On Our Watch

Tick, tick, tick...

Tick ... tick ... tick... The iconic opening to 60 Minutes has long represented the countdown to an investigative news story. Now it feels more like a countdown to the demise of TV journalism. Tick ... tick ... tick... After last week’s (non) release of the heavily redacted Epstein files, you may have been concerned that America would run out of black ink. Well, don’t worry. Over the weekend, there was plenty left for Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, to kill a 60 Minutes report on the Venezuelans illegally deported CECOT, a brutal prison in El Salvador. Tick ... tick ... tick... The highly unusual eleventh hour removal of the segment was criticized by Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran correspondent who reported the segment: “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.” Of course, when Trump ally David Ellison, the new owner of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, took over CBS News, we knew that politics would reign supreme, and that what used to be the media’s finest hour could be turned into amateur hour. But, like so much in 2025, the pace of that dismantling has been faster than many expected. Tick ... tick ... tick... Why the rush? It doesn’t take an investigative reporter to see the timing has everything to do with the Ellisons’ current attempt to beat out Netflix and acquire all of Warner Brothers, including another news org Trump hates, CNN. Just hours after the CECOT story was killed, we learned that Larry Ellison guaranteed $40.4 billion in Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. As Franklin Foer explains in The Atlantic (Gift Article), CBS and CNN Are Being Sacrificed to Trump. “The fate of Warner Bros. Discovery is no longer a regulatory matter. It is a medieval tournament, in which the king invites rival bidders to compete for his approval. To acquire the media company, the aspirants—Paramount and Netflix—will have to offer a sacrifice: Whoever can damage CNN the most stands to walk away with the prize.” Tick ... tick ... tick... That may sound extreme, but it’s only been a few short months since the Paramount acquisition, and already, 60 Minutes doesn’t have the same meaning anymore. At this point, Americans can’t even be sure 60 minutes equals an hour. You may be thinking that while this sounds bad, at least we’re only talking about the state media-ization of stale, television media brands that don’t have nearly the impact that they used to. But consider who owns the new media tools: X is owned by Elon. Facebook and Threads are owned by Zuck. TikTok’s US operations are about to be purchased by a group of investors that includes Larry Ellison’s Oracle. Tick ... tick ... tick... And all of these media moguls have demonstrated their willingness (and even eagerness) to tweak coverage to avoid tweaking the president. As I wrote back when the Ellisons were still trying to take over Paramount and CBS: “We’re not just going to be able to cross our fingers and hope to run out of the clock on Trump’s authoritarian leanings. So let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late.” Over the weekend, it got later. Tick ... tick ... tick...

+ Support media orgs that support telling the truth. From Frontline and ProPublica, coverage of the same news story that CBS canceled. Surviving CECOT: Deported to a Maximum-Security Prison.

2

Borrowed Plumes

People are worried about their jobs and the economy. People are also taking their holiday spending to new heights. What in Klarnation is going on? Bloomberg (Gift Article): The United States of Klarna.”So far, the topline numbers suggest spending is up significantly from 2024 and the volume of people out there shopping is also at an all-time high ... If so many Americans worry they may be laid off or their 401(k) might get vaporized by artificial intelligence companies lobbing the same $100 billion back and forth like a hot potato, why are they still splashing out on holiday decorations and gifts? There probably isn’t a single completely satisfying answer, but if you want to understand the state of the American consumer, the best place to look might be at the performance of ‘buy now, pay later’ lending services, whose customers are a growing cohort of Americans—more than 91 million of them.”

3

Pain and Abel

“Most of us also know about the lawsuits against Big Pharma that forced changes in how painkillers are marketed and prescribed. Please do not think this means justice has been served. If you came to visit me, I could walk you down our country roads and point out all the houses where grandparents are raising little ones whose parents are incarcerated, sick or dead of addiction. The road to recovery here will be longer than my lifetime. Of all the stories I heard when I sat down to listen, the hardest to bear was this one: ‘It started when I was in my mother’s womb.’” Barbara Kingsolver in the NYT (Gift Article): The Opioid Crisis Never Ended. It Was Inherited by the Children. (This problem can’t be solved by eliminating small boats in the Caribbean.)

4

The Late Great...

“Young prodigies — the teenage sports stars, the high schoolers soaring up the chess ranks or making scientific discoveries — are usually not the same people who reach the pinnacles of their fields in adulthood, according to a new study. And the two groups begin their journeys in very different ways.” NYT (Gift Article): Who Finishes First in Life? Often, Late Bloomers. (This is what I keep telling people who ask me when NextDraft will have a business model...)

5

Extra, Extra

Dust in the Wind: “The five wind farms targeted on Monday had all obtained leases from the Biden administration. But citing unspecified national security concerns, the Trump administration said it would freeze those leases, effectively blocking construction or operations and jeopardizing billions of dollars that have already been invested.” 10,000 jobs and the powering of more than 2.5 million homes, poof. NYT (Gift Article): Trump Halts Five Wind Farms Off the East Coast.

+ Greenlandry: “Landry wrote in a post on social media that ‘it’s an honor to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S.’” Trump’s appointment of envoy to Greenland sparks new tension with Denmark.

+ Deleterious Behavior: The Justice Department didn’t redact and remove all traces of Trump in the Epstein files. At least not at first. Epstein Files Photos Disappear From Government Website, Including One of Trump.

+ Trans America: “The astounding haul hints at a level of transactionalism for which it is difficult to find obvious comparisons in modern American history.” Big business has adapted to the new normal in DC. NYT (Gift Article): Hundreds of Big Post-Election Donors Have Benefited From Trump’s Return to Office.

+ Handle, The Truth: “As part of a broad investigation into the risks of electric door handles, Bloomberg attempted to quantify for the first time the number of fatal crashes in the US in which door functionality played a role. This reporting turned up at least 15 deaths in a dozen incidents over the past decade in which occupants or rescuers were unable to open the doors of a Tesla that had crashed and caught fire.”

+ Park and Parcel: “She was initially hired by the Air Force, which employed her believing she was a white woman ... When she set the record straight and a lieutenant told her everyone at the base was still ‘willing’ to work with her, she quit, unwilling to be ‘merely tolerated’ ... ‘I walked out on the U.S. government and told them to shove it.’” America’s oldest park ranger dies at 104 years old in Bay Area.

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Bottom of the News

“Since the ‘Beaver Won’t Eat’ episode aired over 60 years ago, similar scenarios have played out countless times in movies and other TV shows, ranging from ‘Desperate Housewives’ to ‘Ernest Scared Stupid.’ The endless anti-Brussels sprouts propaganda cemented the crop’s reputation as the vegetable equivalent of punishment, something you’d wish upon your worst enemy — and made its next chapter wholly confusing.” So how did Brussels Sprouts become popular over the past decade or two? Short answer: They’re not the same sprouts. The real reason this polarizing food made its comeback.

+ SNL’s alternate Home Alone ending with Ariana Grande is an instant classic.