CNN won an Academy Award Sunday night. The news network won its first-ever Oscar for best documentary for “Navalny,” a film about the plot to kill Russian dissident and former presidential candidate Alexei Navalny.
Navalny’s wife, Yulia, went on stage with the film’s director to accept the Oscar. She said, “My husband is in prison just for telling the truth. My husband is in prison just for defending democracy. Alexei, I am dreaming about the day you will be free, and our country will be free. Stay strong, my love.”
Director Daniel Roher dedicated the award to Navalny and “all political prisoners around the world.”
In 2020, Navalny was poisoned with Novichok — an attack that many, including Navalny, believe was the doing of the Kremlin as payback for his criticisms. Russia has denied any involvement. Navalny is now serving a nine-year sentence at a maximum-security prison near Moscow. He was accused of probation violation and embezzlement charges that most believe were trumped up and politically motivated.
As far as the now Oscar-winning film, CNN writes, “‘Navalny’ documents a methodical investigation by CNN Chief International Correspondent, Clarissa Ward, and journalist group, Bellingcat, to unmask Navalny’s would-be killers.”
As I mentioned, this is CNN’s first Oscar win after previously being nominated five times.
Yeoh’s speech
Did best actress winner Michelle Yeoh take a shot at CNN’s Don Lemon during her acceptance speech Sunday night? After winning for her performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Yeoh told the audience, “This is proof that dreams — dream big, and dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you’re ever past your prime.”
That line was met by thunderous applause.
Last month, Lemon said on “CNN This Morning” that 51-year-old Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley wasn’t in her prime, adding, “a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.”
Lemon later apologized for his comments and was sidelined by the show for two days.
CNN talked about the Oscars on Monday morning’s newscast, but no one, most notably Lemon, made a mention of Yeoh’s comments about women not being past their prime.
Oscar thoughts
Here are a few insightful and good pieces following Sunday night’s Academy Awards:
- The Los Angeles Times’ Justin Chang with “The Oscars’ best picture might seem radical. But it’s as traditional as they come.”
- The New York Times’ Stephanie Goodman with “Best and Worst Moments From the 2023 Oscars.”
- The Washington Post’s Emily Yahr and Sonia Rao with “Oscars 2023: 10 things to know, from a heartwarming comeback story to an excruciating red carpet interview.”
- The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg with “Critic’s Notebook: The 95th Academy Awards Were Mercifully Low on Drama, Movingly High on Emotion.”
- For The Ringer, Miles Surrey with “The Winners and Losers of the 2023 Oscars.”
- TV ratings were decent. ABC said the telecast averaged 18.7 million viewers — a 12% jump from last year. But that’s nowhere close to 1998 — the year “Titanic” cleaned up — when more than 55 million tuned in. The Oscar telecast hasn’t drawn even 30 million since 2017.
- Oh, one final note, host Jimmy Kimmel took a shot at Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who has downplayed the attacks on Jan. 6 after being given access to 40,000 hours of footage from that day. Kimmel, talking about the best film editing Oscar category, said, “Anyone who has ever received a text message from their father knows how important editing is. Editors do amazing things. Editors can turn 44,000 hours of violent insurrection footage into a respectful sightseeing tour of the Capitol. Their work is underappreciated.”
This is horrible. I’ll hang up and listen.
Well, this is just rotten. A sports talk radio host in Syracuse was fired for being too critical of university sports teams — teams that definitely deserve to be criticized. Brent Axe was booted by Galaxy Media Partners because he was too negative.
Now, mind you, the reason for Axe’s firing isn’t speculation. Galaxy president and CEO Ed Levine came out and admitted it.
Levine told Syracuse.com’s Chris Carlson, “I had a problem with the content of the show. I’m an SU fan. I’m sorry, but I bleed Orange. I’m not going to apologize for that, and I think a fair reading of the Orange is appropriate. I understand (Galaxy has) a business relationship (with Syracuse), that coach (Jim) Boeheim and I are personal friends and he’s an investor in my company. I understand and acknowledge all of that. We’ve called it pretty fair, and I would argue we’ve been tough on SU when the on-field or off-field events warrant it. I just think over the past six months it took a different tone and became overly dark and negative. I don’t think that’s what Syracuse fans want to hear.”
Wow, there’s a lot to chew on there. Boeheim is the legendary men’s basketball coach at Syracuse who stepped down last week after 47 years as head coach. But it’s not clear if Boeheim had any hand in the decision to fire Axe.
Axe told Carlson, “I had a responsibility to give an honest, fair and thorough opinion to my audience. I certainly wasn’t perfect, but I don’t regret anything about the approach of the show. We put listeners on the air, and we gave them the opportunity to say what they needed to say. I don’t have any regrets.”
I haven’t heard Axe’s show, but you can’t blame him for being critical of the two major sports programs. The basketball team lost five of its final six games, eight of its final 12, went 17-15 on the season and finished ninth in the ACC. They did not make the 68-team NCAA tournament.
Meanwhile, the football team won its first six games last season, but then lost six of its final seven, including a loss in its bowl game.
What the heck is there positive to talk about? Is this Little League? Are we passing out sno-cones and orange slices after the games?
Axe is also a columnist for Syracuse.com, and Levine claimed Syracuse.com has it in for the university. Levine said, “Brent is a full-time employee of Syracuse.com. I believe Syracuse.com has an agenda in regards to Syracuse University. I don’t know what that agenda is, but that agenda was manifesting itself on our airwaves. We have no agenda. We’re in business with Syracuse University, but we call it straight down the line. What I said to Brent was I wish he covered Syracuse University with the same affection that he covered the Buffalo Bills.”
Maybe Axe says good things about the Bills because the Bills have been a really good team over the past four seasons.
However you slice it up, this is a really bad look for Levine and Galaxy Media Partners. To demand positive talk even when the teams are not good is unfair to hosts and insulting to the listeners.
BBC update
Broadcaster and former England soccer player Gary Lineker, left, shown here last August. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
In Monday’s newsletter, I mentioned the controversy involving British soccer TV analyst Gary Lineker. He was suspended by the BBC for criticizing the country’s new asylum policy on Twitter. That led to several other broadcasters and even some soccer players boycotting the BBC in support of Lineker. That greatly impacted the BBC’s soccer coverage over the weekend and set up a controversy that gripped the country.
The New York Times’ Mark Landler wrote, “His standoff with the BBC had set off a noisy national debate about free expression, government influence and the role of a revered, if beleaguered, public broadcaster in an era of polarized politics and freewheeling social media.”
Well, for now, the controversy has been somewhat diffused. Lineker will return to hosting the popular highlights show, “Match of the Day,” this weekend.
Tim Davie, the organization’s director general, said in a statement, “Gary is a valued part of the BBC and I know how much the BBC means to Gary, and I look forward to him presenting our coverage this coming weekend.”
In addition, the BBC will launch an independent review of its social media guidelines and will pay particular attention to how it applies to freelancers, which is what Lineker is.
Lineker put out a statement on Twitter, saying, “After a surreal few days, I’m delighted that we have navigated a way through this. I want to thank you all for the incredible support, particularly my colleagues at BBC Sport, for the remarkable show of solidarity.”
He added that he’s looking forward to getting back to work and then wrote, “A final thought: however difficult the last few days have been, it simply doesn’t compare to having to flee your home from persecution or war to seek refuge in a land far away. It’s heartwarming to have seen the empathy towards their plight from so many of you.”
BuzzFeed ends 2022 with a $200 million loss
For this item, I turn it over to my Poynter colleague, Angela Fu.
BuzzFeed announced Monday it posted a loss in its fourth quarter — thanks in large part to a non-cash goodwill impairment charge — and ended the 2022 fiscal year in the red.
After posting a profit in 2021, BuzzFeed suffered a net loss of $201.3 million in 2022. More than half of that came from the last quarter, when the company had to pay an impairment charge of $102.3 million. Advertising and content revenue were also down last quarter, and the company reported that it expects this trend to continue into the next quarter.
“There’s no denying that 2022 was a tough year for digital media. The challenges we faced in Q4 are also impacting us in Q1 2023, and it is clear we have more work to do to realize the full potential of our combined brand portfolio,” founder and CEO Jonah Peretti said in a press release.
The company also revealed Monday that the majority of its $56 million in cash and cash equivalents had been held at Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed Friday. However, BuzzFeed has not experienced any disruption to its operations, executives said. The U.S. government said Monday it would guarantee all deposits at the bank.
“The Silicon Valley Bank situation definitely impacted our weekend, but I don’t think it will have a big impact on our business,” Peretti told shareholders on Monday’s earnings call.
BuzzFeed recently underwent a restructuring that reduced its workforce by 12% — including layoffs at its Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom — and consolidated its real estate holdings in New York. In response to a shareholder question about opportunities for more cost reductions, president Marcela Martin said BuzzFeed would remain “adaptable to change.”
“The restructuring that we performed at the end of 2022 was dictated by how the market played out and our operational needs,” Martin said. “Moving forward, we do see opportunities to drive growth margin improvements over the course of 2023 by further optimizing our product mix and cost structures.”
Focus of The Atlantic
The Atlantic’s Adrienne LaFrance has a chilling cover story out right now: “The New Anarchy” — a story about political extremism. It’s just part of a larger interest that The Atlantic is exploring at this time.
Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg sent a letter to subscribers on Monday that said, in part, “I’ve asked our journalists to focus on political extremism with singular intensity, particularly as we approach the 2024 presidential election, and as conditions for further political violence ripen. Our commitment to this coverage area is nonnegotiable because extremism threatens the American experiment, and The Atlantic was founded to advance the American idea and to help bring about a more perfect union.”
Goldberg added, “The Atlantic affiliates with no party or movement. A healthy democracy is one that has—at the very least—strong, ideas-driven liberal and conservative parties, and we are committed to making ourselves the home of the greatest debates about the future of America and of democracy.”
Media tidbits
- Here’s a juicy scoop: The Daily Beast’s Confider newsletter is reporting that Washington Post media writer Sarah Ellison has emerged as the favorite to become the next media columnist at The New York Times. The Times has been without a “Media Equation” columnist since Ben Smith left that role more than a year ago to co-found Semafor. Confider reports talks are ongoing and, for the moment, no one is commenting.
- My Poynter colleague Amaris Castillo with “What happens if New York Times v. Sullivan falls?”
- PBS’s “Frontline” has a timely documentary debuting tonight. “Age of Easy Money” investigates the Federal Reserve and the consequences of its easy money policies. Here’s a trailer for the show that airs tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern on most PBS stations.
- The Cut’s Irin Carmon writes about the legacy of the late Barbara Walters by talking to 17 leading female broadcasters.
- The pipeline back and forth between The New York Times and Washington Post continues. Paul Sonne is leaving the Post to cover Russia for The New York Times. Because American journalists can’t report from Russia at this time, Sonne will be based in Berlin. Sonne has recently been in Ukraine covering the war. Before joining the Post in 2018 he worked at The Wall Street Journal. And before that, Sonne was an intern for The New York Times’ Moscow bureau.
- Long ago, well before he went into politics, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was a baseball player. Here’s DeSantis doing an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade while the two play catch.
- In their “Conversation” column, New York Times opinion columnists Gail Collins and Bret Stephens with “Tucker Carlson Is No Less Dangerous.” Stephens wrote, “I sometimes think of Carlson in the same mold as Father Coughlin, but worse: At least Coughlin was an honest-to-God fascist, a sincere bigot, whereas Carlson only plays one on TV for the sake of ratings.” And about Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News, Stephens said, “I believe in strong protections against frivolous lawsuits, but knowingly and recklessly spreading falsehoods about the subject of one’s reporting is the very definition of — dare I say it — fake news.”
- Speaking of Fox News, Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple with “Fox News fears competitors will steal its ‘journalistic processes.’”
- From his Morning Meeting newsletter, my Poynter colleague Al Tompkins with “How to explain the Silicon Valley Bank failure without needlessly creating panic.”
Hot type
- The NCAA men’s basketball tournament starts this week and Americans everywhere — even those who haven’t watched a basketball game since the last NCAA tournament — will fill out a bracket. With that in mind, The New York Times’ Victor Mather with “Tips to Win an N.C.A.A. Pool Are Everywhere. Many of Them Are Bad.”
- Then there’s this from The Washington Post’s Neil Greenberg: “The perfect bracket to win your March Madness men’s pool.”
More resources for journalists
- Time for a new job? Your future employer is looking for you on The Media Job Board — Powered by Poynter, Editor & Publisher and America’s Newspapers. Search now!
- Poynter’s Beat Academy (March-Oct.) (Webinar series) — Enroll now.
- Spend “An Evening with NBC News’ Kerry Sanders: Reflections of a Fearless Broadcast Journalist,” March 23.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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