THE DAILY NEWSLETTER - THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2021 

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
CNN's New Day

Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham appeared on CNN’s New Day on Tuesday, and spoke with John Berman and Brianna Keilar at length in a provocative and news-generating interview.

Grisham sat down for the multi-segment spot on the release of her new book I’ll Take Your Questions Now, which covered her briefing-free time as Trump’s chief spokesperson.

The CNN hosts asked Grisham about Fox News, January 6, and obviously a lot more. Including a blurted curse word.

“What was the role of Fox News in the White House?” asked Brianna Keilar, prompting a reply involving former Fox host Lou Dobbs.

“You know, I looked forward to going and doing Lou Dobbs because Lou Dobbs would do all the talking about how great everything was, and I would just nod and say yes,” Grisham said, adding that Fox hosts “by and large, didn’t get tough with us. They just took what we were saying and disseminated it.”

"I think they’re disseminating it to a lot of people who went… went to the Capitol for January 6 and I, you know, again, I’ve had a lot of time to grapple with this and I feel horribly guilty about — about my part in it because I was on Fox a lot,” she added, also agreeing that it was "a bit" like "state-run TV."

Grisham also said of the administration that "the way we handled Covid was tragic" and cost lives.

It was a well-done and expansive spotlight by the New Day team, and generated a good deal of buzz. Grisham, too, is seeking buzz for her new tell-all, although speaking of Dobbs, she wasn't always so keen on the genre

MEDIA LOSER:
Ozy Media

I met a traveler from an antique land, who said — “Did you hear that Ozy is actually not shutting down?”

It was one week ago today that New York Times media columnist Ben Smith shattered the visage of Ozy Media and revealed a lot of stunning details and allegations of fraud, including the revelation someone at Ozy pretended to be a YouTube executive on a call with investors.

What followed was unbelievable fallout from this colossal wreck, with Katty Kay jumping ship, the chairman of Ozy Media resigning, and Ozy founder Carlos Watson stepping down from the NPR board.

And then Ozy Media announced this past Friday it was completely shutting down. So that’s it, right? Nothing beside remains?

Well, apparently not, because Watson announced Monday morning that Ozy is officially back.

And then Ozy itself tweeted hours later, “Yes, we’re back! Stay tuned for more.”

Mediaite's Jackson Richman asks who the hell would do business with them, anymore.

"While buying web traffic to promote content online is one thing, misleading your investors about anything, let alone your numbers, is inexcusable," he writes. "Even worse is impersonating an executive of another company – in Ozy’s case, YouTube – or of anyone in order to get a $40 million deal with Goldman Sachs."

While the question of who would do business with them is an important one, on Twitter the more prominent question is "who the hell is Ozy Media?" 

For a company that was predicated on generating buzz, interest, and eyeballs, Ozy's only true impact appears to have been their demise.

The A-Block

“Not Ready”

Testifying in front of Congress on Tuesday, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen blamed the social network’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg for the negative effects the social media site has had on people in that “the buck stops with him.”

During a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, Chairman Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) remarked, “Last Thursday, my colleagues and I asked Ms. [AntigoneDavis, who was representing Facebook, about how the decision we had made whether to pause permanently Instagram for kids and she said ‘there’s no one person who makes a decision like that. We think about it that collaboratively.’ It’s as though she couldn’t mention Mark Zuckerberg’s name.”

Blumenthal proceeded to ask Haugen, “Isn’t he the one that will be making this decision, from your experience in the company?”

Haugen replied that Zuckerberg is powerful in the Big Tech industry altogether, let alone just at Facebook.

“Mark holds a very unique role in the tech industry, in that he holds over 55 percent of all the voting shares for Facebook. There are no similarly powerful companies that are as unilaterally controlled,” she said. “And in the end, the buck stops with Mark. There is no one currently holding him accountable but himself.”

“And Mark Zuckerberg is in fact the algorithm designer in chief, correct?” asked Blumenthal.

You see where this is headed...

Oh and on that note, seems fitting that Facebook's Head of Safety, testifying before Congress, isn't even sure if there was a data breach during Monday's outage. An outage some, though not all, considered rather welcome.


In Other News...

Laura Ingraham Cringes at the Rapidly Spreading ‘F*** Joe Biden’ Chants: ‘I Don’t Care For This’

Elijah Wood Reveals Lord of the Rings Orc was Deliberately Modeled After Harvey Weinstein

FBI Raids NYPD Union Headquarters

WATCH: CNN’s Clarissa Ward Spotlights Hardships for Women ‘Completely Pushed Out of Public Life’ Under Newly Established Taliban Rule

Must See Clip

"So you like cars"

KSLA anchor Kori Johnson had a comically professional reaction to a man who told her he’d use his hypothetical Powerball winnings to buy a fast car and a mountain of blow.

Every once in a while, the Powerball jackpot will grow to a size that merits national media attention, let alone a fun local news segment in which lottery patrons dream big out loud.

This guy's dream was very specific. Like, to the kilo.

Links We Like

The Piranhas Come for Kyrsten Sinema
- Jim Geraghty, National Review
When Confrontation Culture Goes Too Far
- Chris Cillizza, CNN
The Left's Hate Machine Is Going To Get More People Hurt
- Washington Examiner
Democrats Need: More Short-Term Thinking
- Matthew Yglesias, Bloomberg
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