Mediaite ONE SHEET: El-Sayed’s Success, Ellison’s NYT Op-Ed, and More!

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TOP STORY

A (THWARTED) DEM RECKONING

Abdul El-Sayed barely edged out Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s primary Tuesday night. That’s still a win for progressives, but hardly the double-digit, blue tsunami that many predicted and his backers hoped for. Having said that, that result, which puts the pair within approximately 14,800 votes of one another, appears to have inspired a kind of unity amongst our newsletter authors this morning.

That is to say… everyone concedes this was a progressive win, but not the kind that will make this year’s midterms easy for the anti-Donald Trump crowd. It also definitely doesn’t give us much of an indication of what to expect two years and two months from now.

THREE TAKES

The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — Tuesday night’s election results produced a kind of blue wave, Kristol wrote today, but “the results were a mixed bag” overall and “they don’t seem to me to change anything much about what’s likely to happen in November.”

That El-Sayed didn’t “easily” glide past Stevens is “a good reminder that polling in primaries can be unreliable” — a lesson Dems have been confronted with before. The result in Michigan also has implications for other states; Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) “probably has better odds than he would have this November” when he meets El-Sayed in the fall. Progressives looking for hope this morning will still find it with Kristol, though: “The national environment will still help the Democratic nominee, and it’s also the case that some swing voters may be more attracted to the change El-Sayed represents than put off by some of his left-of-the-mainstream views,” he added. “So while this is a chance—very likely the only one—for a Republican Senate pickup, it’s by no means guaranteed.”

The Free Press, Mene Ukueberuwa — A huge win for El-Sayed would have suggested a more unified Democratic Party, but that’s not what we can all take away from last night, Ukueberuwa wrote today. Instead, the reality is more of the same: “the Democratic Party’s dueling factions fighting themselves to a draw.” That includes “establishment” candidate Rep. Wesley Bell’s (D-MO) win over Cori Bush, but also Will Lawrence, who co-founded the Sunrise Movement, and his defeat of both former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink and former U.S. Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam.

The temptation to ride those wins may be looming large for Democrats, but Ukueberuwa insisted the party is still missing the bigger picture. Dems still aren’t “paying nearly enough attention to the candidates who could actually deliver a durable majority,” something that is likely to cause problems this fall and, potentially, in 2028.

POLITICO Playbook, Adam Wren, Will Steakin, and Dasha Burns — El-Sayed may have “strode and danced” his way into Election Day, but he “limped” out on his way home, as results proved too inconclusive for the race to be called last night, POLITICO’s trio wrote today in Playbook. As one operative told POLITICO, the El-Sayed camp was “so confident earlier on Tuesday that they predicted the race would be called ‘almost immediately.’”

Instead, last night “was most notable for all the things it wasn’t.” El-Sayed didn’t get his double-digit victory, the Democrats didn’t solve their simmering “civil war,” and we’re not even sure “electability has been redefined in 2026.” If there’s one thing we did see, it’s that there’s a gaping “break between two unsettled factions of the Democratic Party: Black voters and the left.”yeah e

TAKEAWAY: The newsletters, prior to Wednesday, seemed poised to cover a  Democratic civil war. But today, our authors indicate the battle has yet to begin in earnest. Per today’s stack, a win is a win is a win for El-Sayed and progressives, but a lot of work needs to be done to bring different groups of people together, and that’s work the party probably should have started a few years ago. There also seemed to be an effort on the part of the left-leaning newsletters to mint El-Sayed as a new political star, and that appears to have cooled somewhat with the closer-than-expected results Tuesday night. That may still happen a few months from now, but El-Sayed will have to vanquish a difficult general election first. And that, in one of America’s tightest electoral battlegrounds, will not be easy.

📰 TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS 📰

SCOOP 🍨 Status, Oliver Darcy — Things at 60 Minutes are still nowhere near to being cozy, Darcy reported today. In fact, the “exodus of behind-the-scenes talent continues to eat at ‘60 Minutes’ ahead of the newsmagazine’s fall debut.” That exodus now includes Madeleine Carlisle, the daughter of Stephen Colbert, who “resigned from the program in recent days.” Carlisle quit alongside several others on “Black Thursday,” Darcy added, and their departures are “draining the broadcast of much-needed talent.” She also, according to Darcy, won’t be the last: “I’m told that other producers are actively exploring options to exit the program,” he wrote.

SCOOP 🍨 POLITICO Playbook, Dasha Burns — Democrats aren’t the only ones facing uncertainty right now, but there are a few Republicans who are battling negative headlines of their own making. That includes Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), who has been accused of abusing his ex-wife and the pair’s two-year-old daughter.

Burns sat down with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and asked about Miller on Politico’s interview show “The Conversation” Tuesday night — which Playbook first broke Wednesday. The party has until Friday to replace Miller, or otherwise risk losing his seat entirely. Johnson admitted he hasn’t even broached the topic of the damning allegations against the Congressman, and instead plans to let a House Ethics Committee investigation “run its course. He told Burns, “I haven’t spoken to Max about this in the last few days. Of course, I will.”

SCOOP 🍨 Punchbowl News AM, John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman — Ethics are back in style as we cruise toward the midterms, Bresnahan and Sherman insisted today. The House Ethics Committee announced an investigation into the growing and troubling allegations against Max Miller (which are now “becoming a national spectacle”), and Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) dropped out of his own race after the same Committee released a report on his relationships with multiple female staffers.

On top of that, the Ethics Committee, the only evenly divided panel in the House — announced it will bring a censure resolution against Edwards to the House floor.” But those efforts may still be in vain: “We’re already hearing that lawmakers may offer expulsion resolutions against both men,” Bresnahan and Sherman added. The two situations are “very different,” but “top Republicans worry they could cost the party a key pair of seats in November.”

ANALYSIS 👀 The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — The political stratosphere has dominated attention of late, but Paramount CEO David Ellison is still making a case for his attempted merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, Jones reminded us today. In his guest essay for The New York Times this week, Ellison “attempted to address his politics, loyalties and intentions” and said “some of his views would be considered conservative and others would be considered liberal,” attempts to reassure doubters “who have concerns about CNN’s future” should the merger be successful.

That’s just “great,” Jones wrote, except for one thing: “at no point did Ellison address his relationship with the Trump administration.” That relationship includes “the major upheaval going on at CBS News, where he installed Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief,” and “the departures of respected CBS News journalists or their subsequent accusations that management had politically interfered in editorial decisions.” Ellison can say what he wants, Jones continued, but he “simply cannot point to CBS News as a shining example of a hopeful future for CNN.”

ANALYSIS 👀 POLITICO Playbook, Chris Marquette — Todd Blanche is all but assured that he’ll be named Attorney General of the United States soon, POLITICO wrote today. He’s “one vote shy of confirmation” after being aided in his quest by Sen. John Curtis (R-UT). There is one Republican holdout: Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who announced Tuesday she will not support Blanche’s nomination due to concerns about “several actions that have further eroded the [Justice] Department’s independence.” This concludes what’s been a daunting and extended saga that now seems to have reached its inevitable conclusion.

📈BUSINESS OF MEDIA 🎥

Axios Media Trends, Sara Fischer — Substack’s Defender legal support program has notched its first major win by successfully defending SpyTalk editor Jeff Stein against a $1 million defamation lawsuit filed by former CIA official Keith Bass. The case was dismissed with prejudice—a landmark result as defamation suits against journalists rise, prompting other creator platforms like Beehiiv to also roll out robust legal resources for their writers. QUOTE 📣  “Stein’s case shows that for smaller publications and individual writers, especially those who cover sensitive topics or hold people in power to account, the expediency with which they can access those shared services makes a difference.”

Axios Media Trends, Sara Fischer — NBC News is launching a cross-platform subscriber franchise built around Steve Kornacki’s signature data-driven analysis and Axios got the scoop. The centerpiece, “Data Dive With Steve Kornacki,” will launch as a weekly, subscriber-exclusive newsletter focusing on the upcoming 2026 midterms, with plans to eventually expand his mathematical approach into sports (because, remember, in addition to being chief data analyst for NBC News, he holds the same title for NBC Sports). QUOTE 📣  “Kornacki’s new franchise reflects a broader NBC News and industrywide push to build media businesses around individual talent.”

Status, Oliver Darcy — Business Insider interim chief executive Christian Baesler has officially been named the publication’s actual, long-term boss. He’s launching a strategy centered on niche subscription verticals (such as CMO Insider, Markets Insider, and Small Business Insider, according to Axios Media Trends, which also covered the news) and seeking partnerships with independent newsletter and podcast creators to expand BI’s overall reach. Today’s Business of Media theme is indie newsletters in some form or another! QUOTE 📣 “Baesler, who has an uphill climb to reinvigorate the news outlet for the modern digital economy, was bullish on his ability to turn the Axel Springer-owned publication’s fortunes around.”

CNN Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — Federal Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín has scheduled a March 2, 2027 trial date for Paramount’s high-stakes antitrust showdown with the Writers Guild of America and state attorneys general over the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition. The March timing makes this a massive financial setback for Paramount, forcing the company to absorb well over $1 billion in ticking fees while the merger remains in legal limbo. QUOTE 📣 “Yes, seven long months from today.”

CNN Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — The E.W. Scripps Company is laying off 268 employees and aggressively restructuring its local TV stations to move away from traditional broadcast hours and toward a 24/7 streaming model. Scripps CEO Adam Symson stated that stations will increasingly rely on AI and automation to centralize production in a national hub. QUOTE 📣  “The layoffs are ‘gut-wrenching,’ with at least a dozen employees affected at just one station in Corpus Christi, Texas. A source told the San Antonio Express-News ‘that the only people left’ at KRIS 9 ‘are multi-media journalists, one evening anchor, the meteorologists, a digital director, an operations staffer and the Telemundo team.’”

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — Programmatic advertising is rapidly losing its relevance to brands, with U.S. creator sponsorship spending projected to reach $21 billion in 2026. As the revenue gap between programmatic display and creator earnings collapses, legacy web publishers who optimized for short-term programmatic ad scale find themselves squeezed to death by audience ad-blocker adoption and declining referral traffic. QUOTE 📣 “Many legacy publishers are being squeezed to death because they fail to recognize that optimizing for short term revenue is jeopardizing their long term business health.”

Breaker, Lachlan Cartwright — ABC News correspondent John Quiñones was called in by the network’s Standards department after conducting an uncleared interview with former 60 Minutes journalist Cecilia Vega at an industry conference. During the conversation, Vega spoke candidly about her sudden firing from CBS, which made headlines—and led to a talking-to as a result. QUOTE 📣 “Come last Monday, it was Quiñones being asked the questions by ABC’s Standards department, which rapped his knuckles over the matter, according to people familiar with the matter. However, we are told there was no formal reprimand over the incident.”

OTHER COOL STUFF

Morning Brew: Some BMW owners are annoyed after full-screen ads for the new Spider-Man movie started taking over their cars’ control displays late last month. No big deal; it’s a brand new day.

Breaker: If you need a reminder of what not to do at your next work event, look no further than former Netflix VP Kevin Baillie. According to a wrongful termination lawsuit reported on by the Wall Street Journal and picked up by the observant Cartwright, Baillie was fired shortly after performing alleged stunts like “upside-down stout guzzling and rhapsodizing about drug use.” Baillie claims the wild behavior took place during a retreat that was specifically “centered on vulnerability and trust.”

Puck’s Line Sheet: Reddit users have their finger on the pulse and their Beauty Blender in the full-coverage foundation. Writer Marisa Meltzer dug through the platform’s beauty survey to find that Hailey Bieber‘s famous “no-makeup makeup” look is officially on the decline. Still, it will likely take a while before the trend’s downturn catches up to her cosmetics brand, Rhode, so go ahead and stock up on that Pocket Blush.

👀 WHAT GOT MISSED? 👀

Morning Brew, Matty Merritt — “Emo millennials are still hopeful” Myspace will return, Merritt wrote this morning. That hope is inspired by co-owners Chris and Tim Vanderhook, who “said in a recent documentary that they have plans to relaunch the OG social media platform (again).” But they haven’t offered “a specific timeline or any details about what THE new Myspace would look like” and there’s no word on if users will be able to build out profiles using basic HTML, let alone rank their 8 favorite friends.

🏆 NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY 🏆

Simon Owens’ Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — The subscription strategy for Spotify is actually underrated,” Owens wrote today, a sentence that is pretty much immediately compelling no matter how you feel about the music streaming platform. As he put it, Spotify has “built the largest paid subscriber base of any platform that doesn’t actually own differentiated content or hide it behind a paywall,” which is a true feat in 2026.

Owens, who admits he doesn’t even use Spotify, added that the company “has struck the right balance of content offerings to keep users locked into the platform, then does an excellent job of nudging free users to upgrade by making the ad-supported experience just annoying enough.”

It was an insightful, against the grain analysis from Owens — particularly timely on a day when Spotify’s stock took a beating after a subpar earnings report.

Owens also took an in-depth look at Bluesky, and specifically an interview the company’s new CEO Toni Schneider gave to The Verge. Owens’ takeaway? The social media platform, oft thought of as a more progressive alternative to Twitter/X, is “anti-growth.” Schneider may say that he wants to grow the platform, but “he has absolutely no idea how to do this,” Owens wrote.

“The biggest thing holding Bluesky back is its restrictive character limit. Right now, you can’t publish anything longer than 300 characters without splitting it into multiple posts, which creates a clunky reading experience,” he added, a suggestion for what might make a difference.

This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.