Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Scroll down below for what George Stephanopoulos told me about his interview with Sam Bankman-Fried, news on how Dominion is set to depose Lachlan Murdoch, and details about what to expect on "GMA3" Thursday. Plus, what Reed Hastings, Andy Jassy, and Mark Zuckerberg said at the DealBook Summit. But first, the A1.

THE A1

CNN Cuts Commence

CNN Photo Illustration/Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A tough year at CNN is ending in a tough way.

Network boss Chris Licht announced that the much-anticipated layoffs at the company had commenced on Wednesday, describing the process as one that would be a "gut punch" to the organization. The layoffs are expected to ultimately result in some on-air contributors and hundreds of staffers losing their jobs, marking the deepest cuts to the network in nearly a decade.

"Our people are the heart and soul of this organization," Licht wrote in an all-staff memo. "It is incredibly hard to say goodbye to any one member of the CNN team, much less many."

Licht went on to describe the coming days as a "difficult time" for CNN. He acknowledged that the layoffs, which come at a time of significant cost cutting pressure, will "affect both our departing colleagues and those who remain." And he concluded urging staffers to "take care of each other this week."

The layoffs will cap what can only be described as a difficult and turbulent year for the news network. In the last 12 months, CNN has seen its star 9pm anchor fired, its revered president ousted, a number of senior executives exit, and its hyped streaming service killed in its infancy. The news has continued on-air and online, but behind the scenes, the organization has been shaken to its core.

Now staffers are worrying about whether or not they'll have a job this holiday season. Most of the cuts impacting staffers will take place Thursday, either in person or over Zoom, Licht said in his Wednesday memo, meaning anxiety will be running high for at least another night.

But some of the cuts, largely comprised of paid contributors, did get underway Wednesday. Two television agents from two different talent agencies I spoke with said that CNN was paying out their clients' contributor contracts, but prohibiting them from appearing on other all-news networks for the remainder of their deals. In other words, don't expect to see axed personalities pop up tomorrow on MSNBC, unless they want to give up their salaries.

The layoffs at CNN — which I should note still posts annual profits in the hundreds of millions of dollars — come amid significant cost cutting pressure from parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. The media juggernaut, which was formed earlier this year after WarnerMedia (CNN's former parent) and Discovery merged, is saddled with debt and boss David Zaslav has vowed to investors that he will find more than $3 billion in savings.

Licht has, however, said the cuts are his own. "These are my cuts," he told Kara Swisher in an interview earlier this month. Licht went on to say, "This is my strategy and if I thought that there was a cut that somehow I was getting pushed to do, something that I thought would be, in the, not in the interest of this company, I would push back hard, and I've not had to do that.

The cuts also come as media companies across the industry face significant pressure to decrease costs amid a deteriorating economy that has wreaked absolute havoc upon the advertising sector, which newsrooms rely on for considerable amounts of their revenue.

CNN on Wednesday declined to say what percentage of the workforce will be reduced. Licht, however, said in his memo that after the layoffs conclude Thursday, he will "follow up with more details."

In the absence of those details, a lot is up in the air. The big question: What will CNN look like heading into 2023? We'll know more in about 24 hours.

✂️ CUTS, CUTS, CUTS

Gannett staffers are bracing for layoffs which are also set to take place on Thursday. (Poynter)
NPR CEO John Lansing announced the radio network will need to cut at least $10 million in spending, imposed near-freeze on hiring. (NPR)
The Washington Post will end the print edition of its Sunday magazine, executive editor Sally Buzbee said, cutting 10 staffers. (WaPo)
Paramount TV Studios and CBS Studios laid off staffers Wednesday. Nellie Andreeva reports less than 30 were impacted. (Deadline)
Meta will vacate 250,000 square feet of its NYC office space at Hudson Yards in the latest sign of belt tightening. (NY Post)
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said an "uncertain" economy pushed the e-commerce giant to move ahead with rare and wide-ranging layoffs. (CNN)

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/Alex Wong/Getty Images

First in Reliable | Inside ABC's 'Wild' SBF Interview: Get ready to see former crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried on "Good Morning America" Thursday. George Stephanopoulos flew to the Bahamas on Sunday and sat down Monday with the disgraced FTX founder for a nearly two hour interview. In a phone call, Stephanopoulos described the interview to me as "wild." He said it occurred in a mostly-empty FTX penthouse that SBF has been holed up in since the scandal first broke open. "I get the sense that he has not left at all," Stephanopoulos told me of SBF, adding that he only had a "small team" around him as he donned a t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers for the interview.

Stephanopoulos said SBF seemed like a "lonely, sad, regretful, stressed" man. "I've never had an interview of that length where the person in the middle of an extreme crisis — right in the middle of it — had so much to say and wanted to burden himself in such a way," Stephanopoulos said. "That part to me was stunning. To be up close with someone going through as an extreme crisis as you can imagine, for close to two hours, and having him answer every single question was remarkable." The interview will air in the 7am hour of "GMA."

THE BUSINESS

CNN Photo Illustration/Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

DealBook Highlights: SBF was also interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin at the DealBook Summit on Wednesday, as were a slew of other industry leaders. Some of the key highlights:

► SBF said FTX's collapse was caused by a "massive failure" on his part. On the media front, SBF said that he believes "media matters a lot" and wanted to "support good media ventures." He denied he was looking to invest in outlets to purchase influence, saying he wanted to only "support journalists doing great work."

► Mark Zuckerberg took another shot at Apple, saying that the company has too much control with its App Store: "Apple has sort of singled themselves out as the only company that is trying to control unilaterally what apps get on a device. I don't think that's a sustainable or good place to be."

► Reed Hastings admitted he was wrong on his hesitation to introduce ads to Netflix: "I was wrong about that." He added, "Hulu really proved that you could do that at scale and offer consumers lower prices, and that that was a better model." Hastings also shot down the idea that live-streaming a Chris Rock comedy special might foreshadow streaming live sports. "That's not true," he said. We'll see!

► Andy Jassy said Amazon doesn't plan to remove an antisemitic film Kyrie Irving tweeted recently about: "As a retailer of content to hundreds of millions of customers with a lot of different viewpoints, we have to allow access to those viewpoints, even if they are objectionable — objectionable and they differ from our particular viewpoints."

Romance at 'GMA': Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes are set to appear on "GMA 3" Thursday morning, people familiar with the matter tell me, after The Daily Mail revealed the two anchors have secretly engaged in a months-long romance. The Daily Mail's story, written by Laura Collins, has generated quite a bit of buzz in news industry circles. For now, network reps aren't commenting on the matter. We'll see whether Robach and Holmes address the situation on air Thursday.

IN THE INDUSTRY

Ronan Farrow reports on how 15 journalists from a news outlet based in El Salvador are suing NSO Group in the U.S. for damages related to its Pegasus spyware. "They allege that NSO's development and use of Pegasus violate the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act." (New Yorker)
ProPublica posted a lengthy editor's note after reviewing its Covid origins story, finding the "totality of reporting it marshals, is sound." (ProPublica)

MEDIA MOVES

Catherine Kim has been promoted to SVP of editorial at NBC News. (Variety)
Former Netflix exec Nicole Norwood has joined Sony Pictures Television label TriStar Television. (Deadline)

THE INFO WARS

CNN Photo Illustration/Drew Angerer/Getty Images

First in Reliable | Murdoch To Be Deposed: Fox Corp. chief executive Lachlan Murdoch is scheduled to sit in the deposition chair on Monday. A court filing said that Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox for $1.6 billion, will depose the Fox boss in Los Angeles on December 5 at 10am PT. A spokesperson for Murdoch declined to comment on Wednesday. But as chief executive of Fox News' parent company, Murdoch will be the senior-most executive to be deposed in the ongoing case.

IN THE BATTLEFIELD

Fox News has been busy largely ignoring another politically inconvenient story over the last 24 hours. The right-wing channel shied away from covering the fact that the Oath Keepers founder was found guilty of seditious conspiracy. (Twitter)
Sean Hannity is predicting that Republicans in the House will impeach President Biden in 2023. (MMFA)
In case you had any doubt, Joe Rogan had the most popular podcast on Spotify in 2022. (Variety)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post/Getty Image

The Cupertino Cook-Off: The world's wealthiest man on Wednesday met with the man running the world's wealthiest company. Elon Musk said he visited Apple Park for a meeting with Tim Cook after picking a public fight with the company, posting video from the "beautiful" Cupertino campus and thanking the Apple chief for the tour. "Good conversation," Musk tweeted. "Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so." Apple (as you might expect) is not commenting.

► Related: Data from analytics company Pathmatics shows Apple spent more than $1 million in Twitter ads in the first 28 days of November, despite claims from Musk that it has "mostly stopped" advertising on the platform. Gizmodo's Thomas Germain has details here.

Twitter's New Mission: In Twitter's first mission statement since Musk took over, the company detailed what Twitter 2.0 will look like. Twitter said on its official website Wednesday it was "embarking on a new chapter," but that its goal of being the "town square of the internet" had "not changed." The company insisted that "none" of its policies have changed (not true), but said that "what has changed" is its "approach to experimentation." It concluded saying it is "committed to providing a safe, inclusive, entertaining, and informative experience for everyone." Read the full post here.

TOO MANY TABS

Twitter must comply with Europe's social media moderation laws, a top European Union official warned Musk. (CNN)
Twitter has reinstated senior Irish executive Sinéad McSweeney after going to court over her "vague" firing email. (Irish Independent)
Musk said Wednesday that Twitter "has failed in trust & safety for a very long time and has interfered in elections." (Mediaite)
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek renews battle with Apple, alleging the iPhone maker is "stifling innovation and hurting consumers." (Reuters)
Olivia Carville has a big piece about dangerous TikTok resulting in the deaths of children: "Why isn't the world's most popular app doing more to protect them?" (Bloomberg)
Amazon announced it just had its "biggest ever" holiday shopping weekend with "hundreds of millions of products" sold. (Axios)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Etienne Laurent/Pool/Reuters

Closing Arguments Begin: The attorneys for disgraced filmmaker Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday rested their case and closing arguments started in the second sexual assault trial for the one-time Hollywood heavyweight. They're expected to conclude this week. Jurors, throughout the trial, have heard from approximately 50 witnesses, including four accusers. Weinstein is on trial for two counts of forcible rape and five counts of sexual assault. CNN's Cheri Mossburg has details here.

OFF STAGE

A mistrial has been declared in actor Danny Masterson's Los Angeles rape trial after a jury deadlocked. (LAT)
Christine McVie, the singer-songwriter behind some of Fleetwood Mac's biggest hits, dies at 79. (CNN)
The U.S. vs Iran World Cup game drew an average of 12 million viewers on Fox, peaking at 15.6 million viewers. (Deadline)
Ratings for "The White Lotus" season two keep climbing. The last episode hit a major series high. (Variety)
Robert De Niro is starring in the Netflix "Zero Day" series from Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim, and Jonathan Glickman. (Variety)
Paramount+ has renewed "Tulsa King" for a second season. (THR)
Warner Bros. TV boss Channing Dungey says there is "tremendous amount of ambition" for a Harry Potter TV series. (Variety)

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino. Have feedback? Send us an email here. We will be back in your inbox this time tomorrow.