Good evening, and greetings from Washington, where I’m meeting with sources and celebrating all the incredible work of my D.C. colleagues, including the launch of Julia Ioffe’s new podcast on Vladimir Putin’s childhood, aptly titled, About a Boy. Julia has had her finger on the pulse of the Kremlin since Puck launched, and there’s no working journalist with greater insight into what makes Putin tick. I’ve been waiting with bated breath for this one, and I highly encourage everyone to check it out.

In tonight’s edition of In The Room, a progress report on Patty Stonesifer’s Washington Post C.E.O. search, the ABC News pre-spinoff cost cuts, and the inevitable MVPD pushback to CNN Max.

Talking with sources about the party, it occurred to me that we are at a particularly pivotal moment in American journalism. In the last decade, the Sulzbergers, with the help of Thompson and Meredith Kopit Levien, have established the Times as the preeminent, always-on multimedia news-and-lifestyle brand for educated center-left America. CNN and the Post, which are arguably the only two institutions with the brand equity and pseudo-centrist editorial ambitions to vie with the Times in this space (for the time being, anyway), are both on the cusp of new regimes. In CNN’s case, as I’ve reported, all indications are that Thompson will strive to transform the network into a robust, digital-first news brand just as he helped transform the Times. At least, that’s David Zaslav’s idea.

In the Post’s case, the picture is a little murkier. Bezos remains committed to growing and globalizing that business and similarly keeping it competitive with the paper of record—the mystery, which has become a parlor game in media circles these days, is who he will task to do it. Last week, I reported that Patty Stonesifer, the interim Post Company C.E.O. charged with leading the search, had enlisted the Sucherman executive search firm to assist her in casting a wide net for potential candidates, from the worlds of print and digital media as well as television, tech, finance and beyond. Sucherman had provided value additive assistance on previous searches, but the perception is that Stonesifer is really running the show.

In any case, the net was indeed cast wide, and many, many people were contacted by Stonesifer or Sucherman—including Semafor’s Justin Smith, I’ve since learned—who, for one reason or another, should not be seen as plausible candidates for the position. I reported last week that Atlantic C.E.O. Nicholas Thompson, Economist president Bob Cohn, Politico C.E.O. Goli Sheikholeslami, and even former Spotify executive Dawn Ostroff had all spoken with Stonesifer about the job. Of those, only Thompson appears to be under serious consideration at this point, even if the role seems like a notable step up (some of the aforementioned took their names out of the running, perhaps wisely). In addition, there are at least a few others still being interviewed and scrutinized whose names have yet to be revealed. And Stonesifer may bide her time a while longer, possibly into early next year. (As I’ve noted, she’s very well liked at the Post.)

Beyond the palace intrigue, one reason Posties and industry insiders are watching this space so closely is because it will almost certainly telegraph Bezos’s broader ambitions for the paper, and whether he truly aspires to compete with the Times—refashioning the Post as its own multiplatform lifestyle brand in the process—or merely continue to adhere to the politics-and-policy strategy that the paper clung to in the Fred Ryan era, and which failed to outlive the Trump era that Baron reflects on in his new opus.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Discovery is facing predictable scrutiny from cable operators over the launch of CNN Max, which simulcasts the majority of the network’s varsity players: Jake, Wolf, Erin, Anderson, Kaitlan, Abby, etcetera. When WBD first announced plans for CNN Max back in August, several television executives warned me that they would face consequences from the distributors. “The MVPDs will get their revenge,” one said. And yet, WBD streaming chief J.B. Perrette triumphantly told me at the time that WBD was “clear about our rights,” and “very clear that this is very compliant and within the parameters of what we’re allowed to do.”

Now that CNN Max has launched, the MVPDs do seem keen to force the issue. Earlier this week, DirecTV sent a letter to WBD in which it argued, as the Times first reported, that the programming on CNN Max risked violating their contract agreement. Perrette & Co. remain confident in their position and think DTV’s concerns are baseless, but presumably Charter and Cox have similar questions. Indeed, Charter recently forced Disney to give the carrier’s highest-paying subscribers free access to Disney+ and ESPN+; it stands to reason they may try to exact a similar concession from WBD vis-a-vis Max. (Over at Comcast, Brian Roberts is no doubt a little more tolerant of the simulcast strategy given that his own networks are similarly double-dipping on Today, Squawk Box, and Morning Joe.) In any event, the shift to streaming is fundamentally altering how programming companies and carriers work together—or against each other, as the case may be.