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 — TUCKER THEM OUT: Tucker Carlson and his loyalists have begun an intense pressure campaign against Fox News in the hopes of getting him released from a noncompete clause—and people familiar with the situation tell Confider the squabble may only get worse as the fired primetime star may know where some proverbial bodies are buried. A steady stream of leaks about Fox News over the past week, designed to embarrass the network or further undermine its standing with conservative viewers, have come after negotiations between Carlson’s lawyers and Fox have stalled out. The talks were initially productive, Confider has learned, but have since turned into “meaningless conversations,” as one person with knowledge of the matter described it. Fox had been willing to let Carlson appear on a digital platform so long as he stayed off traditional TV—something which they have since backtracked on as the former on-air host announced he’s taking his show to Twitter. That stalemate has pushed Carlson and his team to ratchet up the pressure with newly planted stories about his ex-employer. According to people familiar with the situation, Carlson and his team’s deep industrial knowledge of the network means they are sitting on a treasure trove of potentially damaging Fox secrets, including revelations about extramarital affairs and workplace misconduct. “The hope is that Fox comes to their senses and realizes they can’t stop Tucker from speaking and doing his thing and if not that’s unfortunate and there would be some pain inflicted,” said one person briefed on the matter. But despite the very unsubtle warfare, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott has remarked that “despite what you are reading, it’s going to end amicably,” according to an associate who recently spoke with her. Meanwhile, on Monday, conservative writer Chadwick Moore announced a biography of the ex-Fox host, titled Tucker, hitting shelves July 18, with Tucker’s supportive tweet almost surely sending it to No. 1 on Amazon sales. Moore claims that Carlson’s firing was a condition of the network’s $787.5-million settlement with Dominion—a claim both Fox and Dominion have denied. Elsewhere, the fate of Fox’s chief legal officer Viet Dinh remains a constant source of speculation inside the network, with execs and board members blaming him for Fox’s hamfisted handling of the entire debacle. A rep for Fox Corp and Fox News declined to comment, while a lawyer for Carlson did not respond to Confider.

EXCLUSIVE — CNN RATINGS WOES: More than a week after CNN’s disastrous town hall with former President Donald Trump, the negative impact the fiasco had on the network’s ratings is coming into clearer focus. Last week, the cable news pioneer suffered its lowest-rated week since June 2015, averaging just 429,000 total daily viewers from Monday-Friday. CNN was also down double digits compared to the same week last year in both total viewership and in the key advertising demographic of viewers ages 25-54. MSNBC more than doubled CNN’s daily audience, drawing 976,000 total viewers, while Fox News averaged 1.4 million. MSNBC was up more than 20 percent in both total and demo viewership metrics for Monday-Friday. Fox News was down 41 percent in the key demo year-to-year and 24 percent in total viewers, having seen its ratings plummet as angry right-wingers flee after Tucker Carlson’s shock firing. In fact, Fox’s post-Tucker weekday demo audience is the lowest its been since the first week of September 2001. Ratings data shows that primetime is where both Fox and CNN are suffering the most. Since the town hall, CNN has seen several of its weeknight hours—including Anderson Cooper—fall behind Newsmax, the fringe-right channel that has surged since Carlson’s ouster. Last week, CNN averaged just 447,000 total viewers, a year-over-year drop of 30 percent. (Its demo audience of 104,000 was only down 25 percent from last year.) Friday’s ratings only seemed to hammer home just how dire the situation is for CNN right now. The channel’s much-hyped interview show hosted by Chris Wallace averaged only 224,000 total viewers at 10 p.m., drawing 60,000 fewer viewers than Newsmax’s Friday night offering. While Fox News still led in both total and demo viewership in weeknight primetime last week, the conservative cable giant’s overall audience was down 38 percent and the demo viewership dropped an eye-popping 60 percent. MSNBC, on the other hand, saw its demo audience shoot up 44 percent.

EXCLUSIVE — DAILY MAIL DUST-UP: An editor at The Daily Mail was mysteriously fired last week after an argument at the tabloid’s offices, Confider has learned. MailOnline assistant editor Ben Clerkin was given the boot by the Mail last Friday after an internal investigation over an alleged May 5 incident, three people familiar with the matter told us. Clerkin, a Brit who’d been with the Mail for the last eight years and is married to Glamour executive editor Natasha Pearlman, has been calling around to other NYC newsrooms trying to land another gig following his curious dismissal. After Confider approached Clerkin for comment on Monday about his exit, his attorney, Nicole Page from Reavis Page Jump LLP, responded with a legal threat. A rep for The Daily Mail declined to comment.

DON’T BLAME THE MESSENGER: Digital media startup The Messenger’s incredibly clunky rollout last week led one analyst to describe the site to The New York Times as “rushed into being.” However, sources told Confider that it was originally supposed to debut even earlier than it did. Its initial launch date was set for May 1, according to three people familiar with the plans, but was pushed back to May 15 to give the start-up more time to prepare for what ultimately still seemed like a slapdash launch. The Times did a deep dive into The Messenger’s tumultuous first week, highlighting internal turmoil between multiple news teams and the site’s audience development team, led by chief growth officer Neetzan Zimmerman, as the outlet seemingly mass-produced content in an aggressive attempt to meet traffic goals. The scattershot debut could be emblematic of early growing pains, especially for a company that seeks to have 100 million monthly visitors and generate $100 million in revenue next year. But after having recently signed a lease for a 40,000 sq. ft. office in Manhattan’s Financial District, some Messenger sources reiterated to Confider a fear the site may closely mimic the high-profile rise and fall of Quibi. That much-hyped streaming service, founded by entertainment titan Jeffrey Katzenberg and led by Meg Whitman, launched with big investments and a host of short-form content in April 2020 before shuttering just eight months later. “We never committed to a specific date in May and launched in beta when we felt ready enough. We look forward to fully launching in the latter part of June,” a Messenger spokesperson told Confider before downplaying any Quibi comparisons: “This is entirely different from Quibi for a multitude of reasons. To state the obvious, they were creating an entirely new form of media that didn’t work.”

NEWSNATION CANCELS BREAKFAST: After less than a year at fledgling cable news channel NewsNation, Mitch Carr is out as host of the now-canceled 6 a.m. news hour Early Morning. The morning anchor announced his own exit on LinkedIn and then added in a candid Instagram post: “Gonna get paid to hang out here for a while. That’s not so bad, is it? The bad thing is that today I was let go from NewsNation. They told me they are canceling #EarlyMorning and don’t need me anymore.” Carr launched the show just last June after joining NewsNation from 12News in Phoenix. While NewsNation continues to struggle to build its viewership since launching as a “centrist” news network in 2021, Early Morning’s ratings scuffles have stood out. In fact, during its last week on air, it only once topped 10,000 total viewers and on one day didn’t even rate among viewers ages 25-54, a key advertising demographic. NewsNation pulling the plug on Carr’s show, however, shouldn’t suggest that the well-funded channel is pumping the brakes on a 24-hour news model. In recent weeks, the channel launched Elizabeth Vargas Reports at 6 p.m., a four-hour daytime block entitled NewsNation Now, and afternoon show The Hill, tied to the network’s sister digital publication under the Nexstar umbrella. “We thank Mitch for his contributions to the network and wish him much success in his future endeavors,” a NewsNation spokesperson told Confider.

Tips? We’re all ears: confider@thedailybeast.com or call/text us 551 655 2343.

IN PLAIN SIGHT: Dave Chappelle sticking his head out of an SUV in West Hollywood on Sunday… Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin surrounded by security in Washington Square Park while being interviewed by a journalist from Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday night… Former CNBC anchor Hadley Gamble, whose harassment allegations got NBCU CEO Jeff Shell fired, hanging out with Johnny Depp at Cannes on Thursday.

MORE FROM THE BEAST MEDIA DESK

—Fox News and Newsmax ran absolutely wild with a New York Post story claiming local hotels booted homeless vets to make room for migrants. Turns out the story was a hoax. The corrections were nowhere near contrite, of course. More here.

—Daily Beast opinions editor Anthony Fisher absolutely skewers the transparent grift of Joe Rogan and Elon Musk (who just gave his battiest interview yet) pushing unhinged conspiracy theories about George Soros or media psyops and calling it “nuanced” centrism. Read here.

—Allow us to brag about our friends and colleagues Michael Daly and Roger Sollenberger, who snagged Deadline Club Awards last week. Daly won for his exclusive on how the NYPD cracked the Michael K. Williams overdose case; Sollenberger for his Senate-altering reporting on Herschel Walker’s out-of-wedlock children and payment for an abortion. More here.

RECENT READS

—The source behind The New York Times’ monumental MeToo-era story on a CBS investigation into then-CEO Les Moonves’ alleged sexual misconduct revealed herself on Thursday. Ali Diercks revealed to The Daily that she’d endured “staggering amounts of suffering” after leaking, including the suspension of her law license. More on that here.

—Fox & Friends correspondent Gianno Caldwell went to a diner 30+ miles outside Chicago to “spontaneously” interview a pair of men who “happen to be from Chicago” in the apparent hopes they’d criticize the newly inaugurated mayor. Turns out, the men were personally invited to appear by Caldwell, who allegedly lied to them that they’d only be asked about gun violence. More on that here.

***WHAT ARE WE OUTRAGED ABOUT NOW?***

While claiming Gov. Ron Desantis (R-FL) has shown that “African Americans are not welcome” in his state, the NAACP recently advised people of color against traveling to Florida due to the state’s “sustained, blatant, relentless, and systemic attack on democracy and civil rights.” Naturally this prompted the expected outcry from Republicans and conservative media, with Fox News and Newsmax mentioning it more than 30 times by Monday afternoon, but some prominent right-wing media stars decided to use it as an opportunity to go in a decidedly more ugly and racist direction. “Five minutes after the advisory went up, 49 of the governors called the NAACP [and] asked if they could be added to the list,” beleaguered shock jock Steven Crowder “joked” on Monday. His co-host Nick DiPaolo took it even further, adding: “Some people say good, you know, stay the hell away. It’s the Sunshine State and you guys obviously don't need any more sunshine. Look at you.” Far-right podcaster Matt Walsh, meanwhile, insisted that white people never commit crimes against Black people but that “Black people committing crimes against white people for sport is common.” Walsh’s Daily Wire colleague Candace Owens also trafficked in racist stereotypes, saying the NAACP travel advisory “probably means that everybody’s property is going to be valued much higher in the state of Florida.”

Confider will be back next week with more saucy scooplets. In the meantime, subscribe here and send us questions, complaints, or tips here or call/text us 551 655 2343.

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