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    Without Another Debate, the Campaign Became a Duel of TV Scenes

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    As the candidates raced to claim different corners of the national screen this week, it was “Undercover Boss” vs. “Roll the clip.”In a typical election season — remember those? — right about now we would be preparing for, or recovering from, the final presidential debate. But Oct. 23, the date of a proposed CNN showdown that Kamala Harris accepted and Donald J. Trump declined, came and went without one.Instead, as Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump raced to claim different corners of the national screen, they were essentially staging a virtual debate, presenting competing versions of themselves on strikingly different stages.Mr. Trump substituted the debate podium with a takeout window, performing a shift on the fry cooker at a closed McDonald’s franchise and violating the occasional job protocol. It was a familiar kind of reality-TV stunt for a reality-TV candidate.This time, however, he was not emulating “The Apprentice” but staging a political version of “Undercover Boss.”On the CBS reality series, which aired 11 seasons from 2010 to 2022, company executives went incognito to work low-level jobs at their companies. The premise was to show bigwigs how the grunts lived. But it also served, in the years after the financial collapse and Great Recession, as a form of prime-time crisis P.R. Chief executives were people too, it told us; they shared common purpose and mutual respect with the rank and file.Mr. Trump’s shift, which lasted less time than a single “Undercover Boss” episode, had different aims. Most overtly, it was a way of using virality — what news producer can resist footage of Donald Trump shoveling fries into a container? — to spread his unsubstantiated claim that Ms. Harris had lied about working at McDonald’s while in college. (As with his birtherism campaign against Barack Obama, media coverage generally noted that his charges were baseless, but the dust still got kicked up, the doubts potentially sown.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Politicians Get Roasted on This Beloved British Show. Can It Be a U.S. Hit?

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      “Have I Got News for You” will inject some levity into the CNN schedule. But on a news network, finding comedy in politics during an election year comes with risks.Weeks before Britain held an election this summer, around four million TV viewers tuned in to the season finale of “Have I Got News for You,” a long-running BBC panel show.For any lawmakers watching, it would have been uncomfortable viewing.That week’s host and four panelists made absurd jokes while answering questions about the news, first mocking the Conservative Party’s chances of winning the coming election, then poking fun at Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, for constantly mentioning in speeches that his father was a toolmaker. (The comedian Jack Dee teased that Starmer’s father had made at least one tool: his son.)Filled with snarky humor, the episode was typical of a show that, since launching in 1990, has skewered Britain’s politicians — often to their faces. Lawmakers, including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have been regular guests.Now, in the middle of a different election cycle, CNN will on Saturday debut a U.S. version of “Have I Got News for You” — hosted by the comedian Roy Wood Jr. — in hopes that the network’s viewers have an appetite for something irreverent amid its serious news coverage.Roy Wood Jr. will host CNN’s version of “Have I Got News for You,” which debuts Saturday.John Nacion/Getty ImagesDespite the show’s popularity in Britain, CNN’s choice to premiere the satirical show during an election year comes with an obvious risk: If viewers perceive the jokes as favoring either the Democrat or Republican parties, it could damage the network’s attempts to position itself as the most centrist of the U.S. cable news networks — an effort that is already under attack from former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly accused CNN of bias.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jamie Kellner, TV Executive Who Started Fox and WB, Dies at 77

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      With an emphasis on younger viewers, he established the networks as serious rivals to ABC, CBS and NBC, which had ruled television for nearly 40 years.Jamie Kellner, a media executive who helped build Fox Broadcasting into a thriving television network with shows such as “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “The Simpsons” — and who went on to create the WB network, known for the angsty “Dawson’s Creek” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — died on June 21 at his home in Montecito, Calif., near Santa Barbara. He was 77.The cause was cancer, said Brad Turell, a family spokesman.Mr. Kellner was one of the most successful television executives of his generation, whose knack for capturing young viewers — first men at Fox, then women at WB — lured viewers away from the Big Three networks that had ruled television for nearly 40 years.Mr. Kellner believed ABC, NBC and CBS were ignoring viewers under 35 and were hamstrung by middle-of-the-road taste. Rupert Murdoch, Fox Inc.’s owner, and Barry Diller, its chairman, recruited Mr. Kellner from the television syndication business in 1986 and installed him as president of the Fox Broadcasting Company.Its aspiration to be the first new TV network since ABC in 1948 was broadly derided. But from the debut in 1987 of its first series, the lowbrow family sitcom “Married … With Children,” which was shown on six Murdoch-owned stations and a string of independent ones that Mr. Kellner helped stitch together, the new network began stealing the Big Three’s audience.By 1992, with shows like “Melrose Place,” about the social lives of 20-somethings, Fox was No. 1 with viewers 18 to 34. “We don’t really need anyone over 50 years of age to succeed with our business plan,” Mr. Kellner told The New York Times.He resigned in 1993 after seven years at Fox. By then, Mr. Diller had left, and Mr. Kellner and Mr. Murdoch had clashed over Mr. Murdoch’s desire to pivot to older viewers and more mainstream shows.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alec Baldwin’s Long Journey to Court After ‘Rust’ Shooting

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      It’s been a challenge to follow the case. Here are its many twists and turns. The actor Alec Baldwin is scheduled to go on trial next month for involuntary manslaughter in Santa Fe, N.M.Baldwin’s long journey to the courtroom started on Oct. 21, 2021, on the set of the western movie “Rust,” when the gun he was holding while blocking out a shot discharged, firing a live round that injured the movie’s director, Joel Souza, and killed its cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.It was an almost unimaginable tragedy, but Baldwin soon found himself in legal jeopardy, too. The subsequent saga has amounted to a high-stakes version of a familiar Baldwin ritual: He does or says something controversial; then, in an attempt to be understood, he doubles down on whatever he said or did, inviting further scrutiny; finally, feeling victimized and aggrieved, he vows to stop engaging with the media. He was in this third stage by the time I started reporting a few months ago. To trace the improbable arc of his prosecution, I interviewed more than 30 people in New York and Santa Fe, reviewed numerous public court filings, police records and videos, and obtained additional documents under New Mexico’s freedom-of-information act.It’s been a challenge to follow the case through all of its many twists and turns. Here’s what you need to know as the trial approaches.Troubling details quickly emerged about the film’s set.The shooting occurred at 1:46 p.m. at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, a family-owned Old West movie set about 20 miles southeast of Santa Fe. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cassie After Sean Combs Assault Footage: ‘Open Your Heart to Believing Victims’

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      The singer, who sued the hip-hop mogul over allegations of rape and abuse, posted a statement after 2016 video emerged last week showing him assaulting her in a hotel.Cassie, the singer who accused Sean Combs of years of physical and sexual abuse in a lawsuit that she settled, on Thursday addressed footage of the music mogul assaulting her that emerged last week, saying in an Instagram post that domestic violence had broken her down to “someone I never thought I would become.”“Thank you to everyone that has taken the time to take this matter seriously,” the singer, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, wrote in the post. “My only ask is that EVERYONE open your heart to believing victims the first time. It takes a lot of heart to tell the truth out of a situation that you were powerless in.”It is the first time that Ms. Ventura has spoken publicly about her accusations against Mr. Combs, whom she dated for about a decade, since her lawsuit was filed last November and settled in one day. Since then, as Mr. Combs has faced a cascade of legal troubles, Ms. Ventura has spoken about her claims only through her lawyer, who released a statement calling the footage of the assault “gut-wrenching” when it was published by CNN last week.In the footage from 2016, which appeared to come from security cameras, Ms. Ventura is seen waiting for an elevator in a hotel when Mr. Combs, wearing a towel, grabs the back of her sweatshirt and throws her to the ground, kicking her twice before dragging her down the hallway away from the elevators. The video corroborates some of the details from Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit, which recalls Mr. Combs assaulting her at an InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016 as she tried to leave.Although his lawyer denied the allegations in the lawsuit at the time, Mr. Combs released an apology video following the release of the footage, saying that he took “full responsibility” for his actions and that he had since been to therapy and rehab.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Alice Stewart, a CNN Political Commentator, Dies at 58

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      She had appeared onscreen as a conservative voice since the 2016 presidential race. A political strategist, she had worked for Republican presidential candidates.Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist and political commentator on CNN, has died. She was 58.Her death was announced by CNN. The company said the police found Ms. Stewart’s body outdoors in Northern Virginia early Saturday morning. The authorities said they believe that she had a medical emergency but did not provide a cause.Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, described her in an email to staff members as “a political veteran and an Emmy Award-winning journalist who brought an incomparable spark to CNN’s coverage.”Ms. Stewart had appeared on the cable news outlet as a conservative commentator since the 2016 presidential race. Before then, she had worked on several Republican presidential campaigns.She was the communications director for the 2008 presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, and went on to serve in similar roles for Republican candidates in two following elections, including those of Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz.Ms. Stewart was the deputy secretary of state in Arkansas and was a fellow in 2020 at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. She had also done work for the Republican Party and conservative organizations.At CNN, Ms. Stewart viewed herself as a faithful promoter of conservatism while the Republican Party reshaped itself under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump.“I don’t think everything that he does is great, and I don’t think everything that he does is bad,” Ms. Stewart said of Mr. Trump in a 2020 interview with Harvard Political Review. “My position at CNN is to be a conservative voice yet an independent thinker.”In an opinion piece published on CNN last year, Ms. Stewart asked Republican voters to reconsider their unconditional support for Mr. Trump’s 2024 election bid given the various criminal charges he faced.“This is a campaign about self-preservation, not selfless public service,” she wrote. “I’m not convinced that’s how you Make America Great Again.”Before transitioning to politics in 2005 with a job as press secretary in the administration of Mr. Huckabee, Ms. Stewart was a news anchor and reporter for seven years at an NBC television affiliate in Little Rock, Ark.“I loved covering politics. I loved courts. I loved breaking news,” Ms. Stewart said in a 2020 interview with Harvard International Review. “But, several years ago, I just realized that there might be something different for me to do.”She was born on March 11, 1966, in Atlanta and earned a degree in broadcast news and political science from the University of Georgia.Ms. Stewart last appeared on CNN on Friday on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” Information on her survivors was not immediately available. More

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      Richard Leibner, Agent for Top Broadcast Journalists, Dies at 85

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      His negotiations led to Dan Rather’s elevation from “60 Minutes” to anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and sent Diane Sawyer from “60 Minutes” to ABC.Richard Leibner, a powerful agent whose firm brokered contracts for many of the biggest names in television news, including Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Anderson Cooper, Ed Bradley, Morley Safer and Steve Kroft, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.His son Jonathan said the cause was kidney cancer.Mr. Leibner’s firm, N.S. Bienstock — named for one of its founders, Nathan Bienstock — represented hundreds of anchors, reporters, producers and others in network and local television news.The negotiation that grabbed the biggest headlines was for Mr. Rather, then one of the star correspondents of the CBS News program “60 Minutes.”Between late 1979 and early 1980, Mr. Leibner (pronounced LEEB-ner) parlayed interest in Mr. Rather as the evening anchor from all three network news divisions: ABC News, whose president, Roone Arledge, was trying to raise his third-place division’s profile; NBC News, where the evening anchor John Chancellor was hoping to change to a commentary role; and CBS News, where Walter Cronkite had been the evening anchor since 1962.“The Rather situation was tough and sensitive because CBS News knew something had to happen after Cronkite,” Mr. Leibner told Manhattan, inc. magazine in 1986. “Cronkite had told them, contrary to what anybody had ever inferred, that he wanted off. He was tired of it.”Mr. Leibner surprised Mr. Rather by telling him that he thought it was possible to get him as much as $6 million over five years. In the end, CBS agreed to pay him what has been variously reported as $2.2 million a year and $8 million over five years. He succeeded Mr. Cronkite on the “CBS Evening News” in early 1981.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Trump Aide Alyssa Farah Griffin Becomes a Liberal Favorite

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      Now and then during an election cycle, a Republican pundit becomes something of a hero to Democrats.Peggy Noonan, a conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, filled that role in the months leading up the 2008 election, after she had pilloried the second Bush administration over its invasion of Iraq and criticized Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee.Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, veterans of John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential campaign, reached pundit primacy on MSNBC excoriating the tea party activists then in ascendance.A rising star of the current season is Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications director for President Trump who is now a co-host of ABC’s “The View” and a regular commentator on CNN.Ms. Farah Griffin, who resigned from the Trump administration in December 2020, garnered wide attention with a tweet she posted on Jan. 6, 2021: “Dear MAGA — I am one of you. Before I worked for @realDonaldTrump, I worked for @MarkMeadows & @Jim_Jordan & the @freedomcaucus. I marched in the 2010 Tea Party rallies. I campaigned w/ Trump & voted for him. But I need you to hear me: the Election was NOT stolen. We lost.”Three years later, Ms. Farah Griffin, 34, spends many of her nights at the CNN headquarters in the Hudson Yards district of Manhattan, bantering with Van Jones, David Axelrod and other liberal commentators.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Supreme Court Ballot Case Made for Must-Hear TV

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      The live arguments gave audiences a rare chance to experience a Trump court case as it happened.If you were to list the ingredients of riveting live television, you would probably not include still photos, empty TV studios and parsing the nuances between the nouns “office” and “officer.”Thursday’s Supreme Court arguments over Colorado’s attempt to remove former President Donald J. Trump from the ballot on the grounds of insurrection had all of those. But the proceedings, carried via live audio on cable news, also had two essentials of must-watch (or -hear) TV: High stakes and novelty.The stakes were clear, whether or not you could follow the dissection of the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. There are few things as important in a democracy as the decision of who gets to run in the next presidential election, not to mention the responsibility, and the consequences, for attempting to overturn the previous one.The broadcast was novel in more than one way. The Supreme Court only began livestreaming oral arguments in 2020, during the pandemic. Having such consequential arguments take over cable news for a full morning is a rarity.What’s more, much of the coming election will turn on court cases involving Mr. Trump, and American TV audiences are likely to be kept outside the door. Cameras were mostly barred from his civil trials in defamation and fraud cases; current federal rules prohibit them in his coming Georgia election-interference case. (The Georgia case is supposed to be livestreamed, but it may not take place before November, and Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that he should not be tried at all if he wins the election.)Thursday, in other words, was a rare chance for voters to experience a part of the Trump Legal Cinematic Universe for themselves, not through the analysis of pundits or the fulminations of the defendant. That alone made it a TV event.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More