It's that time of year again...

Paramount layoffs start next week

Paramount Skydance confirmed that it will report earnings on November 10, which led to a spate of stories over the weekend about when the newly merged company will begin its inevitable mass layoffs. The cuts are now expected to begin next week, Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro reported, calling it “only the first round.”

 >> Meanwhile, Paramount boss David Ellison “is preparing an official takeover offer for Warner Bros. Discovery — and the prospect of a rival bid from Comcast is helping put a fire under him,” Charlie Gasparino reports for the NYPost.

 >> Crunching the $$’s: “Warner Bros will probably cost Paramount $60 billion,” Jennifer Saba writes for Reuters. She says WBD CEO David Zaslav “sees more value in a carve-up, and the math supports his argument…”

Disney+ raises prices tomorrow

Disney earnings (which won’t come out until November 13) will be watched for higher-than-usual Disney+ subscriber churn due to the Jimmy Kimmel controversy last month. (Can you believe that was just a month ago?) Citi analyst Jason B. Bazinet noted Kimmel as a factor in a research note on Friday.

 >> Speaking of Disney+, tomorrow the service is putting its next price hike into effect. If you subscribe to the ad-free annual plan today, you’ll pay $159.99, versus $189.99 tomorrow. Shout out to The Verge for that news-you-can-use…ur 

Global digital disconnect 

We’re a little bit late publishing today’s newsletter due to the worldwide Amazon Web Services outage. Check out CNN’s excellent live updates page for the latest on what went wrong.

On the bright side, every time one of these outages happens, people learn a bit more about how digital infrastructure works (and why it sometimes doesn’t). “Although AWS and its competitors are generally robust, the internet is a complex web of overlapping services that are only as reliable as their weakest code,” Jordan Valinsky writes here…

X trying to lure journalists back?

“If you’re a writer or journalist who left X in the last couple years, coming back could be the biggest arbitrage opportunity of your career,” X’s head of product Nikita Bier wrote over the weekend while promoting a “new link experience” that’s supposed to “make it easier for your followers to engage with your post while browsing links.”

Journalists have many reasons to be skeptical of X, but Bier’s demo of the pro-link software update gained a lot of praise yesterday…

“Democrats need to win the attention contest in 2026 and beyond if they want to win back the country,” MSNBC host Chris Hayes wrote in a NYT guest essay over the weekend. Hayes offered some “guiding principles to getting attention,” including, “Go everywhere,” “Always be posting,” and “Don’t worry so much about negative attention.”

If you think about it, all of those applied to “No Kings” round two. Anti-Trump protesters won tons of attention on Saturday with huge rallies, not just in big cities, but in small towns too. Reporters and news crews covered the scenes extensively, but participants also posted their own photos and videos, bypassing the old filters. 

🔗: I rounded up some of the best Sunday front pages from towns like Laredo, Texas, and Lewiston, Idaho, in this Bluesky thread. Here are a couple photos from a Reliable reader in Charlottesville, VA:

From derogatory to dismissive

Over the weekend, “Fox & Friends” and other MAGA media tentpoles mocked the protesters for allegedly being too old and too white. (The irony!) 

As Matthew Yglesias observed, MAGA media influencers “pivoted really fast from warning of widespread antifa rioting to making fun of No Kings for being corny and earnest. The fact is large-scale nonviolent demonstrations are a powerful and effective political tactic and they are afraid.”

 >> CNN’s Stephen Collinson wrote this morning that Trump’s response to the protests — an AI sewage video — “only proved the protesters’ point…”

The NYT’s story about Bari Weiss and her first two weeks on the job at CBS News is based on ten sources — and Weiss evidently has a problem with that. Weiss has “complained about a flurry of leaks concerning her early tenure, urging executives to identify the leakers in the newsroom,” Michael Grynbaum and Ben Mullin report.

 >> They also point out that Weiss promoted a leak out of CBS not too long ago: “Last year, The Free Press published a leaked audio recording of an internal CBS News editorial meeting and lambasted the network for a perceived anti-Israel bias.”

 >> Reality check: CBS has been a leaky place for a long time. That’s not going to change. 

The NYT story also pointed out that Weiss keeps promoting The FP’s work on her social media feeds, but hasn’t tweeted anything from CBS. That changed last night when she promoted the “extended” YouTube version of Lesley Stahl’s “60 Minutes” interview with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

 >> Sunday’s entire hour of “60” was worth highlighting: Scott Pelley interviewed a DOJ whistleblower about threats to the rule of law and Anderson Cooper profiled Amy Sherald, “one of America’s most celebrated painters,” who cancelled a Smithsonian show due to censorship concerns…

Epoch Times reporter quits in protest

Epoch Times reporter Andrew Thornebrooke has resigned from the right-wing paper “after the publication signed on to rules restricting news gathering within the Pentagon,” the NYT’s Ken Bensinger reports.

 >> Thornebrooke’s resignation letter “also cited a recent editorial directive to refer to antifa, the far-left ideological movement, as a terrorist organization,” which matched a recent Trump exec order saying the same thing, even though “there is no designation for domestic terrorism under existing US law.”

New reality for Pentagon press corps

Dozens of news outlets “are confronting a new reality: the challenges of covering the Defense Department from purely outside,” Scott Nover writes in this Page One WaPo look at the upsides and downsides of the new Pentagon normal. “Media organizations say they are still deciding how to confront the new restrictions, which could include suing to regain access or strike down some of the Pentagon’s requirements. Some publications said they are considering increasing foreign reporting to prepare for decreased material out of Washington.” Read on…

On ABC’s “This Week,” Jon Karl provocatively raised this with House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday: “The Defense Secretary seems to be afraid to interact with journalists who cover him.” Johnson said, “I reject the premise,” but Karl remarked, “The guy’s only had two briefings… and then basically forced the Pentagon press out of the building…” 

The White House joins Bluesky…

The Trump White House “is already the second most-blocked account on Bluesky, just days after joining the platform,” Mediaite’s Sean James writes. “The only account ahead of it on the block list? It belongs to VP JD Vance.”

Laura Ingraham 🤝 Don Jr.

Laura Ingraham and Donald Trump Jr. are officially in business together. The Fox News host is serving on the board of the president’s son’s new SPAC, which filed for an IPO over the weekend and aims to “fund the next chapter of American Exceptionalism and help Make America Grow Again,” Bloomberg reports. I reached out to Fox to ask if this is all kosher, and haven’t heard back.

Indiana U saga: Purdue to the rescue

ICYMI, “Indiana University and its student paper are at odds on press freedom,” and WaPo’s Laura Wagner can catch you up here. There has been one outstanding development since our last newsletter edition: The student journalists from Indiana’s infamous rival, Purdue University, “crossed enemy lines” to make a special delivery, Brian Rosenzweig of The Herald-Times reports.

Yes, since the Indiana Daily Student has been ordered to stop printing, the Purdue Exponent printed and delivered “3,000 free copies of a special, solidarity-themed edition.” The front page says, “WE STUDENT JOURNALISTS MUST STAND TOGETHER.” Read all about it…

 >> Soros Fund Management, “looking to expand its reach even further into media,” is eyeing MeidasTouch, Max Tani scoops. (Semafor)

 >> Karine Jean-Pierre’s book is coming out tomorrow. (Advocate)

 >> Gavin Newsom “is ramping up his feud with Joe Rogan.” (Daily Beast)

 >> A must-read: Ben Smith’s latest column, “How to win an information war with the White House,” is about JB Pritzker’s approach to the “visual, visceral, and at times post-literate politics of 2025.” (Semafor)

New era of ‘poverty porn’ via AI?

AI-generated images “of extreme poverty, children and sexual violence survivors are flooding stock photo sites and increasingly being used by leading health NGOs, according to global health professionals who have voiced concern over a new era of ‘poverty porn,’” Aisha Down reports for The Guardian. Some, however, argue that AI imagery preserves the dignity and privacy of real victims…

 >> Elizabeth Wagmeister has a timely look at how “Hollywood’s fight over Israel and Gaza” is still raging. (CNN)

 >> Apple and Formula 1’s five-year media rights deal is now official. It will “bring every F1 race to Apple TV beginning in 2026.” (CNBC)

 >> But will the Apple deal “harm casual fan interest in America?” The Athletic’s F1 experts weighed in here. (NYT)

 >> “Task” concluded its run on HBO last night. Alan Sepinwall says “Task” and “The Lowdown,” which is airing on FX now, “get rural America right.” (NYT)

Blumhouse’s box office win

”Blumhouse is back in action,” THR’s Pamela McClintock writes: “Scott Derrickson’s ‘Black Phone 2’ delivered horror maestro Jason Blum a major win in opening to a better-than-expected $26.5 million domestically” over the weekend. “Tron: Ares” came in #2 and “Good Fortune” opened at #3.

 >> Also noteworthy: “One Battle After Another” “cleared the $100 million mark internationally in its fourth weekend for a global total of $162.5 million.”