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TOP STORY
SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM’S SAGA
Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham set off a ruckus last month when she volunteered comments about transgender girls and women in women’s sports to ESPN. Though Cunningham has since blamed “WNBA media” for the storm that followed and said she wants to “get back to basketball,” her cause has been forcefully taken up by right-wing media, and the story has only grown ever since.
Whispers of the Cunningham saga have popped up in newsletters throughout the month, but that low murmur kicked into overdrive over the weekend and this morning. And, per at least one of our authors, it seems that Cunningham might not be quite as tired of the story as she’s claimed.
THREE TAKES
The Daily OutKick, OK—“They” really “hate Sophie Cunningham,” authors at OutKick insisted today. The right-wing sports commentary site has been pushing the Cunningham story harder than anyone out there for weeks, and today they saw their payoff as many of their newsletter compatriots picked up the story as well. This weekend, the Fever met the Chicago Sky and DiJonai Carrington “leveled” Cunningham “with a brutal hit that sent fans into a frenzy.” Carrington was given a flagrant 2 foul and ejected from the game.
Cunningham herself has been no stranger to delivering exactly that kind of blow to others (which, to be fair, she acknowledged while speaking to reporters after the game). But “instead of everyone agreeing that maybe clotheslining an opponent is bad,” a whole bunch of “media dorks and former teammates rushed to defend Carrington.” As a result, Cunningham has “officially become the match that keeps setting fire to the WNBA’s ugliest impulses.”
The Free Press, Kat Rosenfield—The Free Press has been another outlet which has spent a lot of time on Cunningham the past few weeks, and Carrington’s foul must have inspired the newsletter editors to reup Rosenfield’s initial July 30 take, which was found in the stack today. Rosenfield was apparently so inspired by Cunningham that she found it appropriate to invoke 1984 and what happens when “the unstoppable force of political ideology crashes into the immovable object of the god’s honest truth.” Cunningham’s stance on transgender girls and women in sports is “common sense,” Rosenfield also insisted.
Page Six Hollywood, Ian Mohr—Despite Cunningham appearing to be eager to move past the entire debacle, Mohr revealed today the basketball player is apparently “shopping a book” and may “find herself at the center of a bidding war, we hear, with the timely tome.” Though a rep from Cunningham didn’t get back to Mohr to confirm or deny the story, he pointed out that she has a lot going for her, including the second-best selling jersey in the league and all-important social media clout (Cunningham has 3.7 million followers on Instagram). She’s also found supporters in Riley Gaines and Stephen A. Smith and detractors in Megan Rapinoe, all of whom could end up deliberately or inadvertently promoting a book — should one ever materialize.
TAKEAWAY: The furor surrounding Cunningham has been building for weeks, and it’s not too surprising it’s gotten such prominent placement in today’s stack. Though it seems she’s attempted to retract a bit, Cunningham may be learning the hard way that our statements and stories can take on a second life potentially more long-lasting and intense than the first if they’re picked up by bad-faith actors looking for clicks. Like with the breathless coverage of Dr. Fauci in recent days, this is one of those stories that the more people are talking about it, the better it is for the Right. On that score, today’s stack was nothing short of a slam dunk for conservatives.
TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS
SCOOP 
POLITICO Playbook, Will Steakin, Adam Wren, and Dasha Burns — On Friday we took a look at rumors Tucker Carlson could be eyeing a 2028 presidential run, and it looks like that’s another story that’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Marjorie Taylor Greene, reportedly part of the so-called new party Carlson and others are creating, told POLITICO that “support” for the party is “overwhelming” and lots of “large donors” want to “donate in big ways to help it.”
But she denied Carlson himself will run. “Tucker, he’s not running for president. He said that publicly. He said that privately.” But two sources “close to Carlton” said that’s only true under certain circumstances. “He won’t run against JD Vance. He will very likely run if [President Donald] Trump endorses [Marco] Rubio,” one said. But does “Trump world” care? The answer for now is nope. “Carlson has no impact on administration policy,” a Trump insider told POLITICO. “He has no impact on D.C. policy from lawmakers. There is no discernible impact from him or his show on anything — it’s just a circle jerk.”
SCOOP Status, Natalie Korach — Former CBS anchor Katie Couric believes networks are “showing signs of ‘anticipatory obedience’ to Trump,” Korach wrote this weekend. Couric, who has “watched the media industry transform from nearly every vantage point,” offered her perspective on several topics in a lengthy interview Sunday. The media as a whole gets a “D” in terms of “how they’ve handled pressure from Donald Trump and his administration,” and she also believes the potential Paramount/WBD merger is “very concerning.”
SCOOP The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — Veteran TV journalist Peter Alexander “returned to television last week,” something Jones noted “seems odd” to say because of his lengthy career. Alexander, who has done “just about everything a TV journalist should do,” made the decision to leave MS NOW for NBC News in March.
The reason was largely to try something new, he said. “Well, first I’ll say there is an energy at MS NOW right now that I think is unmatched in a business, where we’re seeing a lot of contracting,” Alexander explained. “MS NOW is growing and building. But, in 22 years at NBC and in 30 years of doing this professionally, I’ve never had something of my own.”
ANALYSIS 
CNN’s Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter— The ability of the press to “root out corruption, topple presidents, and end wars” has been stymied by a “‘flatlined’ public response to President Trump’s ‘scandals’” Stelter wrote today while discussing Craig Unger’s essay Nothing Moves the Needle. The article is “provocative,” even for Unger’s detractors, Stelter added, though he’s not quite sold on the idea that reporters completely struggle to get news stories to break through. “Maybe it’s the eternal optimist in me, but I think there are plenty of examples — from both Trump’s times in office and Joe Biden’s time in between — of real reporting breaking through,” Stelter wrote. “This year, public opposition to Trump’s priorities and profiteering is evident in poll after poll.”
ANALYSIS Awful Announcing’s The A Block, Brendon Kleen — “Are any sports TV stars journalists?” is the question Kleen posed to readers this morning. This comes as Stephen A. Smith “kept trying to mount an argument that he is, in fact, still a journalist” last week after ESPN’s Michael Wilbon insisted Smith’s “work on ‘First Take’ did not qualify.” As Kleen noted, “sports journalism consists of conversations with coaches, players, and other figures to develop a deeper understanding of the games.” That may sometimes “include opinions, but these opinions should be clearly based in facts and real information” — which isn’t really what Smith engages in anymore.
ANALYSIS The Bulwark’s The Opposition, Lauren Egan — Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary “may seem like the latest chapter of an internecine fight among Democrats over the philosophical direction of the party,” Egan wrote, and it is. “But there’s much more on the line as well: The fallout from the Wisconsin election could extend nationally, by making it possible for Trump-allied Republicans to screw with the presidential election results in ways they tried, but failed, to do in 2020.”
Most crucial to Democrats is the Party’s “decade-and-a-half-long effort to claw its way back to a unified state government” in the short term, but the longer term goal, making sure “the capacity to ensure that the state’s 2028 presidential election results will be properly certified,” is looming over the state, and will be for some time.
BUSINESS OF MEDIA 
Semafor Media, Max Tani — A subtle user interface tweak by Spotify is disrupting the podcast industry. Basically, users can now press a button to skip past uninteresting parts of an episode—like, you know, ads (as long as they’re not the ads Spotify itself is getting paid for). The change has triggered sharp backlash from podcast leaders, including Crooked Media co-founder Tommy Vietor, who accused the platform of trying to destroy their business model. QUOTE 
Vietor: “Very cool of @Spotify to try and destroy the podcast industry. What a great partner!”
The Wakeup, Sean McNulty — Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster The Odyssey has officially crossed the $1.1 billion milestone in global ticket sales after just three weeks, surpassing The Dark Knight Rises to become the director’s highest-grossing movie ever. The Universal Pictures release has also crowned itself as the highest-grossing IMAX movie in history, hauling in $289 million globally to eclipse Avatar’s lifetime IMAX record of $271 million. At the same time, Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day is continuing its historic theatrical performance, securing $145 million domestically in its second weekend to push its global total to a staggering $1.67 billion. Movies are so back! QUOTE Per McNulty, the film’s financial success will heavily reward Universal as its “$250M budget and a big $125M marketing spend means profits abound on the Q3 UNI earnings report.”
Morning Brew, Brendan Cosgrove — Berkshire Hathaway’s newly appointed CEO Greg Abel is taking the company’s massive cash reserve in a new direction, embarking on a multibillion-dollar spending spree that has begun chipping away at the firm’s cash pile. Under Warren Buffett, Berkshire had been a net seller of stocks for years, causing its cash on hand to balloon to a record $397 billion by the end of the first quarter. Abel has since “uncorked the piggy bank,” reducing the cash reserve to $365.5 billion in the second quarter by investing $10 billion in Alphabet, executing $4.5 billion in share buybacks, and spending $6.8 billion to acquire homebuilder Taylor Morrison. QUOTE According to the newsletter, Abel is moving quickly to deploy capital because “during his last few years as CEO, Warren Buffett held onto cash like a broken vending machine.”
Semafor Media — The New York Times is screen-testing new potential hosts for its hit podcast Hard Fork, including tech journalists Mike Isaac and Kashmir Hill. The publisher has also reportedly approached independent tech journalist Max Read and Search Engine host PJ Vogt about taking over the gig, but no one is confirming anything yet. Original host Casey Newton left the Times with Kevin Roose to start their own venture.
CNN Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — Former Gawker editor AJ Daulerio is expanding his personal recovery newsletter, The Small Bow, into a full-scale media company that serves as a positive contribution and amends for his controversial internet past. QUOTE In a chat with The Guardian, Daulerio said, “The Small Bow is a living amends for whatever version of me came before on the internet.”
OTHER COOL STUFF
Morning Brew: A fitness-minded hamster is making human runners look lazy after its owner hooked up its exercise wheel to the running app Strava. The dedicated little athlete has been blasting through up to six miles per night.
POLITICO Playbook: Beth, the beloved, often-viral vacuum cleaner of 92-year-old Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, has officially passed away at the estimated age of 49. The trusty tan Hoover with a burgundy cloth dust bag, which frequently starred in the senator’s holiday and family reunion social media posts, reportedly succumbed to an electrical issue. We say “reportedly” here because this whole thing got an actual obit in the NYT.
Morning Brew: The beloved Texas gas station chain Buc-ee’s has been going into hyper-protective mode over its famous buck-toothed mascot. In a string of aggressive trademark lawsuits, the company has recently targeted a Missouri dog park called Barc-ee’s, a BBQ restaurant with a cartoon alligator, and an Ohio convenience store chain called Mickey’s. Buc-ee’s alleges that Mickey’s decades-old moose logo is a trademark violation because, much like their beaver, it also features a cartoon animal facing right with wide eyes and a smile.
User Mag: Anti-surveillance activism has taken a distinctly theatrical turn on social media, where Instagram influencer Noah Orion is fighting back against street-pole surveillance cameras by peeing on the ground next to them. Orion, who has also posted a fake cease-and-desist letter from camera company Flock Safety 16 separate times, recently escalated his campaign by offering to Venmo $50 to any fan who will go out and physically vandalize one of the cameras.
WHAT GOT MISSED?
CNN’s Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — MacKenzie Scott is set to release a novel, Stelter wrote today. That’s “intriguing” because Scott — the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos — is so private. Her decision to being “self-publishing an 80,000-word novel on a Substack newsletter account, bit by bit, all month long” is “rad,” even if no one is sure what the novel is really about… yet.
NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY
The Bulwark’s The Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — Kristol and Egger often know how to begin the week with a bang, and today’s newsletter is no exception. The GOP is “ignoring an abuser, covering up a sex trafficker, and confirming a ringleader,” they note, and thus creating a “ceremony of impotence.”
One example: colleagues of Rep. Max Miller, who faces serious allegations of domestic violence from his ex-wife, “are well aware of his behavior.” But that doesn’t seem to matter because “Miller wants to stay in the House and on the ballot,” and “President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson have stood by him,” and that means “House Republicans don’t want to deal with the matter.”
The GOP, it seems to Kristol and Egger, is just focused on winning despite any associated human cost — the Miller saga is one example of many.
This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.
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