CNN’s Trump Whisperer, A CBS News Departure & ABC News’ New Negotiation

Greetings from Los Angeles. In tonight’s email, news and notes on the “secret weapons” at CNN who landed the network’s presidential debate and this week’s exclusive Kamala interview, and who are keeping the network relevant this cycle despite the decline of its business. But first… 🎧 John Ourand’s The Varsity podcast debut: It’s been an exciting morning at Puck HQ. My partner John Ourand, author of our sports business newsletter The Varsity, launched his podcast today, also called The Varsity, and his first guest was the great Peyton Manning. (You can expect new episodes of The Varsity every Wednesday and Sunday.) Their entire conversation was deeply fascinating, but I wanted to highlight two particularly noteworthy sections. Early in their chat, John and Peyton get into the genesis of Omaha Productions—the company behind ManningCast, Peyton’s Places, Quarterback, a forthcoming country music series titled It’s All Country starring Luke Bryan, etcetera—which he founded in 2020 with Jamie Horowitz. Peyton describes his role as a kind of “offensive coordinator in the press box,” adding thoughts and making suggestions and watching all the rough cuts. “I feel like we’ve surrounded ourselves with people that are smart in this space,” he said. “Look, you wouldn’t want to be on an NFL team with a lot of media people, right? You probably wouldn’t have good protection, and you probably wouldn’t get open down in the red zone. But when you’re in the media, at a production company, you want a lot of experts, and I’ve enjoyed trying to learn from them.” John also probed Peyton on one of the great themes of Puck’s reporting—the rise of streaming and the decline of linear television. He asked how this dynamic has influenced where he decides to pitch shows, and his view of the market overall. “You don’t just say anymore, ‘Hey, that’s not going to work,’ because any idea could get picked up by someone, right? All it takes is one team to like you coming out of the draft, and if one team likes you, then you’re going to get a chance to play. So when we make pitches, we just pitch five or six to different networks—streaming, traditional, whatever it may be. You feel that there’s a place for everything, and you hope to find a landing place.” Peyton also offered a window into one of the great subplots of this NFL season: Tom Brady’s debut as a broadcaster. Apparently, Brady called Peyton and Eli this summer, as well as Chris Collinsworh and Tony Dungy and Troy Aikman, to ask for advice. “He’s certainly doing his homework, which you would expect,” Peyton said. “He understands that he’s going right to the number one team there at Fox; they have the Super Bowl this year. But Tom’s always had a tremendous work ethic that’ll pay off for him. And I’m pulling for him.” [Listen to the full episode here, and subscribe here and here] 🇺🇸 ABC’s muted negotiation: ABC News is still negotiating with the Trump and Harris campaigns over whether or not it will mute microphones at the network’s presidential debate on September 10. Trump once again committed to the debate this week and declared that the microphones would be muted, which worked to his advantage in the previous debate against Biden. The Harris campaign is rightly telling reporters that the issue hasn’t been resolved. In any event, ABC News is proceeding under the expectation that both candidates will participate in the debate, hot mics or not. 💨 Evening News E.P. exits: Weeks after Norah O’Donnell announced that she would be vacating the CBS Evening News chair, her executive producer, Adam Verdugo, has announced his own resignation from the network. He will be replaced by interim E.P. Carolyn Cremen through the election.

CNN’s Debate Whisperers

Dana Bash’s interview with Harris and Walz is CNN’s latest “get” this cycle—from the Trump town hall to the Iowa G.O.P. debate and obviously debategate. It’s largely the handiwork of a relatively anonymous odd couple: Mark Preston and Christie Johnson.

DYLAN BYERS

On Tuesday, as scrutiny of Kamala Harris’s notably press-averse press strategy continued to wend its way through the national discourse, CNN announced that it had scored the very first interview with the Democratic nominee since her boss, President Biden, declared his withdrawal from the race some five or so weeks ago. Of course, that historic decision had been set in motion by Biden’s memorably calamitous showing during CNN’s own presidential debate—another major get in the lingua franca of TV news, for a network that, as loyal readers well know, has suffered more than its fair share of reputational and financial setbacks in recent years. (Dana Bash, who co-moderated the debate, will conduct the interview with Harris and Tim Walz, which will air on Thursday night).Indeed, even as CNN is downsizing its business, drawing some of the lowest ratings in its history, and transitioning away from its core linear operation toward Mark Thompson’s still-not-quite-fully-articulated—or, gasp, fully-articulated-and-this-is-all-it-is—vision for its digital future, the network continues to win broadcast rights to some of the most pivotal media moments of this campaign cycle. There was the Iowa Republican primary debate that cemented Nikki Haley’s position as the G.O.P.’s anti-MAGA alternative and, of course, Chris Licht’s memorably disastrous Trump town hall. Obviously, booking and programming are two different skill sets—and they, sadly, have increasingly less connectivity with business operations, but let’s give credit where it’s due. On the surface, CNN’s enduring relevance in this space appears to be a vindication of the relatively centrist editorial philosophy that has more or less guided it throughout its history—the one that Jeff Zucker controversially tested when he embraced a pro-truth and anti-Trump posture (“This is an apple,” etc.), and the one that David Zaslav promised to restore when he took over the network in 2022. (Safe to say it’s proven to be far more complicated than he’d anticipated). Meanwhile, the avowedly conservative and liberal postures of Fox News and MSNBC, and the degree to which the latter taints NBC News’s own reputation (see: Ronna-ghazi), would seem to have limited the competitive field and allowed CNN and the other broadcast networks the opportunity to win by default. (ABC News is scheduled to host the second presidential debate on September 10; CBS News plans to host a vice presidential debate on October 1.) Of course, there’s much more to it than that. First, the perceived bias of television news networks is almost always a red herring: All available evidence suggests Fox’s Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum would be equally responsible moderators or interviewers of either candidate, likewise NBC’s Lester Holt and Savannah Guthrie. For all the mission creep and conflicts of interest in TV news these days, all of the major companies—yes, even Fox—employ capable newsmen and -women whose reputations, like those of the networks that employ them, depend on their ability to moderate a debate or conduct an interview with journalistic integrity. Trump can groan about friend-of-Kamala Dana Walden overseeing ABC News all he wants; she will have zero influence on the probity or professionalism of that debate. In truth, CNN’s real advantage in the political space comes from its offscreen veterans—the producers behind the scenes who maintain strong relationships on both sides of the aisle and out-negotiate their competitors in order to land these big bookings. Chief among them are Mark Preston, the vice president of political and special events programming, and senior booker Christie Johnson (neé Bear), whose relationships with both campaigns—and Trump, especially—were instrumental in landing CNN this year’s historic debate. In conversations with several CNN insiders and alumni this week, Preston and Johnson were described as the network’s “secret weapons” and “unsung heroes.” They are both veterans of the Zucker heyday who survived the Licht regime and continue to keep the network relevant at key moments in American politics despite the broader decline of the network.

‘Yes, But He’s Our Asshole’

Neither Preston nor Johnson are well-known outside D.C. circles (though Preston is also a political analyst and appears on the network), and I may never write about them again. But since we’re here, it may amuse you to know that they’re two very different people.Preston, who has been with CNN since 2005 and logged countless miles on the campaign trail and across Capitol Hill, is a gruff but affable Boston Irish Catholic who derives his charm from an unapologetic barroom vernacular. One longtime colleague aptly noted that his lack of diplomacy somehow makes him “the most diplomatic person ever,” adding that such sincerity and authenticity has endeared him to operatives on both sides of the aisle. For a long time, Preston kept a framed note on his office wall that read “Preston is an asshole.” It had been written, lovingly, by his then-boss Zucker while he was watching Preston play the role of Trump during debate prep in Miami in 2016. Zucker passed the note to Dana Bash, who wrote back on a napkin: “Yes, but he’s our asshole.” By contrast, Johnson is described as a model of Southern charm, and operates even further under the radar. She lives with her family in South Carolina and works remotely, only traveling to Washington and New York when needed. And yet since joining the network in 2014—after a previous stint at TMZ, where she first met Trump—she has established herself as far and away the most important conduit between the network and the campaigns, and particularly as the lead point of contact with Trump himself. Indeed, some network veterans recalled tense moments between CNN and Trumpworld when Johnson was said to be the only person who could get through to the guy. “She’s a power broker, very skilled at what she does,” said one CNN reporter. “It’s impressive to watch.” (In an interview with her alma mater, the University of Georgia, Johnson described her job as working “with the most powerful leaders in the world” to “manage interviews that provide critical information to the public at large.”) Together, Preston and Johnson have helped to keep CNN center-stage in a campaign cycle where it might otherwise have faded off to irrelevance. Prior to the Biden-Trump debate and all its fallout, the network was registering its lowest ratings in decades. Since the debate, it has still been a distant third behind Fox News and MSNBC. And the recent excitement on the campaign trail—Kamalamentum, the conventions, etcetera—hasn’t helped reverse the trend: Despite claiming victory in the 25-to-54 demographic during last week’s Democratic convention based on a convenient but rarely used metric, CNN actually lost to MSNBC in the historically defined hours of primetime. And it has been losing ground to that network for some time: In 2016, 1.7 million people in the demo watched the DNC on CNN vs. 1.1 million on MSNBC; this year, CNN drew 878,000, falling just shy of MSNBC’s 888,000. Of course, numbers like that highlight the existential challenge for CNN, as well as the limits of Preston and Johnson’s commendable skills. Debates and big interviews are impressive one-offs and potential ratings juggernauts, but the business is built on repeat customers who come back to the network night after night and drive up the ad rates—or at least subscribe via their cable provider and sustain the rights fees. Or, in the not-too-distant future, on paying subscribers who engage with the product so much that they’re willing to pay for it directly. A presidential debate simulcast across all the rival networks ultimately doesn’t mean much to that business, nor does an exclusive interview that most people will see on social media via 15- and 30-second snippets. To their credit, Preston and Johnson are keeping CNN relevant this cycle, but that’s just not enough anymore.

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