Archives for September 2020

“I’m just sad with the way last night turned out,” Mr. Wallace told The New York Times on Wednesday.

Viewers did not appear to be turned off by all the cross talk. Audience figures on the broadcast networks and the three cable news channels grew in the first 30 minutes and peaked with an average of 68 million viewers between 9:30 and 9:45 p.m. Eastern time, according to Nielsen. Declines after that were relatively modest. Sixty-four million people were still tuned in to the seven top networks for the final stretch of the 96-minute bout, according to Nielsen.

About 17.8 million people tuned in to Fox News to watch the debate, by far the highest tally for any network. It was one of the biggest nights in Fox News’s history, second only to the 24 million people who watched the first Republican primary debate in 2015, Mr. Trump’s debate-stage debut. The Fox News figure was also the highest for a presidential debate in the history of cable news.

ABC, the only broadcast network to have an hour of pre-debate coverage, had an audience of 12.6 million, the second highest of any outlet.

Debate viewers were evenly split between the cable news and broadcast networks, at roughly 33 million apiece. That’s a contrast from previous cycles, when more viewers tuned in to the networks.

Future debates may be less unruly. “Last night’s debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues,” the Commission on Presidential Debates said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that it would announce changes soon.

The debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, will be held next week. The 2016 vice-presidential debate had an audience of 36 million.

The final two presidential debates are scheduled for Oct. 15 and Oct. 22.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/business/media/trump-biden-debate-ratings.html

Care to elaborate? “No,” Mr. Wallace said. “To quote the president, ‘It is what it is.’”

In the spotlight, Mr. Wallace was keenly aware of the complexity of his task: ensuring an evenhanded debate, avoiding taking sides, allowing candidates to express themselves while keeping the discussion substantive.

“You’re reluctant — as somebody who has said from the very beginning that I wanted to be as invisible as possible, and to enable them to talk — to rise to the point at which you begin to interject more and more,” Mr. Wallace said. “First to say, ‘Please don’t interrupt,’ then ‘Please obey the rules,’ and third, ‘This isn’t serving the country well.’ Those are all tough steps at real time, at that moment, on that stage.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates said on Wednesday that it would examine changes to the format of this year’s remaining encounters between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, a clear sign of its frustration with the results of Tuesday evening. The commission also took pains to praise Mr. Wallace for his “professionalism and skill.”

The suggestion that moderators be given the power to mute the candidates’ microphones — popular on social media in the hours after the event — did not sit well with Mr. Wallace.

“As a practical matter, even if the president’s microphone had been shut, he still could have continued to interrupt, and it might well have been picked up on Biden’s microphone, and it still would have disrupted the proceedings in the hall,” he said.

And he noted that cutting off the audio feed of a presidential candidate is a more consequential act than some pundits give it credit for. “People have to remember, and too many people forget, both of these candidates have the support of tens of millions of Americans,” he said.

Steve Scully of C-SPAN is set to moderate the next debate, in a town-hall format where Florida voters will ask many of the questions. Kristen Welker of NBC News is the moderator for the final debate. Mr. Wallace’s advice: “If either man goes down this road, I hope you’ll be quicker to realize what’s going on than I was. I didn’t have that advance warning.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/business/media/chris-wallace-debate-moderator.html

A spokeswoman for The New Yorker, which has been led by the editor David Remnick since 1998, said the publication was eager to reach a fair agreement with the union.

“Like many other media outlets, The New Yorker strongly believes that its editorial standards should not be determined by arbitrators outside of The New Yorker, and we look forward to our continued discussions regarding just cause in the context of bargaining,” the spokeswoman said in a statement.

Those who had bought tickets for the virtual event with Ms. Warren and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez were notified Wednesday that they would receive refunds, the spokeswoman added.

In 2018, more than 100 New Yorker staff members — including fact checkers and copy editors, but not the magazine’s writers — announced that they were forming a union, part of a wave of organizing at media publications of all sizes. The New Yorker union was recognized by the magazine in July that year, but it has been unable to reach an agreement with management on a contract.

In an email sent to staff on Tuesday that was obtained by The Times, New Yorker leaders said the union’s action “undermines the hard work of your colleagues on the Festival.”

“We know that the staff ultimately wants to make this institution stronger, that a robust future for The New Yorker is in all of our interests,” the email from The New Yorker’s management bargaining committee said. “We ask that, whatever our differences, we take our common goals to heart as we bargain toward an agreement.”

Because of the pandemic, The New Yorker Festival is being held online for the first time in its 21-year history. It will run Monday to Oct. 11. Scheduled guests include Fiona Apple, Margaret Atwood, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Ethan Hawke, Jerry Seinfeld and Yo-Yo Ma.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/business/media/ocasio-cortez-warren-new-yorker-festival-union.html

In December, to raise awareness of a website he had started, Dan Bongino, a conservative radio host and frequent guest on Fox News programs, wrote on Twitter: “Drudge has abandoned you. I NEVER will.”

In April this year, President Trump weighed in on Twitter: “I gave up on Drudge (a really nice guy) long ago, as have many others. People are dropping off like flies!” The Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson echoed the sentiment in a July episode of his show, saying that Drudge Report “has changed dramatically, 180 degrees” and calling Mr. Drudge “a man of the progressive left.”

With the presidential campaign entering its final stretch, the attacks are mounting. On Sept. 1, Mr. Trump retweeted a post from Mark Levin, the host of a conservative syndicated radio show and a Fox News program, complaining about Drudge Report’s all-caps coverage of Mr. Trump’s denial of having suffered a health crisis (“TRUMP DENIES MINI-STROKE SENT HIM TO HOSPITAL … VIDEO: DRAGGING RIGHT LEG”). In response, Mr. Trump tweeted, “Drudge didn’t support me in 2016, and I hear he doesn’t support me now. Maybe that’s why he is doing poorly.”

Two weeks later, the president deemed Drudge Report “Fake News.” “Our people have all left Drudge,” he said on Twitter. “He is a confused MESS, has no clue what happened.”

The site has perhaps paid a price for jumping off the Trump train. It had 1.4 million unique visitors in August, down 42 percent from a year earlier, according to Comscore data provided by The Righting, which analyzes viewership of right-leaning outlets. Its audience has trailed that of the right-wing sites The Gateway Pundit and Daily Caller. New rivals looking to outdraw the once-fastest news-slinger on the web include Liberty Daily, Rantingly and NewsAmmo, The Washington Times noted.

Mr. Drudge, who rarely gives interviews, did not respond to requests for comment.

In “The Drudge Revolution,” a book published this year, the journalist Matthew Lysiak described how Mr. Drudge, the child of two liberal Democrats, started out some 25 years ago from a Hollywood apartment equipped with a dial-up connection. What began as a Sunday night online newsletter filled with musings on natural disasters and celebrities soon became a venue for scoops on media, entertainment and politics.

Its founder displayed a knack for knowing what would make readers click when he started posting links to articles plucked from the fast-growing internet. He has had many big scoops of his own over the years, but he made his name as an aggregator — a digital journalist who highlights work published elsewhere — and he moved with such speed that he often gave the impression of being first, even when he wasn’t.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/business/media/drudge-report-trump-coverage.html

Over the years, Fantano has professionalized — working with a managing editor, a video editor, a booking agent and an entertainment lawyer (whose son was a fan) — but the look and feel of his videos has hardly changed since he started The Needle Drop in 2009, with a plain backdrop and a digital representation of the album cover in question over his right shoulder.

Such consistency, a result of his type-A workaholism, has been crucial to Fantano’s success. His output is regular and optimized: a review almost every weekday, plus immediate reactions to new tracks, music news and other recurring features on his second channel, which he started in 2017 to circumvent the YouTube algorithm. (“The more content you’re dropping on a single channel, the less likely it is that YouTube is going to appropriately promote all of it,” he said.)

His critical voice — earnest, adjective-heavy enthusiasm mixed with boyish, 4chan-inflected internet humor — and his taste, which can be eclectic but skews toward heavy rock, outré and experimental pop and rock-influenced rap, are also reliable. The only five albums to earn a perfect 10 from him are by Kendrick Lamar, the noise-rap trio Death Grips, the Kids See Ghosts duo of Kanye West and Kid Cudi, the aggressive rock band Swans, and Daughters, which he praised for its “nuclear bomb of cathartic hideousness” and “vile displays of auditory abuse.”

Predictably, The Needle Drop’s most popular videos take on polarizing stars like West, Eminem and Chance the Rapper, but Fantano often avoids big-ticket Top 40, which could bring him more views, in favor of proselytizing for something smaller or stranger. He referred to what he does as giving a “synopsis or CliffsNotes” for an artist or album, but also obviously values his role as a curator and tastemaker, too.

“There’s no number of negative reviews I can give to Nav that can end his career,” Fantano said, referencing his takedowns of the slyly popular rapper. “But I feel like I can break an artist — I do have the power to do that.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/arts/music/anthony-fantano-the-needle-drop.html

So far, Disney’s zealous theme park safety procedures appear to be working. University epidemiologists and public health officials have said that — as far as they can tell — there have been no outbreaks among Disney workers or guests. Disney has declined to comment except to note that new infections in Florida have dropped sharply since Disney World reopened.

Revenue at Disney’s worldwide theme park division, which includes a still-closed cruise line and the Disney Store chain, totaled $1 billion in the most recent quarter, an 85 percent decline from the same period a year earlier. Operating profit plunged by $3.7 billion, resulting in a quarterly loss of $2 billion. Mr. D’Amaro said on Tuesday that the restructuring would create a more “effective and efficient operation when we return to normal.”

The rest of Disney has been bouncing back. Live sports returned to ESPN in August. Movie and television production has restarted, although Disney continues to postpone film releases. Disney+ has been growing rapidly enough to keep Disney’s stock price relatively high at $125, down 3 percent from a year ago.

Central Florida’s once-booming leisure and hospitality industry has been decimated by the pandemic. Unemployment in Orange County — home to Disney World, the Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld and dozens of mom-and-pop tourist attractions — stood at 11.6 percent in August, up from 3.1 percent in August 2019, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Osceola County, which abuts Disney World to the south, had 15.1 percent unemployment in August, up from 3.5 percent.

Statewide, the August unemployment rate in Florida was 7.4 percent.

Universal Orlando laid off a steady stream of employees over the summer and recently notified state officials that about 5,400 workers had been placed on extended furlough. SeaWorld laid off 1,900 employees at its Orlando properties this month. A few days before its layoffs, SeaWorld surprised workers by altering its severance policy, moving to a discretionary system from a fixed formula based on tenure.

Workers at Universal and SeaWorld are not unionized.

“The layoffs and furloughs have been devastating,” said Mike McElmury, trustee of Teamsters Local 385, which represents about 5,000 Disney World bus drivers, laundry workers and entertainers, including those who greet visitors in costume as Disney characters. At least 2,000 were still on furlough as of Monday. “We’re at the point where people are having a hard time figuring out where they will get their next meal,” Mr. McElmury said.

Over the summer, Orlando unions created a weekly food bank for furloughed theme park workers. Eric Clinton, president of Unite Here Local 362, which represents roughly 8,000 Disney World ride operators, custodians, parking employees and vacation planners, said that the food bank was initially stocked to serve about 200 families. About 800 were provided with free groceries on Saturday, with the line stretching two miles, Mr. Clinton said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/business/disney-theme-park-workers-layoffs.html