Confider #75: LA Mag Melts Down, NY Gossip Queen Pivots to PR, Newsmax Goes Full Propaganda
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 — LA MAG MANIA: The meltdown over at Los Angeles continues as the once-esteemed magazine’s new owners cook up creative ways to stiff writers past and present, Confider has learned. Read the full exclusive Confider story here.
EXCLUSIVE — THE QUEEN HAS LANDED: So farewell then to New York Post gossip queen Emily Smith who just over a year after being “promoted” to “editorial director” of Page Six announced Friday she is leaving the Murdoch-owned tabloid. Smith will join Atlanta-based PR shop 360 Media after the Post’s editor-in-chief and Murdoch boy wonder, Keith Poole, decided not to renew her contract, Confider has learned. We broke the news last June that Smith was removed from her role as editor of the Post’s marquee gossip column following an HR investigation over alleged workplace misconduct. Staff at the Post had complained that Smith was a bully and created a toxic work environment, forcing Poole to dream up a new title and role for her. Smith’s exit note, obtained and reviewed by Confider, touted her scoops—including Anthony Scaramucci’s divorce, Jeff Bezos’ affair, and Donald Trump Jr.’s divorce—but Post staffers were quick to point out to Confider that all of the stories mentioned were bylines Smith shared with colleagues. No word yet on a replacement at the Post for “editorial director” of Page Six. A Post spokesperson told Confider: “She is leaving to pursue other opportunities.” Smith declined to comment and Poole did not respond to a request for comment.
PROPAGANDA TO THE MAX: Newsmax will apparently stop at nothing, including crossing clearly delineated ethical boundaries, to supplant Fox News as the GOP’s de facto comms shop. Over the past few months, multiple Republican congressmen have filled in as guest hosts on the network, often “reporting” on national political stories of which they’re very much a part. Read the full Confider story here.
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G/O GOES AI: A month after an AI-generated, fact-challenged story about Star Wars sent Gizmodo staffers into an angered frenzy, G/O Media will further incorporate artificial intelligence into its websites’ content production, editorial director Merrill Brown revealed Monday in a staff-wide memo obtained and reviewed by Confider. “The A.V. Club will be publishing a couple of pieces of content using reviewed and edited AI material, some of which is compiled by content partners,” the memo revealed. Furthermore, “Jalopnik will be publishing slideshows, a process well suited for generative AI and automation. With this early-stage work and with a minimum of prompting we have developed a pilot that within seconds creates slideshow drafts from any number, size or format of image.” Brown said the editors of both websites were involved in coming up with these AI projects. He further acknowledged external “chatter” about burgeoning media AI projects, but told staffers that “the best day to deal with industry chatter of this kind is to process it, dismiss the trivial and learn from what surfaces that’s thoughtful and of real value.” A G/O spokesperson declined to comment, saying the memo spoke for itself.
AFTER EL AMERICAN: Former HBO CEO Chris Albrecht—often seen as responsible for ushering in the “golden age of television”—and Jane the Virgin executive producer Jorge Granier have launched a new media firm aiming to bring IP from Latin American countries to a global audience. Splashy stories about the new company made much of Albrecht’s massive resumé and Granier’s work on the wildly popular romcom series, but here’s one interesting tidbit that everyone overlooked: In 2020, Granier launched El American, a “pro-freedom” bilingual news site described as “Fox News meets Daily Wire, for Hispanics.” The site, which sought to elevate Hispanic and Latino conservatism, quietly shut down earlier this year and no one seemed to notice. If you have any info, hit us up at confider@thedailybeast.com.
IN PLAIN SIGHT: One-time Axios star reporter Alexi McCammond, who was hired to run Teen Vogue before losing the gig to backlash over her old tweets, has joined The Washington Post as an opinion writer… Former top CNN flack Matt Dornic, who was canned alongside Chris Licht, celebrated his 42nd birthday with a boat-based bash and by trolling people into believing he launched a “tell-all” Substack and podcast.
WE HEAR WHISPERS: Disgraced GB News presenter and former top Murdoch editor Dan Wootton is continuing to be paid his $250,000 freelance contract by The Daily Mail despite the publisher announcing they’ve paused his column in the wake of wild allegations about his twisted double life… Keith Olbermann is planning to rent a full-time media studio as downloads for his podcast, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, are on track to hit 3 million this month.
MORE FROM THE BEAST MEDIA DESK
—Despite what you may have read in Donald Trump’s latest indictment, Fox News anchor Julie Banderas insisted on Monday that “hatching schemes to stay in office” while “claiming you won an election you know you lost” aren’t actually crimes. So coups are cool, we guess. More here.
— Fox Corp is pushing back against efforts to deny a broadcast license renewal to its local Philly news station over Fox News airing 2020 election lies, saying the activist attempt to kill the channel is a “violation of the First Amendment.” Read about that here.
—PBS has finally found a new host for Washington Week: Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. The new gig comes as part of the magazine’s partnership with the long-running public affairs show, renaming the program Washington Week With The Atlantic. More here.
RECENT READS
—Another day, another rising right-wing influencer revealed to have an ugly racist past. This time, HuffPost unmasked Richard Hanania, a conservative writer touted by Silicon Valley billionaires and think-tank dorks alike, as having written insanely bigoted content under a pseudonym. (Bari Weiss’ grifty University of Austin cut ties with him as a result, Semafor reported.) Read the full exposé here.
—A California judge has ruled that Lauren Sanchez’s unhinged brother, Michael Sanchez, was the “the first and only source” of the National Enquirer’s bombshell story of Jeff Bezos’ affair. That should be no surprise to readers of The Daily Beast, seeing as we broke that yarn back in 2019. More here.
—The ever-consistent Air Mail has a cracking look at The New Republic’s former publisher, Marty Peretz, and his new memoir, The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center, in which he details how he set about “pissing off the right people.” Read that here.
***WHAT ARE WE OUTRAGED ABOUT NOW?***
Four months on, and the right-wing outrage-industrial complex is still big mad that Bud Light once gave a transgender woman a commemorative can. One-time Fox News star Megyn Kelly, for instance, blew up last week after she saw wildly popular podcaster Joe Rogan chugging the “woke” beer alongside alt-country star Zach Bryan. “And we’re drinking Bud Lights, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry. There’s nothing wrong with it,” Rogan said, adding that the culture war over Bud Light’s brief partnership with Dylan Mulvaney was “goofy” and “silly.” Kelly, however, raged on her podcast that Rogan was “on the wrong side” for “dismissing the whole controversy” before grumbling that he’s “not getting it.” After far-right pundit Andrew Klavan declared that Bud Light was attempting to “destroy the very existence of women,” Kelly groused that the company wasn’t “sorry” for partnering with Mulvaney. “And most of us wouldn’t be caught dead having a Bud Light now, for very good reason,” she fumed. More here.
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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