. In the meantime, subscribe here and send us questions, complaints, or tips here or call/text us 551 655 2343.

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