Media Kayfabe, Baldwin Conspiracies, and Zazmania Hits Hollywood

Happy Friday, dear reader, and welcome back to The Daily Courant, featuring the latest and most noteworthy journalism being published at Puck.
 
Today, Julia Ioffe turns a spotlight on the manufactured outrage inside the green room-industrial complex, in a provocative interview with CNN pundit Kirsten Powers—then steps into the ring with Peter Hamby to discuss why Democrats really lost in Virginia.

Plus, below the fold, Matt Belloni talks to Hollywood insiders about all the exclusive dinners, private meetings, and endless intrigue surrounding David Zaslav's $43 billion charm offensive in the race for global streaming supremacy.

And don't miss the latest episode of our podcast, The Powers That Be, featuring Ioffe, Hamby, Belloni, and Dylan Byers for an expert discussion about the Alec Baldwin shooting, why Marvel should be worried about the bad Eternals buzz, and the trouble with Mark Zuckerberg designing the metaverse.

Tales from the CNN Green Room

Kirsten Powers, who went from liberal on Fox News to anti-Trump voice on CNN, explains what happens when the shouting matches end, the cameras turn off, and you’re stuck in the green room with Santorum. And how to handle it all, and more, with a little grace.

About five years ago, I went to a conference called the Faith Angle Forum, hosted by the Faith & Policy Center, a conservative-leaning Washington think tank. The Forum is a nice little getaway where journalists and faith leaders and scholars can meet and learn from each other. I was massively skeptical, as this is very much not my jam, but my very close friend, the New York Times Magazine political reporter Robert Draper, insisted that I attend. It’ll be interesting, he said. 

And it was. I remember being transfixed by Albert Raboteau, who taught religion at Princeton, delivering a lecture about how enslaved people in America flipped the power dynamic on its head by forgiving their tormentors, even when they had not asked for forgiveness. In extending forgiveness, they, who had nothing, had the power to bestow something important and other-worldly, thereby shifting the relationship between enslaved and enslaver, if only for a moment. 

It was a moving lecture, but I guess I’m just an Old Testament kind of girl. I’m an extremely secular person, but I was raised in a religious tradition where the transgressor has to ask for forgiveness—and then never do that thing again—to be forgiven. And having celebrated Passover more than a few times, I’m pretty sure that my people still haven’t forgiven the Egyptians for enslaving us thousands of years ago. I couldn’t imagine forgiving my torturer for something as horrific as slavery in America ever, let alone in the moment of suffering. Anyway, I found the lecture—and Raboteau’s almost hypnotic delivery—fascinating.

Robert found the conference interesting, too, but for other reasons. It was where he met Kirsten Powers, who was then the lone liberal voice on Fox News, and is now a political analyst on CNN—and is now Robert’s partner. Through Robert, Kirsten and I also became good friends, and I often felt pride seeing Kirsten go viral for throwing death-ray side-eye at Trump enablers on live national TV during the chaotic years of the Trump administration. Those years were difficult for her, as they were for many of us. It was hard to be a journalist when the administration and its allies were constantly kicking you in the teeth and generally acting like a wrecking ball. It was hard not to lose your cool on Twitter, and then not be embarrassed (or worse) by the consequences. 

But Kirsten, who is Christian and deeply connected to her faith, grappled with it differently than I did...

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