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 — BILL-OH NO NOT AGAIN: NewsNation is apparently not done stacking its roster with media men accused of misconduct. Bill O’Reilly is in talks to join the fledgling cable channel five years after he was fired by Fox News following an avalanche of sexual-harassment allegations, Confider has learned. NewsNation bosses are negotiating with the disgraced broadcaster to join as a contributor, two people familiar with the situation said. O’Reilly has already appeared several times as a guest on Dan Abrams’ nightly NewsNation show, including one hit in which he boasted about the “millions and millions of viewers and billions of dollars” he brought in for Fox News during his two-decade run as the king of the network’s primetime lineup. O’Reilly’s TV comeback means NewsNation would have three high-profile men accused of sexual harassment on its payroll. Chris Cuomo, who announced his NewsNation hiring last week, was accused of sexual harassment amid his CNN downfall last fall, and former Good Morning America exec producer Michael Corn, now president of NewsNation, was accused of sexually assaulting two junior ABC News staffers. A NewsNation spokesperson declined to comment while a rep for O’Reilly did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

EXCLUSIVE — SPEAKING OF CUOMO: Last week, The Daily Beast broke the news that the disgraced CNN anchor will join NewsNation as a primetime host. Confider has learned more details about that arrangement: Chris Cuomo will host the nightly 8 p.m. hour starting Oct. 3, and he has taken a significant pay cut to join the startup cable channel. Cuomo has signed on for a $700,000 salary—a far cry from the eye-popping $6 million annual salary he raked in when he was still the darling of CNN‘s primetime lineup. Sources also told us that Cuomo will have near non-existent clothing and travel budgets, and he will tape the show from his home in the Hamptons. The downgrade may be unsurprising given NewsNation’s status as a fledgling outlet, but it’s shocking nonetheless, especially when compared with the substantially more lavish post he held at CNN just a few months ago. Despite claiming it’s “time to move on” from his old network, Cuomo is still in the midst of a scathing $125 million lawsuit against CNN, claiming they assassinated his character and ruined his career. Reps for both Cuomo and NewsNation declined to comment.

EXCLUSIVE — ERIN OVERBOARD: The New Yorker archive editor who was fired by Condé Nast last week is not going quietly. Erin Overbey has brought in union reps to demand her position be reinstated, two people familiar with the matter tell Confider. But New Yorker staffers have noted that the NewsGuild has thus far remained silent on Overbey’s firing—and perhaps for a reason. “A cool way to support workers’ rights in your unionized workplace is to not be mean to the union or your coworkers or block them on Twitter,” New Yorker writer E. Tammy Kim tweeted last week. Overbey, who has been vocal about the lack of Black editors at The New Yorker, was asked to join the union’s diversity committee but declined, sources explained. “We don’t comment publicly on individual disciplinary matters, but we are committed to making sure that all union members receive fair representation and that our contract is being followed,” a spokesperson for the NewsGuild emailed Confider. Meanwhile, some of Overbey’s former colleagues voiced support for her while others have come forward to accuse her of bad behavior. “I worked with Erin O at the magazine for six years—when I was there it was a white trust-funder’s haven. But the magazine is right about her,” tweeted former New Yorker editorial assistant Laurel Maury. “She’s unprofessional. She lies about colleagues. She’s a bully. I saw this behavior two decades ago.” Maury went on to claim that Overbey used to “freak out” because she thought management had installed cameras in the ceiling to spy on her. “She used to have me check the ceiling panels for cameras. It was creepy.” Overbey told Confider in response: “That 100 percent never happened. That is insane. I vigorously deny that. That’s completely unhinged.” When asked if she declined to join the diversity committee, Overbey responded “no comment” and then took a swipe at Condé management: “It has been very illuminating to me just how vigorously a powerful institution will try and attack you personally, so they don’t have to focus on the message.” A rep for The New Yorker declined to comment.

IVERSEN EXIT, EXPLAINED: Controversial podcaster Kim Iversen finally addressed her dramatic exit from The Hill’s popular web show Rising over the weekend, confirming it revolved around her being pissed she wasn’t allowed to confront Dr. Anthony Fauci. The self-described “no b.s. broadcaster” revealed last week she was “no longer” with Rising the day after her show interviewed Fauci, but she never explained her departure until posting a video statement over the weekend. Iversen—a vocal COVID-19 vaccine skeptic who was branded a “conspiracy theorist” by concerned colleagues—criticized the show’s producers for not including her in the Fauci chat, claiming her “open criticisms of the narrative, decisions around the pandemic and Fauci brought in millions of views for Rising.” Adding that viewers would question why she wasn’t included in the interview, because they “flocked to Rising for this content,” she said she “told the producers that they needed to go back to Fauci’s team” and tell them she would be included. According to Iversen, she recommended that if Fauci refused, the show should call him out for being scared of her. Producers ultimately decided not to include her—a “giant mistake,” Iversen claimed to have told them, because Rising’s viewers “would no longer trust the show” as she could no longer uphold her promise to not “be censored or held back” by corporate media. “That would make me a liar and it would put my reputation at risk because I made promises to the viewers and so, because of all of this, I am no longer with Rising,” she concluded. Iversen notably did not specify whether she quit or The Hill fired her or if her exit was mutual. Nexstar spokesman Gary Weitman did not explicitly answer that question either but did say in a statement to Confider that “Kim was not an employee of The Hill, so she’s not resigning from anything. She was an independent contractor.” He added: “Like other news organizations, the producers at The Hill decide who will conduct interviews with guests of the shows that air on the platform. In this case they decided that having other reporters interview Dr. Fauci would deliver more useful information to viewers.”

WE HEAR WHISPERS: The team behind the hit New York Times documentary Free Britney are working on a new project centered around infamous Hollywood P.I. and fixer Anthony Pellicano, who was released from prison in 2019… Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who have been broadcasting their MSNBC show from their home in Florida, will be spending more time at their Upper West Side apartment come the fall.

IN PLAIN SIGHT: Fox News star Tucker Carlson left the comforts of his sprawling compound(s) to pal around with Trumps Donald, Eric, and Donald Jr., along with his former Fox colleague Kimberly Guilfoyle and nutty Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, among others, at the Saudi regime-backed LIV Golf tourney this weekend at Trump’s Bedminster resort.

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

More from the Beast’s Media Desk

—The hosts of Fox & Friends practically begged their old pal and most loyal viewer Donald Trump to love them again last week after the ex-president called them “terrible” for daring to stray from their normally obsequious coverage of him. More on that pathetic display here.

—Extra boss Lisa Gregorisch-Demspey announced her exit from the long-running Hollywood tabloid show last week via an “exclusive” report from The Daily Mail, which included exactly zero mentions of The Daily Beast’s recent reporting on allegations of a “toxic” workplace fostered by her “bullying” and “threatening” behavior. More on Lisa G’s departure here.

—Jon Stewart spent much of last week on Capitol Hill raging against the GOP blocking a bill expanding health-care benefits for veterans, but along the way he engaged in some classic trolling of Fox News—and with some indirect help from Newsmax even. More on that here.

—Ever the tireless self-promoter, Sen. Joe Manchin appeared across all of the five major Sunday political talk shows, taking a victory lap for reviving the Biden domestic agenda bill he initially tanked. More on that here.

Recent Reads

—NewsNation host Dan Abrams is totally not mad that news outlets, including The Daily Beast, mentioned his network’s minuscule ratings—a mere statement of fact, albeit one used as a cudgel by places like Fox News—while reporting on his buddy Chris Cuomo’s hiring at the fledgling cable outlet. Abrams spent multiple segments of his NewsNation show over two nights bashing the coverage. More here.

—New York mag has a cheeky London dispatch on how the U.K. press is sending off Boris Johnson and may actually be a little lost without his buffoonish behavior to report. “The two Tories vying for Johnson’s job seem dreadfully dull. (This week, at a debate between them, the moderator literally passed out.),” quipped features writer Shawn McCreesh. More here.

—DeuxMoi‘s blind item about an unnamed heterosexual British royal male getting “pegged” set the internet alight last week, but it also caused some media drama in the Colony Down Under. The online youth section of Rupert Murdoch’s flagship Australian paper was forced to delete a piece recounting the graphic rumor along with jokey infographics and TikTok videos. More on that here.

—After a brief, failed half-attempt to run for governor of Oregon—a judge deemed him ineligible under residency requirements—Nicholas Kristof is back in his cushy gig as a New York Times columnist. More here.

**WHAT ARE WE OUTRAGED ABOUT NOW?**

The conservative media ecosystem’s faux-outrage machine was in full force last week over a short video of President Joe Biden blasting “pro-insurrection” Republicans. The 17-second clip, which was posted shortly after the president recovered from COVID-19, quickly sparked a host of conspiracy theories among the usual suspects. Serial plagiarist Benny Johnson, noting that Biden didn’t appear to blink in the short clip, claimed it was “two different people” and that “medical professionals” told him that Biden was on some “heavy neurological drug.” Johnson’s similarly cartoonish Newsmax colleague Greg Kelly exclaimed: “Not one blink. What's going on? Is that medication?! Is that—that’s not normal!” Just asking questions, Glenn Beck’s genius writers at TheBlaze wondered if the clip was the result of “body doubles” or “FBI zombie drugs.” And the speculation wasn’t limited to the fringes, either. Fox News star Tucker Carlson used his primetime perch to comment on Biden’s “wild eyes,” snarking that “whatever he's taking ought to be publicly available for all of us.”

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

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