National pain sponge

Notes and quotes about NETWORK OF LIES... and the search for alien life, too.

Hello from DC, where I was on stage tonight at a sold-out event held by The Bulwark. Here are the "greatest hits" from my press tour for NETWORK OF LIES this week:

>> On the PBS "NewsHour" earlier today, Amna Nawaz asked me about Donald Trump, Fox, and 2024.

>> On Puck's The Town podcast, Matthew Belloni quizzed me about Fox’s business model and Rupert Murdoch’s “semi-retirement.”

>> One of the questions "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross asked: "What's next for Fox News now that Rupert Murdoch has stepped down?"

>> On MSNBC's "The Beat with Ari Melber," I said fact-checking is important but we also need reality-checking and history-checking – here's what I mean.

>> I returned to CNN with appearances on "The Source with Kaitlan Collins," "CNN This Morning" and "Laura Coates Live."

>> Of all the memorable turns of phrase in Dwight Garner's review of “Lies” in the NYT, I especially liked how he dubbed me a "national pain sponge."

>> Speaking of sponging, here's my segment from Bloomberg earlier today: "Like in HBO's Succession, the Murdoch family actually hired a 'pain sponge."

>> In a Q&A with Poynter's Tom Jones, I explained the motivation for this new book, and how it differed from "HOAX" in 2020.

>> For POLITICO Magazine, I produced this adaptation about Maria Bartiromo and company: "The Inside Story of How Fox Fell for the 'Big Lie.'"

>> For TIME, I wrote an essay titled "The Lies Are The Story in Today's Politics."

>> Fortune: "How Rupert Murdoch settled Fox's Dominion lawsuit."

>> Salon: "The 6 most revealing Fox News details in Network of Lies."

>> BTW: Several of you emailed me about the book's launch day event at 92NY, saying you wanted to be there to watch Kara Swisher interview me. Well, the event will be published on Swisher's podcast, On, in the coming days!

And I enjoyed reading this on my old blog TVNewser: "No one loves a good media party more than Brian Stelter, and scores of New York-based news personalities, executives and the people who cover them turned out to support the former CNN anchor (and TVNewser founder) on Wednesday." The party "was held on the same day that Rupert Murdoch officially stepped down from his role as chairman of News Corp, something Stelter noted in his remarks to the partygoers. A coincidence? Not so sure."

NETWORK OF LIES has some stiff competition this week: My longtime friend Garrett Graff's new book UFO! So this week's episode of Vanity Fair's “Inside the Hive” is a crossover — I interviewed Graff about alien life, how mind-blowing the truth may be, and what our books have in common.

“Inside the Hive” is taking a week off due to Thanksgiving, but I'd love your ideas for guests and topics as the end of the year nears. Email me anytime.

And I saved the most important paragraph for the end: Thank you to my better half Jamie. She believed in this book project even when I did not believe I could finish it in time.

If you’re reading or listening to the book, reply here and share your feedback – the good, the bad, the ugly, the foxy.

All the best,

–Brian