Hadas Gold

White House alumni Tommy Vietor, Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Dan Pfeiffer are further investing themselves into their popular podcast "Keeping it 1600" by launching a new media company, called "Crooked Media." To begin with, "Crooked Media" won't be much more than the new incarnation of "Keeping it 1600" called "Pod Save America," which will still be available on iTunes and other podcasting platforms, but soon Vietor, who was formerly President Barack Obama's national security spokesman said the website (which will live at GetCrookedMedia.com) will become a multimedia platform for political analysis and activism.

Vietor said that had Hillary Clinton won, it's likely they would've kept the podcast as what it was - a side hobby. But with the outcome of the election, Vietor said he and his co-founders said they felt a renewed mission. "I think the lesson from (President-elect Donald) Trump is if you're filtering every message and idea you have through traditional media, he will swamp you with a Tweet," he said. "So we need to build up infrastructure that allows people to communicate directly with young people across the country."

Newly appointed counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said that the incoming White House will have a more or less traditional relationship with the media. "This will be a traditional White House in the sense that you will have a great deal of press availability on a daily basis and you'll have a president who continues to be engaged with the press," Conway said.

The assurance from one of President-elect Donald Trump's most senior advisers comes as other members of Trump's senior staff have said that there might be changes coming to how the White House interacts with the media, from doing away with the daily briefing to rearranging the seating in the briefing room. Conway also said that they will soon announce who will fill the positions of press secretary, communications director and other senior members of the communications team. Republican National Committee chief strategist Sean Spicer is the heavy favorite for the press secretary post, though Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle is also likely to be offered a position on the team in an ancillary role, apparently.

Donald Trump's campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage, his son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives.

Kushner said the agreement with Sinclair, which owns television stations across the country in many swing states and often packages news for their affiliates to run, gave them more access to Trump and the campaign. In exchange, Sinclair would broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary, Kushner said. Kushner highlighted that Sinclair, in states like Ohio, reaches a much wider audience — around 250,000 listeners — than networks like CNN, which reach somewhere around 30,000. Kushner told the business executives that the campaign was upset with CNN because they considered its on-air panels stacked against Trump. He added that he personally talked with Jeff Zucker about changing the composition of the panels but Zucker refused. He repeatedly said in the panel that CNN wasn't "moving the needle" and wasn't important as it once was. The campaign then decided not to work as closely with CNN, and Trump ramped up his bashing of the cable network. He also told the crowd that Google and Facebook are now more powerful, and that The New York Times and CNN aren't as powerful.

Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus suggested that major changes are coming to the White House press corps. Priebus said "many things have to change" in the White House's relationship and daily traditions with the media, including the daily briefing with the White House Press Secretary and the seating chart. "I think that it’s important that we look at all of those traditions that are great, but quite frankly, as you know, don’t really make news and they're just sort of mundane, boring episodes," Priebus said.

"The point of all of this conversation is that the traditions, while some of them are great, I think it’s time to revisit a lot of these things that have been done in the White House, and I can assure you that change is going to happen, even on things that might seem boring like this topic, but also change as far as how we’re going to approach tax reform, the American worker, how we protect them and business all at the same time why skyrocketing our economy," Priebus said. Priebus said the White House team is currently discussing how to change things up, including where the press sits in the White House briefing room.

Liberal media-watchdog organization Media Matters is naming a new president and taking its coverage in a new direction, with less emphasis on cable news and more focus on fake news and other "bad actors." Angelo Carusone, currently the organization's executive vice president, will take over as president. The group, known for taking on what they argue is misinformation in conservative media, particularly on Fox News, will enter a “new era,” focusing on the likes of Breitbart, the “alt-right”, conspiracy theories and fake news.

"There was a period of time which we were, rightfully so, described as the ‘Fox antagonist's,” said Carusone, who also acted as Deputy CEO of the Democratic National Convention. “Now, our mission is to be principally focused on the value of journalism.” Carusone, who in the past has led efforts against the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, said Fox is no longer the “gate keeper” it used to be. "It used to be simple, Fox News was the gate keeper… but now there are so many potential bad actors,” Carusone said. "Now there are places like Facebook who aren’t bad actors but can be enablers of misinformation.”

President-elect Donald Trump continued his media grievances tour on Nov 22, visiting The New York Times for both an off-the-record chat with its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, and an on-the-record conversation with reporters and columnists. The meeting was the latest example of President-elect Trump trying to reconnect with a media outlet that he has mostly left out in the cold since becoming president-elect, and which he made a major target during his presidential campaign.

Upon arriving, Trump had a 15-minute one on one with Sulzberger in the Churchill Room on the 16th floor of the Times building. A Times spokeswoman said it was “short and cordial” but declined to say anything about the tete-a-tete since it was off the record. “I have great respect for the New York Times. I have tremendous respect,” President-elect Trump said, according to a stream of live tweets from Times reporter Michael Grynbaum. “I think I've been treated very rough." But President-elect Trump said he wanted to turn a new leaf with the paper he so famously tangled with throughout the campaign, frequently calling the newspaper "the lying New York Times" or "the failing New York Times," and at one point even threatening to sue it.

Breitbart News appeared before the Standing Committee of the Senate Press Gallery in order to secure permanent Capitol Hill credentials. Within the rules of admission to the gallery, there is a clause that states the person and organization holding the pass "must not be engaged in any lobbying or paid advocacy, advertising, publicity or promotion work for any individual, political party, corporation, organization, or agency of the U.S. government." In order to prove that they are not engaged in any of the above and are an editorially independent institution, the Standing Committee can ask for information or proof on how the business is structured.

Breitbart has publicly said in the past that they do not discuss their investors. The Mercer family, who backed both Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, are known to be major backers of the site. There have been rumors that Trump himself was financially involved, but that’s been denied by both parties. Matt Daly, a reporter for the Associated Press and chairman of the Standing Committee said Breitbart is going through the same routine process as all news outlets that wish to secure credentials. "The decision is in the information gathering phase, more about their operation and how it works," Daly said. "We are interested in what the role is of Mr Bannon going forward and their funding. We have a six rules and standards we apply to everyone and we are trying to be consistent in all of that."

Once again, Donald Trump left his traveling press pool behind while on the campaign trail. Trump, who regularly chastises the press and calls out specific reporters, claiming they don't cover him fairly and don't show the crowds in attendance, showed up 10 minutes early to his rally in Concord (NC). But while Trump gets the benefit of a motorcade that can skip traffic, his accompanying press pool, whose travel is organized by the campaign but paid for by the individual media companies, do not. So, they were at least 15 minutes late to the rally.

For media with cameras, that means there's almost no time to set up (local media, and those who arranged their own travel, were likely already on site, which means the GOP nominee still got some coverage). Unlike all other modern-day candidates, Trump does not allow the press pool to travel with him on his plane. As a result, the press are not necessarily always within the Secret Service "bubble" and do not get the benefit of the motorcade. Though Clinton does travel with her press pool, they are not considered a full "protective pool" and are therefore not with her at all times.

Apparently, Aaron Black, an associate with Democracy Partners and a former Occupy Wall Street organizer, coordinated with reporters from the conservative news site Breitbart during the primaries to cover his disruptions of events for candidates such as Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL). Black worked with the pro-Trump site Breitbart, tipping it off about his stunts, exchanging raw video and coordinating coverage, according to an unnamed source. Black coordinated with Breitbart via email, phone and in person, including when he dressed up as a robot and trolled Marco Rubio’s events. The relationship was described as very friendly. An article subsequently published on Breitbart featured video footage of a physical confrontation between Black and Rubio's New Hampshire campaign chairman.

In a show of joint defiance, the major television networks collectively voted to pull a camera and erase video of Donald Trump giving a tour of his hotel, a protest of the campaign preventing any editorial presence on the tour. According to members of the traveling press pool, after it was made clear that only still photographers and video cameras would be allowed on the pool, the Washington bureau chiefs of the various television networks convened an emergency conference call and agreed to pull the network camera and erase the footage of the tour. "The pool rules state any event that is pooled with cameras, there has to be a pool producer. Due to the fact we were not granted editorial access, as is customary, that decision was made and the footage was erased," a member of the Trump traveling press said.

The tour of the hotel was to take place after Trump made remarks finally admitting that President Barack Obama was, in fact, born in the United States. Though the event was billed as a news conference to set the record straight on President Obama's birthplace, Trump ignored reporters standing on their chairs, shouting questions. He also made only a brief statement of a few sentences on the controversy, spending much of the time being boosted by campaign surrogates and touting his hotel. And then, when Trump was supposed to take the press on a tour of his new hotel, the editorial producer for the network pool was physically detained. "As the designated pool producer; attempted to go on pooled tour, as is customary. Was physically restrained from accompanying the camera," tweeted ABC producer Candace Smith.