From the Beast’s media desk

Welcome to this week’s edition of Confider, the media newsletter that pulls back the curtain to reveal what’s really going on inside the world’s most powerful navel-gazing industry. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.

EXCLUSIVE — WHICH DEVIL IN PRADA WINS OUT?: The relationship between Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful, the editor of British Vogue, has turned frosty, Condé Nast insiders tell Confider, as Enninful is apparently gunning for the Iron Lady of Gloss’ plum job. Enninful, who has spent the last several weeks on a nonstop book tour promoting his memoir, A Visible Man, believes he can do a better job than Wintour atop the Vogue brand, according to multiple people who’ve spoken with him. He has generated much buzz for the British edition of the iconic mag since taking over in 2017, getting his mega-celebrity friends like Rihanna and Beyoncé to appear on the cover. Condé sources are adamant, however, that Wintour will not be leaving her perch anytime soon, leading many to speculate that she may try to appease Enninful by finding him another top job within the media empire. One possible scenario: Whenever David Remnick steps down as editor of The New Yorker, Wintour would replace him with current Vanity Fair editor Radhika Jones, opening a seat for Enninful to take over the prestigious outlet. Enninful has much in common with Wintour: He’s earned the nickname “Queen Mother” among British Vogue staffers because of his alleged diva-like behavior that, per people familiar with the situation, includes having assistants lead him around through meetings and carry his glasses and his eye drops and help apply them. He is also known to tell colleagues to “call Darnell”—a reference to Darnell Strom, his powerful agent at UTA—when asked for simple requests, according to people who work closely with him. Enninful’s absence earlier this month at Vogue World, a major NYC fashion event for both Condé and Wintour, raised eyebrows among staffers, considering he was in New York promoting his book at the same time—further fueling claims that fiery tensions exist between the pair. “I’m happy working in Europe,” Enninful told The New York Times last month when asked if he has ambitions to run the Vogue mothership. “But you never know what the future holds.” A rep for Condé did not respond to requests for comment.

EXCLUSIVE — DESANTIS GETS OAN’D: Confider reported last week that Robert Herring, the Trumpy boss of far-right channel One America News, showed some love for Ron DeSantis, cutting a fat $20,000 check to the Florida governor’s re-election PAC and declaring he wants to see the governor as a Trump veep. But that admiration may not be entirely mutual from the governor’s camp. DeSantis’ deputy spokesperson Jeremy Redfern—an outspoken Twitter presence—has a history of relentlessly trashing the MAGA cable outlet, especially after the Capitol insurrection. “OAN. The most trusted leader in Fake News,” Redfern posted on Jan. 6, 2021, reacting to a Twitter user sharing an One America News graphic claiming Trump won in a landslide. “This is an OAN reporter. She is delusional,” he tweeted two weeks later in response to then-OAN host Christina Bobb’s claim that “Biden will never be president.” (Bobb eventually ditched OAN to work for Trump.) Elsewhere, in Oct. 2021, Redfern declared: “I’ve never watched OANN in my life.” How sad for Herring! (The OAN boss did not respond to a request for comment.) The former Florida Health Department spokesperson joined the DeSantis team this year after infamous troll Christina Pushaw left to join the governor’s campaign. In typical DeSantis World fashion, Redfern wrote to Confider: “You’re right. I was wrong - the Daily Beast is actually the head of the Fake News Brigade. I won’t make that mistake again.” The DeSantis flack then quietly proceeded to delete each of these tweets, plus one from 2020 that previously eluded Confider: “OAN. (Something that starts with an O) qAnon Network? Help me out here.” Redfern did not respond when Confider followed up to ask why he’d deleted the posts.

EXCLUSIVE — THE ROOT OF ALL PROBLEMS: Earlier this month, Black culture website The Root held its first-ever The Root Institute event in D.C. While the outlet, owned by problem-plagued G/O Media, may have attracted an impressive roster of top-tier speakers like Stacey Abrams and Misty Copeland, the event failed to attract a sponsor and suffered lackluster ticket sales, Confider has learned. Event organizers couldn’t even give tickets away for free, according to two people familiar with the matter, but G/O nevertheless said they consider it a success regardless of turnout. “The Root Institute’s goals are serious and in pursuit of a better union brought on by a more equitable and fair set of actions and policies around race relations,” a G/O Media spokesperson emailed Confider. “This purpose was not motivated by profit or the amount of attendees. We simply want to do what we can to make our country and perhaps the world a better place. While this might be small in comparison to the overall problem, it is a step that we are taking and investing in. As a first time live event we could not have been happier with the results.”

Tips? We're all ears: confider@thedailybeast.com

WE HEAR WHISPERS: Former Tamron Hall exec producer Candi Carter, CBS News correspondent Vlad Duthiers, and ex-ABC reporter Kendis Gibson are hosting “Brown Folks Connect” on Friday, Oct. 7 at the Empire Hotel Rooftop. The invite, obtained and reviewed by Confider, states “on-air talent and senior level executives only!! Do not post on social.”

IN PLAIN SIGHT: NYC Mayor Eric Adams with hip-hop icon Drake at Zero Bond till 2:30 a.m. on Thursday… Hugh Jackman and wife Deborra-Lee Furness walking along Hudson River Park on Wednesday… Keith Olbermann casually admits he “dated” Sen. Kyrsten Sinema a decade ago.

More from the Beast’s Media Desk

—Sunny Hostin vs. Nikki Haley is the 2022 feud no one asked for. The View co-host last week repeatedly attempted to accuse the Republican ex-governor and Trump diplomat of hiding her Indian heritage by going by her middle name (which is of Punjabi origin, per Haley). Meanwhile, Hostin, who is Afro-Latina, actually does go by a nickname. Lord. Read about that here.

—As he faced growing unrest back home over women's rights and the death of a young Kurdish woman in state custody, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi upended a scheduled CNN interview in NYC by demanding at the very last minute that anchor Christiane Amanpour wear a headscarf. She refused. Read more about her stand here.

—Just as New York AG Letitia James began rattling off specifics in the state’s massive lawsuit alleging fraud by the Trump family, Fox News “straight news” anchor Harris Faulkner cut in to tell viewers the news was most likely of no concern to them. “Let’s move on,” she yada-yada’d the segment. Watch that here.

—The Daily Mail quietly scrubbed its own dispatch from Trump’s recent Ohio rally, removing all references to the “uncharacteristically thin crowd” and drastically changing the headline to be more favorable to the ex-president. The right-leaning tabloid never included an editor’s note or update. Trump had whined on social media about the Mail’s “obnoxious reporter” and her “fake news” about his visibly less-than-sold-out crowd. More here.

Recent Reads

—The Washington Post has the details on how an unauthorized book about the Jan. 6 committee written by Denver Riggleman, a ”Never Trump” ex-congressman who served as a staffer on the panel, has angered members. One interesting nugget: Hunter Walker, who has served up multiple J6 scoops for Rolling Stone, is co-writing the book. Hmm, wonder who his source could’ve been. More here.

—Bill O’Reilly promoted his latest “history” book, titled Killing the Legends: The Lethal Danger of Celebrity, by lamenting to Cindy Adams that back in his day no one exposed the misdeeds of mega-stars like JFK. “Different now. Safety’s gone. There’s drugs, alcohol, social media running wild, insane personal stuff on the Internet, people making things up.” Sounds like Bill-O wishes he could’ve been famous in an era when his sleazy behavior would’ve gone unreported. More here.

—Kara Swisher cornered Chris Cuomo on the first episode of her new podcast, questioning why the disgraced CNN host is suing the network for $125 million, claiming they made him unhireable, when he’s set to launch a primetime NewsNation show next week. Swisher also professed her love for Cuomo’s “Free Agent” merch line: “You are hocking T-shirts on YouTube, you are. But I find that to be fantastic.” More here.

—Defector reported that Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei, and Roy Schwartz roped their own staffers into promoting their new book touting their editorial wisdom. Axios staffers were asked in a memo last week to buy “up to six” copies each and expense it to the company. Be smart, read about that here.

**WHAT ARE WE OUTRAGED ABOUT NOW?**

For what feels like an eternity, Fox News has raged about the “woke” forces they claim are undermining red-blooded, god-fearing, all-American institutions—specifically the military. Last week, the network lost its collective mind over a single informational slide featured in a recent employee diversity seminar at the Air Force Academy. While the slide provides suggestions for “inclusive language” to use in place of gendered terms like “mom and dad” or “boyfriend/girlfriend,” the academy is not barring cadets from using gender-specific terms. Of course, that nuance escapes the right-wing media outrage machine. “Now we’re instructing every cadet entering the Air Force to not say ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ to not say ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend,’” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) told Fox News. “I think the Air Force should be worried about the macro-aggressions against America that are happening all over the world.” The network ran multiple segments on the topic across several days, even though an Air Force Academy spokesperson told Fox that the presentation was “being taken out of context and misrepresented.” At one point, during Friday’s broadcast of midday talkfest Outnumbered, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat worried that this “could be a national security risk” because it could somehow cause a shortage of servicemembers. On Thursday, Fox turned to Tyrus, a pro-wrestler-turned-pundit with absolutely zero subject-matter expertise, to blast the military for “ditching mom and dad” and ponder “how much taxpayer money this costs.”

Confider will be back next week with more saucy scooplets. In the meantime, subscribe here and send us questions, complaints, or tips here.

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