Tammy Haddad, the CEO of Haddad Media and co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of WHCInsider.com, is launching a new podcast called Cone of Silence. The podcast will serve as an extension of the White House Correspondents Insider channel on Apple Podcasts and AudioBoom.

Cone of Silence was inspired in part by Amanda Katz, one of the top editors at CNN.com, with the idea of sharing how things really work behind the scenes — from presidential campaigns or television comedies, to any of the out-of-sight things going on today in politics, business, entertainment, and technology.  

Haddad’s first guest — who she interviewed this week in LA leading up to the Emmys — is David Mandel, the award-winning executive producer and showrunner of HBO’s Veep. Mandel’s comedy career began at Comedy Central and Saturday Night Live. Mandel went on to produce some of the greatest comedy hits of our time, including Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Veep (since taking over in Season 5).

In the first episode of Cone of Silence, Haddad gets the inside scoop on how the Veep team put together the last season and created the incredibly fitting finale (be warned: spoilers!). 

Haddad and Mandel also discuss what it’s like to work (twice) with the amazing Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and what it takes to stay on top of the comedy game. Plus, they share how Veep always seems to be ahead of the news cycle (we’re talking Washington insiders!).

Don’t miss the first episode of Cone of Silence. Available on Apple Podcasts and AudioBoom.

Gray Television’s Show Debut also Includes Exclusive Interview with former NFL Head Coach Tony Dungy

Washington, D.C. – Gray Television’s “Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren” premiere today welcomed Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard and former NFL head coach Tony Dungy. Joining Ms. Van Susteren with reports from the field were Teri Russell from KOLO in Reno, Nevada, and Nick Ochsner from WBTV in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Gray’s Chief National Political Analyst, Greta Van Susteren, interviewed Tulsi Gabbard on a number of topics including the current effort by the House Judiciary Committee to vote to define the impeachment investigation of President Trump, the Democratic National Committee (DNC)’s decision to exclude her from the upcoming debate and a variety of other topics. This is the first time Gabbard has commented on the House Judiciary Committee’s effort on impeachment.

Watch Greta’s full-length interview with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on Full Court Press Overtime.

Van Susteren: Congress is coming back this week, and the House Judiciary Committee is planning on voting on an expanded impeachment inquiry. Do you support this?

Gabbard: I don’t. I think it’s important for us to think about what’s in the best interest of the country and the American people. Continuing to pursue impeachment is something that I think will only further tear our country apart… We need to defeat Donald Trump, and I think it’s important for our country’s sake and our future that the voters in this country are the ones who do that, and I believe that we will.

“Full Court Press” is a Sunday political show broadcast on all of Gray’s 93 markets and syndicated in leading cities including New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles covering 76% of the country. Greta Van Susteren joined Gray Television as an anchor and political analyst in April 2019. 

For further information on channel listings and upcoming showtimes, please visit FullCourtGreta.com. Be sure to check out “Full Court Press-Overtime” on Gray’s digital platforms for extended interviews and additional related news content. 

Greta Van Susteren is back and bringing local news to Washington opinionmakers. Gray Television announced today that “Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren,” it’s new weekly syndicated Sunday political show, is set to air on Sunday, September 8th. Gray’s Chief National Political Analyst, Greta Van Susteren, will host and moderate the show from Washington, D.C.

“Full Court Press” will premiere in more than 76% of the country including all of Gray’s 93 markets as well as New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

The first episode will feature Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard as Greta’s first guest.

“Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren” is bringing politics home to highlight how Americans are affected by Washington policy decisions through headliner interviews as well as on-the-ground reports. The show will tap a broad bench of Gray Television journalists, creating the Full Court Press correspondents team to report from the communities where they live.

Gray will also launch a new OTT and social media show, “Full Court Press-Overtime” to provide viewers and users more critical content to explore all sides of a complex issue.

“It’s a perfect time to highlight politics through the local lens as viewers rank local news as their most trusted source. We look forward to Greta bringing her firm but tough approach to broadcast television,” Sandy Breland, Gray Television’s Senior Vice President for Local Media.

Click here for channel listings and showtimes, please visit FullCourtGreta.com.

Painting the watch bands at the Shinola Watch Factory in Detroit

Shinola was originally a brand of shoe polish made by the American Chemistry Corporation in the 1930s and now it is a leading global watch manufacturer. The defunct name was part of an informal lexicon carried through the generations with the oft quoted phrase, “you don’t know shit from Shinola.” The utterance of which inspired the founder, Tom Kartsois, to purchase the name and make it their own brand. But the purpose of founding Shinola was to create 100 jobs in Detroit. They first took 4 months to be trained by Rhoda AG, an independent Swiss watchmaker. Now Shinola employs 300 people. They also hire students from the CCS school. Tom Forrest, Shinola’s Brand Ambassador says he can feel the creative energy and it’s part of what makes the culture of Shinola unique.

Shinola headquarters is located in the Argonaut building in Detroit. The building has a history of its own; the GE commissioned Albert Khan office building was a research laboratory, the birthplace of the Model A. GE gave the building to the College of Creative Sciences. On the 5th floor of that design school there is a watch factory called Shinola. Before touring the factory, we sat down with the founder, Tom Kartsotis. He told us the story of Shinola, and their development: the first product was a watch. The second product was a bicycle. The second product was really important to them because they needed to keep the momentum going. Shinola partnered with the last remaining Schwinn workshop in Wisconsin to produce the “Runwell” bike. The bikes were not made a headquarters, but the watches were. Upstairs in a glass wall climate controlled lab, our tour guide pointed to each person, their name, and explained to us what part of the watchmaking process that person was handling. Technicians wore white coats and paper hair nets, it looked a bit like a chemistry setup. On the other side of the floor we toured the rest of the factory.

Downstairs, we visited a mock up store in the middle of the 5th floor, complete with orange Christmas trees seen in stores around the holidays because Shinola believes the store experience is key to their brand.

Shinola Watch factory

Bolts of leather for watch straps

As for the watches, Larry, our guide, explained that there are four components to a leather watch strap, brought together to be both flexible and durable. He showed us how the four leather parts are integrated at each stage of the process. Each part is administered by a different technician, by hand. On this side, the technicians wore long blue coats with white Shinola lettering. The employees were happy to let us watch them at work and show us what they were doing; it is clear that from the top down Shinola is committed to craftsmanship. The products also have a strong visual appeal and that is in part due to the creativity of these employees in Detroit. Shinola headquarters was less like a watch factory and more like a studio- the care and skill of these workers is an exciting part of this new era of American manufacturing.

Tammy Haddad, Megan Murphy, Shinola Brand Ambassador and Larry tour the Shinola Factory in Detroit

This is my first visit to a factory and this is a happy one with smiling employees, the smell of leather and the clang of machines punching holes in the leather straps to make Shinola’s global customers part of the re-emergence of Detroit.

On Tuesday, June 11th, David Chavern, President & CEO of the News Media Alliance, testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law to advocate for The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (H.R. 2054).

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act aims to provide a safe harbor from antitrust laws to allow news publishers to collectively negotiate with tech companies like Google and Facebook.

According to Chavern’s testimony, “ 93% of Americans get at least some of their news online.” However, he continued:

“The result of the tech platforms’ regulation of the news industry has been to siphon revenue away from news organizations. This trend is clear if you compare the growth in Google’s total advertising revenue to the decline in the newspaper industry’s ad revenue. In 2004, Google’s US revenue (which came overwhelmingly from digital advertising) was $2.1 billion, while the newspaper industry accounted for $48 billion of advertising revenue. In 2017, in contrast, Google’s US revenue had increased over twenty-five times to $52.4 billion, while the newspaper industry’s ad revenue had fallen 65% to $16.4 billion.”

Read David’s full testimony here.

The News Media Alliance’s ultimate goal is to “work with online platforms to give Americans the best news content and experience possible” while also “return[ing] value to the great and important journalists who create the news content on which we all depend.”

In addition to Chavern, other witnesses included: Mr. Gene Kimmelman, President, Public Knowledge; Ms. Sally Hubbard, Director of Enforcement Strategy, Open Markets Institute; Mr. Matthew Schruers, Vice President, Law and Policy, Computer and Communications Industry Association; Mr. David Pitofsky, General Counsel, News Corp; and Mr. Kevin Riley, Editor, Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Senate announced its version of the bill (S. 1700) on June 4 and is co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

Watch the full hearing here.

The News Media Alliance and President & CEO David Chavern held a Congressional briefing on Capitol Hill on Monday, June 3rd, alongside co-sponsors Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) and Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) to highlight the fight for the business of news against tech giants Google and Facebook. Axios’s Mike Allen and Jonathan Swann shared why they have moved from traditional media to web-based.

Here are the highlights:

Until now, the Google/Facebook Duopoly has dominated internet traffic and content prioritization using proprietary algorithms and leveraging news organizations without paying a fair price for quality content. According to the News Media Alliance, the Duopoly captures 90 percent of all digital ad revenue growth and approximately 60 percent of total U.S. digital advertising. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act aims to provide a safe harbor from antitrust laws to allow news publishers to collectively negotiate with tech companies like Google and Facebook.

Rep. Doug Collins—who originally introduced the successful Music Modernization Act of 2018, which brought music licensing its first meaningful update in almost 20 years—said at Monday’s briefing:  “Twenty percent of the newspapers have closed in the last 15 years—1,800 papers since 2004. Rural communities have seen more than 500 local newspapers close or merge since then. Almost 200 counties in the country have no local newspaper, and half of the 3,143 counties have only one newspaper…If we’re going to solve [problems] and look to the future, this kind of legislation…has to say ‘how are we going to fix this in the next 5, 10, 15 years?’”

Rep. David Cicilline, Chairman of the Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, said, “This is a really important issue for everyone in our country because we all recognize that our democracy is strongest when we have a free and diverse press.”  He continued, “Last year, Facebook and Google amassed more than $60 billion from online advertising…and despite record levels of online readership, news publishers have seen a steep decline in revenue during the rise of these technology giants. The bottleneck is bleeding news publishers dry.”

Chavern moderated a panel discussion with Toni Bush (News Corp), Nicole Carroll (USA TODAY), Jonathan Kanter (Paul Weiss), and Neil Patel (Daily Caller).

Today, the Senate announced its version of the same bill (S. 1700). U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) has teamed up with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a presidential contender, in sponsoring the bill.

“We are thrilled that two bipartisan leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee have championed this legislation, which speaks to its widely understood importance,” said Chavern.

A hearing will be held next week on the House bill, H.R. 2054.

Rachel Greenberg, the host of Volta Insider, interviewing Jay Leno on the red carpet of the 2019 White House Correspondents’ Garden Brunch

In the latest episodes of Volta Insider, Rachel Greenberg finds inspiration at the 2019 White House Correspondents’ Garden Brunch. The three new episodes each feature a different message that will inspire you to be more fearless, serve others, and help you to encourage the young women in your life to raise their hand and use their voice.

Greenberg spoke with Jean Case, author of “Be Fearless” about what steps we can each take in our lives to be more fearless both personally and professionally. Find out what being fearless means to MSNBC anchors Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle, activist and makeup artist Bailey Bolden, actor Michael Kelly, and US Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, Lt. Gen. Gwen Bingham. LTG Bingham took home the “Be Fearless” award at this year’s Garden Brunch.

Lt. Gen. Gwen Bingham, Don Lemon and Alice Tapper at the 2019 White House Correspondents’ Garden Brunch. Alice Paul Tapper is the author of the book “Raise Your Hand”

The next podcast is with Alice Paul Tapper, Girl Scout and author of the book “Raise Your Hand.” When Alice noticed girls in her class – including herself – weren’t raising their hands as often as the boys, she talked to her mom about it who suggested Alice bring it up with her Girl Scout Troop. She did, and now there is a new patch which Girl Scouts earn for participating in events and activities.

The third podcast is with legendary comedian and TV host Jay Leno who was at this year’s Garden Brunch to help honor veterans. He shared how we can all do our part to support veterans and military families. 

In partnership with Wells Fargo and the Military Warriors Support Foundation, Leno surprised Purple Heart recipient, U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant Angela Morales-Biggs of Manassas, Virginia, with the WHC Garden Brunch Champions of Freedom Award and the keys to a brand new, payment-free Nissan Pathfinder from Jones Junction Auto Group.

Subscribe to Volta Insider on iTunes here.

Follow Rachel Greenberg on Twitter @VoltaInsider 

Politico’s Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer react to a question from Uber’s Danielle Burr

Uber’s Head of Federal Affairs, Danielle Burr, turned the media tables on Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer to take the audience behind the scenes on their reporting for their new book, The Hill to Die On: The Battle for Congress and the Future of Trump’s America.

Burr asked about how The Hill to Die On authors were able to show Capitol Hill from the inside out. Sherman and Palmer described how they reported, including listening to member conference calls. They profiled legislative leaders — and their staffs — through these secret conversations, describing the power struggles that fuel Congressional politics.

Guests included: Greta Van Susteren and John Coale, Microsoft VP Fred Humphries, Uber’s Susan Hendrick, The Washington Post’s Kris Coratti, Bloomberg’s Craig Gordon, NRCC Executive Director Parker Poling, Variety’s Ted Johnson, VICE’s Shawna Thomas, Speaker Pelosi’s Chief of Staff Robert Edmonson, Rep. Will Herd’s COS John Byers, Rep. Dan Kildee’s COS Mitchell Rivard, and Minority Leader McCarthy’s Policy Chief, Will Dunham.