Nightly News Upset. New York Mag Upsets. | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

Lester Holt and NBC Nightly News pulled off a rare feat last week, beating ABC’s top-rated World News Tonight, anchored by David Muir, for the first time three years.

The show brought in 8.5 million total viewers for the week, edging out both ABC and in a very distant third, CBS.

It should be noted that the ABC and CBS newscasts only aired two days, due to the Thanksgiving holiday, while NBC’s weekly average was based on three days. Nightly News was the only evening broadcast to air on Friday, as the competition was pre-empted.

Holt and Muir effectively tied for first place in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic, with the ABC anchor holding a slight lead.

Holt’s broadcast just won in the younger 18-49 demo, with 1.085 million, ahead of ABC’s 1.046 and CBS’s 678,000.

That makes the short (3-day) Thanksgiving week not only Holt’s first top spot in years, but also the highest rated week in all of 2021 for Nightly News and Lester Holt.

In tweeting about the upset, NBC’s PR account pointed out an additional noteworthy point.

“PLUS: Averaging 8.6 million total viewers, @NBCNightlyNews is also the #1 most-watched weekday regular program for the week,” they tweeted on Wednesday.

“Across digital, Nightly News saw 13.8 million views and 1.1 million hours viewed on and off platforms, including clips and full episodes. On YouTube, weekday episodes saw an average of 664,000 views and 539,000 viewers,” NBC adds in the press release.

ABC retained dominance on the month, finishing November averaging 8.249 million viewers for World News over NBC’s Nightly News at 7.142 and 5.201 million for CBS’s Evening News. But last week’s turnabout should be a welcome win for Lester Holt after three years in such a close second.

New York Magazine’s Lisa Miller and Rebecca Traister are sharing authorship with their publication on a new book announced this week that consists of essays on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It wouldn’t be entirely fair to say the essays, not yet available for reading, are fawning, hagiographical puff. Not entirely. But the individual essay titles would challenge Roget himself to think of a better word.

From an opening on AOC’s “unprecedented position in American politics” to a treatise on “the role that her beauty plays in her public perception,” the virtual book jacket at Amazon would make a Gandhi biography blush.

It is not to say that the congresswoman’s rise has not been “meteoric.” Nor would we herein dispute that the most-used descriptor in the book’s marketing — “prominent” — is an apt one.

But “highlights of pivotal moments” and a serious “analysis” of her most awesomest tweets does seem unnecessarily, even cloyingly effusive.

No, the 400-page, $28 epic is not yet available for reading. But the pitch is perfectly clear on the tone.

There’s little question about the political leaning of New York Magazine. Nevertheless, there is a line between political bent and beatification, and that actually does matter in an age of extreme distrust in media and staggering polarization. Some of the critical tweets responding to the announcement have more the feel of journalism than anything touted in its pages.

Cult of Personality is a problem often lamented in politics, and equally as often embraced. But getting both from a single media company? That’s not a win for the image of the organization, or indeed the liberal media at large.