Felicitations of the season

The thing about the Winter Solstice is that if you're in the northern hemisphere, it doesn't much matter what you believe because a solstice just is, no matter how you were raised, and that means that in December the days are short, the nights are long, and the weather is chilly no matter how you were raised. Why wouldn't you want to see pretty lights and spend time with friends, possibly drinking eggnog or mulled wine? It's kind of nice that from a week or so before Thanksgiving until right up to Twelfthnight, you have an excuse to wish people happy holidays and even smile at strangers. (I've always thought the southern hemisphere should make their own holidays to go with their winter solistice, too.) It's fun. It's friendly. And Bill O'Reilly was always a meanie for trying to spoil it. I've always maintained that he, and people like him, were the ones who were making war on Christmas, so f'm. I wish you warmth and light and fellowship.

In case the holidays leave you short of things to read, a few reminders:

When I want the details, The American Prospect is good at clarifying things. If it's important, it will surely be there somewhere.

Or Radley Balko at The Watch, especially on the subject of off-the-leash policing. (Link fixed.)

The folks at Drop Site News have been doing some amazing coverage of big stories, especially that huge one it's so dangerous to talk about.

When I just want the headlines and a basic story without too much deep-diving, I find Common Dreams a comfortable read, reasonably sane, sort of like I used to think The Washington Post was before I realized it wasn't at all like that. (And that was well before Bezos bought it.)

I was watching an old Tom Baker episode of Doctor Who and noticed the planet they landed on was called "Atrios". Fancy that.

Signed,
Not Atrios

Xmas Eve Evening

Wrap those presents

ONE MILLION DOCUMENTS

Sure why not.

Randy Andy

My Dad called him that when I was a kid, though I didn’t have any idea why or what it meant.

Email from ‘A’ at British royal family’s residence asked Ghislaine Maxwell for ‘inappropriate friends’

Lunch

Eat

Bari's Personal Publicist

The issue with Dylan Byers isn't that he is conservative - though he is that too - it is that he has a very British (he isn't British) spidey-sense of who matters and who doesn't and always sucks up to power.

This was his take on Bari a couple months ago.

The alarm ringers offer a clear illustration of the media groupthink and, frankly, laziness, that Bari has so often railed against. In the last 72 hours, otherwise smart writers and reputable media companies have made broad, sweeping, and baseless statements about Bari and The Free Press that evince a sort of paranoid psychosis, or what The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan has described as “Bari Weiss–derangement syndrome.” In one commonly held but unsubstantiated view, the Ellisons brought Bari to CBS as an olive branch to Trump. “The Ellisons understand that in an authoritarian context they must transform their media company so that it is acceptable to the [Trump] regime,” Jonathan V. Last wrote in an especially evocative piece for The Bulwark. “That’s why they are buying Bari Weiss’s Free Press and making her editor-in-chief of CBS News.”

Never mind that The Free Press, like the Murdochs’ Wall Street Journal editorial board, often criticizes Trump, his policies, and his administration. Never mind that, as I’ve noted, Bari’s free speech absolutism is likely to catalyze more dust-ups between the network and the administration. Never mind that Bari’s politics might simply be the Ellisons’ politics, too, and that a privilege of owning a news network is that you can shape its editorial posture to your liking—especially if that news network has been hemorrhaging viewers and profits and is therefore ripe for disruption. As Jon Allsop observed in The New Yorker, had Kamala Harris been elected, David might have “acquired CBS and hired Weiss anyway, to similar howls from thes.

...

In the days since her start, I’ve surveyed at least 15 CBS News sources across the organizations and, in addition to the very real uncertainty around how this is going to work and what it will mean for specific people’s jobs, the overwhelming response has been excitement, cautious optimism, and relief. “The leadership and vision is welcomed,” said one CBS News source. “We’ve had none—zero. Our past presidents were paper pushers who managed up well but knew nothing about journalism.”

15 employees willing to talk to Dylan, understanding he is the type of guy willing to rat you out to the bosses, love Bari!

Morning

Get your morning on.

Tuesday Evening

Kavanaugh stops for all of you.

Vibe Shift

Supremos 6-3 say Trump can't send the Guard to Chicago.

Lunch

 Eat

TEAM BARI

They can't help making it obvious.

(Mrs. Stephen Miller)

America's Greatest Journalist

Weiss's skill was charming old white guys, who would then defend her to the death.  Old NYT reporters would assemble like Voltron whenever she was criticized. 

Meanwhile, she used her job at the NYT essentially to establish her social networks - get on Bari's good side and she would publish you in the Opinion section.  Always "contrarian" stuff. 3 categories on the opinion page: conservative, liberal, and contrarian (also conservative).

When she did write, it was like this.

Samizdat, eh

The Bari'd 60 Minutes clip was sent to Canada and broadcast, so it is all over the internet now.  If she does ever broadcast a revised version we will know what she changed, and I am sure people have checked out how her excuses for Bari-ing it match the broadcast (will link to comparisons when I find - I am a bit in holiday mode at the moment).

International broadcast rights, how the fuck do they work?

Heckuva job.

Morning

Christmas eve eve.

Happy Hour

Get happy

Never Change, Jonah

More to the point, he never changed.

Probably Because Of Mean Things Said On An Incredibly Influential Baby Blue Blog

If voters put you in mostly because they hate the others guys, you have about 3 months to make them happy before they turn on you, which in the US system is basically impossible.

Heading into a year with midterm elections, 18 percent of voters approve of the way the Democrats in Congress are handling their job, while 73 percent disapprove, which is a record low job approval rating for them, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.

See, for example, the UK Labour party, though they get 5 years, while the Dems only get 2 and will be going into a presidential election year. 

Holiday Schedule

Like many people, I do try to enjoy the holiday season a bit, with various things keeping me busy. Blogging will be more irregular than usual over the next couple of weeks. Or not! You never know.

Sharyn Alfonsi's Final Work Email

(probably)

News Team,

Thank you for the notes and texts.  I apologize for not reaching out earlier.

I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight.  We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.

Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices.  It is factually correct.   In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.

We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department.   Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.

If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient.

If the standard for airing a story becomes "the government must agree to be interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.

These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.

CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.

We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet.

I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight.

Sharyn

Funny detail:

Ms. Weiss provided contact information for Mr. Miller to the “60 Minutes” staff.

Stenographer To The Stars

Dylan reliably prints, without checking, what important people tell him, but even he had to backtrack.