The year 2024 is already half over! Can you believe it? I cannot.
For the past few months my main reporting project has been a deep dive for The Atlantic into the Jeff Bezos era of The Washington Post. It came out on Thursday and it must have resonated with some Post staffers, because a multitude of additional sources have reached out to me in the past few days. (Every reporter reading this knows what that feels like!)
On Threads, I posted some key quotes from the story. Over at The Information, Jessica Lessin wrote about some of her takeaways. And Aidan McLaughlin interviewed me about it on the latest edition of Mediaite’s Press Club podcast.
In other news…
– Ahead of Thursday’s presidential debate, I wrote for Vanity Fair about how the moderators would try to be facilitators, not participants. They succeeded.
– Right afterward, I penned a guest column for Variety about how MSNBC “was superbly honest about what had gone wrong” with Biden.
– When I was on CNN with Alisyn Camerota over the weekend, I said the current debate among Democrats isn't about the next four months, it's about the next four years.
– Earlier, I had been joking with a top TV exec that the networks should offer to televise a Presidential Fitness Test this fall. Now I'm thinking it should be a serious proposal. Golf?
– My old blog TVNewser turned 20 years old this year! The current editor, Ethan Alter, interviewed me for this three-part retrospective last week.
– During the Trump trial (remember that?) I profiled MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin and interviewed CNN’s Paula Reid.
– On VF’s Inside the Hive podcast, I talked with Mary Trump about her uncle’s conviction; Lis Smith about RFK; Steven Brill about the death of truth; and “Pod Save America” hosts Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor about staying positive in an age of political pessimism.
As always, all my best #content lives over on Instagram. I’ll leave you with this epic sunset:
Happy Independence Week,
–Brian