Bulgaria News
You are reading a special free preview of Mediaite’s daily newsletter — the Mediaite One Sheet: a fast, five-minute briefing that curates the best of the media newsletters. Subscribe today at a special new (lower) price to get the One Sheet delivered direct to your inbox five days a week!
(CNN/YouTube)
TOP STORY
IS THE REAL BOGEYMAN THE MIDTERMS?
Newsletter fight! Status and Puck are trading blows over their coverage of Bari Weiss and CBS — making for a fun story in today’s stack. We’ll get to that shortly, but first, there’s growing skepticism about whether or not this week’s doom-and-gloom AI headlines are really… accurate.
There’s no doubt that AI poses a real threat to how many of us work and operate. But will AI actually destroy humanity (in four years or less?!), or are parts of the conversation being elevated because midterms are around the corner? As we know, President Donald Trump is a staunch supporter of AI (and also heavily financially invested in its success), but Democrats haven’t exactly unified around the messaging.
Before we get into the Status and Puck of it all, let’s try to put a neat media bow on the AI conversation (for now).
THREE TAKES
POLITICO Playbook, Adam Wren, Dasha Burns, Will Steakin — Playbook has been beating the AI drum all week and has leaned especially hard into Team Doom. That’s understandable because there are a lot of scary stories out there about AI, and if anyone is confronted with the negative possibilities of allowing the tech to operate unencumbered, it’s probably the journalists at Playbook, who interact with these stories constantly. For today’s newsletter, the team at Playbook “reached out to staffers for more than a dozen potential 2028ers to ask for their bosses’ P(doom) percentage” — the “Silicon Valley shorthand for the likelihood rogue AI could wipe out humanity,” which not everyone was familiar with it. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was, but didn’t want to linger on it. She told Playbook of this week’s doomsday scenarios, “I just don’t think it’s constructive to engage in it. Why are they changing their tune now, and why have they not provided evidence to Congress?”
It’s also important to note that Playbook announced the launch of Decoded this week. “Drawing on nearly 50 journalists around the world with expertise covering tech policy, Decoded will provide essential intelligence on the people, power moves and policy fights shaping the AI era,” Playbook explained Thursday in a message that also described AI as “the most consequential story of our lifetimes.” So… it’s clear where Playbook lands, and what they stand to gain from the growing doomy AI discourse.
Townhall, Josh Hammer — Hammer also pointed to the upcoming midterms as the impetus that sparked this week’s onslaught of AI stories. “The midterm elections are right around the corner, and both parties are about as popular as a Monday-morning visit to the DMV,” he wrote today. “The time-tested solution? Find a scapegoat, go negative, and blame the other side.” It’s also pretty clear that it’s working. He continued, “Many Americans are falling for the anti-AI information operation. They shouldn’t.” Hammer further cited a POLITICO poll that shows “63 percent of Americans think AI has the potential to ‘destroy humanity,’” and “A majority of both Democrats and Republicans now think AI could herald the apocalypse.” That shift represents “quite a sea change in less than a year,” Hammer continued. The days before the poll were marked by a few key media events: “Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stressed the same existential stakes;” an OpenAI board member described Sam Altman as having a “sociopathic lack of concern;” and “Trumpy Elon Musk [began] calling for an industry slowdown too.” Hammer added, “AI industry leaders seem to have settled on a message: Our product is going to kill your job, and it might end all of humanity, but trust us and do what we say anyway.”
CNN’s Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — There’s more to ponder when it comes to AI. The New York Times’ lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI is “getting outsized attention because the stakes are so high for the news business,” Stelter wrote today. That’s been proven by the fact that The New York Daily News featured the lawsuit front and center under the headline “STUNNING ADMISSIONS IN AI COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT CASE.” The Daily News is also a plaintiff in the case, “which seeks to prove that tech companies violated copyright law en masse while training AI models.” A win would “mean a very, very big check to compensate the news outlets that were ripped off.” Right now, the case is “at a crucial stage” as the judge determines if it will move to trial. Yesterday’s document release “was a doozy,” he added. “Lawyers for the publishers revealed the existence of an internal Microsoft document from 2023 that said ‘millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.’”
TAKEAWAY: Whew! It’s easy to get lost in the myriad of stories about AI right now, and that is something that’s likely going to continue to be true — AI isn’t going anywhere, and the midterms will be followed by what may well be one of the most contentious presidential elections in recent memory… which is certainly saying something. As always, it’s important to keep a level head, to read a range of information and sources, and to keep one eye on the past and one on the future, while somehow navigating the present. Knowledge is power, and there’s a whole bunch of it to consume out there.
TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS
ANALYSIS 
Status, Oliver Darcy — ICYMI, Darcy and Puck’s Dylan Byers are at war right now. The latter has launched a full-throttle defense of CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, going so far as to insist the industry harbors “dark bloodlust” for her. But Darcy, an especially dedicated critic of Weiss, doesn’t see things that way. As he put it, “Weiss has repositioned the outlet as more friendly toward Donald Trump and the MAGA movement he leads, repelling viewers in the process. Under her watch, both the venerable CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings have suffered steep ratings declines. In fact, in recent months, both programs have seen their viewership fall to their lowest levels of the 21st century.” On top of that, Weiss is now dragging 60 Minutes “into the same pit,” having recently delivered “its worst-rated season debut of the 21st century.” Weiss “failed” and “the ensuing news coverage was universally tough and critical, as one would expect” — but somehow, she found a “sympathetic ear” at Puck. And Darcy called out a potential motive in his scathing newsletter Thursday night — highlighting “a clear financial conflict of interest—one that Puck did not disclose to its readers in the Weiss piece.” Darcy noted the potential acquisition of Puck by RedBird, which is owned by Paramount board member Gerry Cardinale, who owns nearly a quarter of Paramount’s voting rights. “Cardinale’s fortunes are directly tied to the success of Paramount—and now he is trying to take control of Puck,” Darcy wrote, in calling out what seems to be a serious conflict of interest. Byers has painted himself as “the only real outlier” when it comes to Weiss. But as Darcy rightly pointed out, “Byers himself stated in his Monday column that ‘the final measure of the debut’s success will come with the ratings.’ Then, when those ratings did emerge, he moved the goalpost and dismissed them.”
BONUS TAKEAWAY: We can’t resist weighing in on a good ol’ fashioned media newsletter brawl.
Let’s start with this: Darcy is 100% right about Byers needing to be completely transparent on what is a pretty serious conflict of interest. If you’re going to take a contrarian position, and that position happens to align with the financial interests of a current minority (likely soon-to-be a majority) stakeholder, readers absolutely need to know about it. Questions about how Byers and Puck cover Paramount are going to plague them until they show they can take big swings at Paramount. And let’s face it, there’s a lot to go after them on lately.
But Darcy’s fixation on CBS and Bari Weiss has gotten a bit out of hand. Fourteen of his last 23 newsletters have led with critical pieces on Weiss or CBS. The direction of Bari Weiss’s CBS is a big media story, no doubt. But it’s not the only story. And despite all the turnover, there are a lot of excellent journalists still doing good work at CBS. Darcy would do well to consider how his crusade against a single executive can impact those in the trenches who are doing the strong work they’ve always done.
So we’re going to score this round of Byers vs. Darcy a draw — and we’d encourage both of them to take a hard look at how they cover Paramount, CBS, and Bari Weiss going forward. In the meantime, we’re going to grab some popcorn.
SCOOP 
Awful Announcing’s The A Block, Drew Lerner —Nashville sports reporter and podcaster Jared Stillman unexpectedly lost his Tennessee Titans credentials a few weeks ago, something he told Awful Announcing’s Michael Grant was “completely surprising.” Stillman doesn’t know exactly why he lost the credentials, but added that his reporting has never changed. As he put it, “I’ve been this way for 11 years.” If there’s something that isn’t going to change, it’s how he reports on the team. “As far as access, I don’t need that access to be opinionated,” Stillman also said. “I almost feel like that access makes me accountable, which is the same thing I’m asking of the team and the players: to be accountable so that if somebody wants to say something to me, they can say it on the record or off the record.”
ANALYSIS TheWrap, Drew Taylor and Lucas Manfredi — Disney’s CEO Josh D’Amaro has been open about his aspirations for the company: embracing “a more tech-forward approach.” His newest leadership decisions reveal “how serious he is about the new direction,” Taylor and Manfredi wrote Thursday. The appointment of former YouTube and Google exec as chairman of the Direct-to-Consumer division within Disney Entertainment is also part of that vision. That hiring and that of “Hollywood veteran Joe Early” are part of a “critical shift of strategic priorities to a tech focus” that will also “speaks to the importance of the One Disney model that D’Amaro has been touting.” The goal: “a Disney super-app that will combine various disparate elements into a single, unified direct-to-consumer experience.”
ANALYSIS The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — RFK Jr. “went home” yesterday; that is, back to “Children’s Health Defense, the antivax crank outfit he cofounded decades ago,” Kristol and Egger noted today. His “anti-vaccine efforts have fallen somewhat out of the public eye” and “worried White House officials cautioning him that they could hurt Republicans in the midterms,” so perhaps he was “eager to reassure his own base” that his “quest to link vaccines and autism remained as important to him as ever.” That wasn’t all. Kennedy’s speech left “plenty of room for other varieties of crank,” such as electromagnetic fields, chemtrails, and aircraft emissions.
ANALYSIS The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — The New York Times turns 175 years old today and will be celebrating that enormous feat for several months into December and “won’t simply be a celebration of the Times’ many accomplishments and proudest moments.” The newspaper will address mistakes and triumphs, and the goal is to continue to “give people one more reason to have faith in what you’re doing,” per editor David Shipley. As Jones said, “In the end, however, it should be seen as a celebration of one of America’s great journalism institutions that continues to do incredible work.”
ANALYSIS The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — The New York Times turns 175 years old today and will be celebrating that enormous feat for several months into December and “won’t simply be a celebration of the Times’ many accomplishments and proudest moments.” The newspaper will address mistakes and triumphs, and the goal is to continue to “give people one more reason to have faith in what you’re doing,” per editor David Shipley. As Jones said, “In the end, however, it should be seen as a celebration of one of America’s great journalism institutions that continues to do incredible work.”
ANALYSIS The Washington Sun, Evan McMorris-Santoro, Jasmine Wright, and Manuela Silva — “Congress did something functional,” The Washington Sun wrote today, and that’s worth noting. “Attendance has been impressive in both chambers, with members being present for about 97% of the votes this Congress,” the team wrote. Should those numbers continue, this would be the “second-best record ever.” (For the curious, the first was “the COVID proxy vote-assisted 2021-2022 cycle.”) Speaker Mike Johnson has often called this Congress the most productive, and per The Sun, “Attendance was a big part of that. Leadership regularly needed as many members as they could scrounge up to pass bills with narrow margins. And they did it! Not that the public is all that grateful, mind you — polls show Americans still generally seem to think Congress is not doing much that they like.”
BUSINESS OF MEDIA 
Barrett Media’s Morning Edition, John Lund — ESPN is reportedly extending broadcaster Joe Buck with a six-year, $108 million contract ($18 million per year) to call Monday Night Football. That’s a lot of money, but more broadly, Lund uses the news to track the trend of national announcers pulling in quarterback-level compensation in an era where viewers rely heavily on second screens, fantasy apps, and alternate broadcasts. QUOTE 
“Networks keep paying broadcasters like they’re quarterbacks because they’re terrified of being caught without one.”
Awful Announcing’s The A Block, Drew Lerner — In a CNBC interview, Netflix global TV chief Bela Bajaria confirmed that Sunday Night Football fits the streamer’s definition of a live “event.” The statement provides the first clear signal that Netflix could pursue a season-long NFL broadcasting package in upcoming rights negotiations. The sports media landscape is changing, but you need no further proof than how many words Lerner dedicated to this topic to see that no one can quite pinpoint how — yet. QUOTE “What exactly is an event for Netflix? Well, Bajaria cited the NFL on Christmas, the World Baseball Classic in Japan, CONCACAF soccer in Mexico, and the Home Run Derby. But she also included live broadcasts like free solo climber Alex Honnold scaling Taipei 101, or the BTS reunion concert in Seoul.”
ADWEEK Daily, Ryan Joe — Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen used his time at Brandweek to ask the advertising community to help “free” the famous treat brand from parent company The Magnum Ice Cream Company. Cohen challenged marketers to design a low-cost ($20,000 maximum budget) guerrilla marketing campaign to help reclaim the brand’s independence. QUOTE He called it “a chance to ‘help improve the quality of life for many people.’”
OTHER COOL STUFF
The Ankler’s The Wakeup — Still Jenny from Plymouth Rock: CBS and Paramount+ announced they will broadcast JLO Show: Live in Las Vegas as a primetime Thanksgiving special at 8 p.m., capturing the final show of her 12-performance Vegas residency.
Morning Brew — You knew this was coming: Merriam-Webster has officially mogged traditionalism and expanded its lexicon by adding the slang term “looksmaxxing” to its dictionary.
WHAT GOT MISSED?
The Washington Sun, Evan McMorris-Santoro, Jasmine Wright, and Manuela Silva — Younger House Democrats are making inroads in Congress. That’s despite the fact that “term limits for a given member serving as either a committee chair or ranking member are an obvious solution, and one that the House Republican Conference has employed for years.” They added, “But Democrats pushing for similar rules in their caucus are up against an entrenched seniority system backed by some older members and powerful groups like the Congressional Black Caucus.”
NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY
CNN’s Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — There was a lot to take away from today’s stack, and the same can be said for Stelter’s Reliable Sources alone. This analysis of the Times’ AI lawsuit offered a different look at the week’s ongoing AI conversations, something that gave readers the opportunity to contemplate something other than doom, and perhaps even a win to look forward to (should The Times ultimately prevail). Stelter also noted the Times’ big anniversary, and took a look at the myriad of stories surrounding Larry and David Ellison (including their own lawsuits).
This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.
The post Status’s Oliver Darcy Rips Puck’s Dylan Byers for ‘Sympathetic’ Coverage of Bari Weiss in Fiery Media Newsletter Brawl first appeared on Mediaite.
Status’s Oliver Darcy Rips Puck’s Dylan Byers for ‘Sympathetic’ Coverage of Bari Weiss in Fiery Media Newsletter Brawl 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-09-18 19:40:26 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law
БЪЛГАРИЯ НОВИНИТЕ – ИНФОРМАЦИОННА АГЕНЦИЯ 2009-2026 2026-09-18 19:40:26