Today in Cuomo-Type New York Guys
Today in Cuomo-Type New York Guys
What the Shrek just happened?
CNN fired anchor and formerly second most successful Cuomo-Type New York Guy Chris Cuomo on Saturday after discovering that he had been conducting fluffy interviews with his real-life brother, formerly the most successful Cuomo-Type New York Guy and now disgraced ex-governor Andrew Cuomo, in flagrant violation of any code of journalistic ethi... hold on… no… I’m being told that Jeff Zucker knew about that all along. So he must have been fired for grabbing his former boss Shelley Ross’s ass and telling her “I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss.” Ah, no, I guess that was fine too. Was it the revelation that Chris secretly advised his brother as he sought to fend off the harassment allegations that ultimately ended Andrew Cuomo’s governorship? That happened back in May and “the network said Cuomo will not be disciplined,” so… hm!
Oh here it is: last week Cuomo and by extension CNN became the laughingstock of the media world with the release of hundreds of pages of NYAG investigation exhibits demonstrating that he was both more involved in his brother’s defense and more useless than previously suspected. An outside law firm’s investigation into the growing embarrassment Cuomo was causing CNN almost instantly turned up a new accusation of sexual misconduct. Finally Zucker, sitting at the head of the boardroom table from Hudsucker Proxy and ostentatiously holding a folder labeled “IMPORTANT ETHICAL INVESTIGATION (REAL JOURNALISM STUFF)” which contained a single sheet of paper showing Cuomo’s declining ratings, shook his head sadly and made an exaggerated throat-cutting gesture. CNN now faces the challenge of deciding which of the several million other identical Cuomo-Type New York Guys infesting the five boroughs should replace him.
Today Dot Biz:
Someone is sending anti-work propaganda to unsecured receipt printers, reports Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai. The G/O Media owned and mismanaged A.V. Club “invited” Chicago employees to move to L.A., but the move was “certainly not required” unless they wanted to keep their jobs. Eurogamer: “Twitch streamer Ludwig moves exclusively to YouTube. UPDATE: He's been banned.” Vicious racist, antisemite, and misogynist Mel Gibson is somehow still getting work, reports Joshua Malina (yes that Joshua Malina). Capitalism speed-run: here’s Better.com CEO Vishal Garg firing 900 employees in just three minutes via webinar. BuzzFeed SPACed, collecting only $16 million of the original investor pool and then gyrating wildly like Ben Smith trying to dodge a conflict of interest disclosure. In crypto news, there’s a lot going on in this very short Bloomberg story:
Singapore’s regulator has suspended Bitget, a crypto exchange that got into a dispute after promoting the digital currency Army Coin, named after the South Korean boy band BTS’s followers…
And former NYT reporter Ian Urbina currently has “720,000 monthly listeners on Spotify… despite never actually creating a song of his own,” reports Input about Benn Jordan’s flabbergasting Youtube investigation of the star reporter’s bizarre music-rights scam.
Hey You Should Subscribe: On Friday, Tabs subscribers made a mix tape together. Give it a listen, there’s definitely something in there for you. On other Fridays I’ve done a recurring advice column with Heather Havrilesky, written about 10-hour Youtube videos and Tim Rogers, and shared the best writing I found in Accidents in North American Climbing along with a really funny Twitter thread. Monday to Thursday it’s all about the tabs, but Fridays are looser and weirder and usually subscriber-only, so if that sounds fun to you a whole year is only $35. We’ve got an outstanding Discord too, and more subscriber-only stuff coming in the new year, but this pitch is too long already, so just get in here you’ll like it, and if you subscribe already, thanks! ❤️
Hygge If True: “Ikea shoppers and staff snowed in at Denmark store spend night in showroom beds.”
The Atlantic has good news and bad news today. The bad news, writes Barton Gellman, is that the January 6th Capitol riot and associated efforts to overturn the 2020 election demonstrated what would be necessary for a similar attempt to succeed in the future, and Republicans are well on their way to putting those pieces in place. According to George Packer, the only way to prevent it is with:
a broad alliance of the left and the center-right. This democratic coalition would have to imagine America’s political suicide without distractions or illusions. And it would have to take precedence over everything else in politics.
…which definitely won’t happen so there isn’t any good news, sorry.
#Longread: In The New Yorker Michael Schulman wrote about Succession’s Kendall Roy, Jeremy Strong, and it’s that rare gem of a celebrity profile that doesn’t hide how insufferable its subject is.
For a while, he lived in the Hollywood Hills, where, driving home on Sunset Boulevard, he would pass a billboard that read “ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ sʜʀᴇᴋ ᴊᴜsᴛ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴᴇᴅ?” He was thirty-one and asking himself the same question.
That line doesn’t have anything to do with Jeremy Strong being insufferable, I just thought it was funny.
Statistically Improbable Phrases: Moon cube. AMC NFT. Reese’s University. “Microwaving Your Coffee for the Fifth Time” Vibes.
Today’s Song: 100 gecs “came to my show”
~ I never expect a perfect tab from an imperfect man ~
I came here to chew gum and tweet @fka_tabs, and I’m all out of tweets.