A Fractured Media Unites on Dolly Parton: ‘Who Still Alive Can Bridge Those Divides?’

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TOP STORY

THE STORY THAT BROUGHT EVERYONE TOGETHER

Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean died Tuesday, Aug. 25, after being admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center last week. The cause of death was cancer, which she battled briefly. Parton’s death sent off shockwaves through so many communities that it was inevitable we’d begin our day looking back on her life, because so many of our newsletter authors did the same. That’s a One Sheet first: Parton may actually be the only person who can unite all of the newsletters: left, right, or in between. 

That is a remarkable feat anytime, but feels downright extraordinary in this political cycle — when it’s difficult to get members of opposing parties to see eye-to-eye — and both the GOP and Democrats are experiencing infighting and “civil wars.”

Parton, it seems to be agreed upon, was the rare person who managed to make nearly everyone happy. How else can you explain the wide-ranging takes and odes that flooded the inbox today? She did nearly everything right, it seems, and everyone wanted to talk about her. 

So, today, we’re going to let them.

THREE TAKES

OutKick, The Daily OutKick — Parton may have been best known as a songwriter and country singer, but her influence extended into the world of sports, at least in her home state of Tennessee. As OutKick’s authors put it, “Rocky Top is going to hit a little differently from now on.” Peyton Manning, one of the most well-known athletes to come from The Volunteer State, was quick to offer his reflections on Parton’s life: There was only one Dolly and I feel lucky to have known her. We’ll miss you, Dolly. Tennessee won’t be the same without her!” As OutKick put it, “Parton was so much more than a country music superstar. She was a philanthropist, an actress, a businesswoman and the rare celebrity who seemed impossible not to love.”

TheWrap, William Bibbiani — Parton was also “Hollywood’s most angelic movie star,” Bibbiani wrote Wednesday morning. Bibbiani also didn’t hold back in his effusive praise for the “Yellow Roses” singer. “After 80 years of making lovely music, giving away millions of free books and funding a COVID vaccine that currently runs through my veins, protecting me after she’s gone, Parton is — whether you believe in such things or not — as close to an angel as anyone could reasonably get,” he insisted. Parton, who starred in nine theatrical releases, brought “that angelic quality” to each of them. “She was a bright, funny, personable performer,” he noted, and her “down to earth, folksy willfulness was often deployed by filmmakers making pertinent points about cutting through modern, moralistic malarky.”

The Bulwark’s Morning Shots, Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger — Even Kristol and Egger seemed surprised they wrote about Parton today. The pair noted they weren’t able to speak to Parton’s illustrious music career, but “our forte is the value of liberalism and the importance of strong civic virtues” and “on these fronts, we feel more than comfortable reflecting on Parton.” As they put it, “She was universally beloved in an era where we’re encouraged to hate. She was loved by country music fans and drag queens alike. Who still alive can bridge those divides?” Kristol and Egger also noted The Bulwark is “home to a number of parents of young (and not so young) kids” who benefitted from Parton’s Imagination Library, which sent free books out to children through kindergarten, and was “a simple, profoundly generous act.”

“Elected officials spend their careers in the business of improving people’s lives and do far less,” they wrote. “Our modern-day elites devote their fortunes to rockets for themselves. We need more Dolly Partons in our lives these days, which is why it was so painful to hear that the one we had passed away.”

Honorable mentions: The Poynter Report,  The Free Press, and CNN’s Reliable Sources also offered their own tributes to Parton and her legacy.

TAKEAWAY: This is the very first time the One Sheet has seen the entire newsletter world in agreement on anything, and that’s why it’s our lead. It’s reassuring to know that so many of our newsletter authors couldn’t resist writing about Parton today, and everyone just wanted to celebrate and elevate her, and to offer a brief break from the never-ending slog of media and political disputes. Parton was the rare combination of talent, joy, looks, and wit that somehow transcended so much of the political and cultural dynamics that the rest of us just cannot. Even President Donald Trump couldn’t find a single negative thing to say about her. She was a true American icon — and everyone in the stack knows it.

📰 TOP SCOOPS & ANALYSIS 📰

SCOOP 🍨 Status, Oliver Darcy — The Athletic’s relationship with BetMGM expired earlier this year, and the outlet has been “searching for other potential partners in the space” since. The Athletic is reportedly circling a deal with “the controversial predictions markets company” Kalshi. The two companies are in “advanced talks” but haven’t inked a deal… and not everyone at The Athletic is happy about it. Staff is “anxiously awaiting details on what a potential partnership might look like,” and the six employees Darcy spoke to offered “mixed” takes. Some have “reservations about whether a Times-owned brand should be doing business with a legally fraught pseudo-gambling outfit,” while others are “taking a wait-and-see approach.”

SCOOP 🍨 Status, Oliver Darcy — Darcy was back with another scoop today. The second has to do with all things Bari Weiss and 60 Minutes: former Nightline executive producer Steve Baker “has been in talks with the Nick Bilton-helmed CBS News show to join in a senior position.” Though it’s “unclear what that role would be,” Darcy and Status previously reported “Bilton has been searching for top lieutenants,” including a “head of storytelling.” CBS News declined to comment to Darcy, who also noted, “I’m told Baker isn’t the only person in the running for the job. But Baker is well-regarded in TV news circles.”

SCOOP 🍨 CJR’s The Interview, Riddhi Setty — Setty has a great interview with Karen Attiah, who may be returning to The Washington Post after an arbiter ordered the outlet to reestablish her and give her back pay. Attiah was fired last year for comments she made following the shooting death of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. Attiah told Setty she “knew immediately” she would “fight back” against the dismissal “because it was so absurd.” She also saw arbitration as the fastest way to get “reinstatement and vindication that my job should never have been taken in that way.” And though Attiah is open to returning to the Post, she asked her own questions: “The question for the Post is: Are they going to follow the arbitration decision? They’ve said that they respect the process, but that’s a very different question than: Are they going to comply with the outcome?”

ANALYSIS 👀 The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — Journalist Catherine Herridge is in a legal battle and “hoping the Supreme Court will protect her from having to reveal her confidential sources.” If not, “she faces fines that could ruin her financially,” Jones wrote today. In 2017 Herridge wrote “a series of stories” about Chinese American scientist Yanping Chen, who “was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation.” Chen was never charged in relation to “allegations about her possible ties to China’s military or claims that a school she ran in Virginia secretly aided China.” Chen filed a lawsuit to attempt to find out who leaked her information and subpoenaed Herridge. In 2024, Herridge was ordered by a D.C. court to pay $800 per day that she refused. Jones wrote, “Herridge is arguing that she is just a witness in the case and it isn’t the role of a journalist to provide evidence against the government. However, many legal experts believe her petition will fail, and she faces the unenviable choice of paying $800 a day or going to jail for contempt.”

ANALYSIS 👀 POLITICO Playbook, Megan Messerly, Adam Wren, Dasha Burns, and Will Steakin — The president has “a branding issue,” Playbook wrote today. The success of Darline Graham, who won South Carolina’s Senate runoff Tuesday night, has brought a “renewed gravitas” to “the Trump brand,” but  his beef with Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who lost his own race last night, was “unusual.” Per Playbook, it turns out Trump’s borne enmity for Drummond because the latter didn’t support “a proposed $4 billion aluminum smelter” that “the president has touted as a centerpiece of his push to revive American manufacturing and reduce reliance on foreign steel and aluminum.” When you do the math, “yesterday’s runoffs represent the only motivating factor drawing the president’s engagement — and money — in the midterms: himself.”

ANALYSIS 👀  The Free Press, Aaron MacLean — It may be tempting to call “the ongoing conflict with Iran the Tantric War,” MacLean wrote Wednesday. He added, “From “a whole civilization will die tonight” in April to “economic D-Day” this week, strategic climaxes are promised, but ever deferred.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s newly announced Operation Economic Outcast has “suggested something more targeted, intelligence-driven, and discreet than the president’s beach-storming imagery had teased us to believe.” That doesn’t mean Bessent’s “secondary tariffs” won’t work, but “economic warfare takes time, and this new campaign will have to contend with a problematic asymmetry.”

📈BUSINESS OF MEDIA 🎥

Breaker, Lachlan Cartwright — The Nevada court’s release of thousands of sealed documents from Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch‘s family trust fight has exposed quite a few details. Among the revelations is that despite Lachlan providing assurances to trust representatives that “no such discussions, agreements or understandings” had occurred regarding the 2022 recombination of Fox and News Corp, Washoe County Probate Commissioner Edmund J. Gorman Jr. noted that he was confronted with evidence of an extensive deck with economic analysis that he had discussed with then-CFO John Nallen. The documents also contained silly mistakes, including trust managing director Bill O’Donnell confusing the Murdoch family with South Carolina murderer Alex Murdaugh, and PR director Siobhán McKenna confusing “PM” (biographer Paddy Manning) with the Prime Minister of Australia. QUOTE 📣 “In trying to block the documents’ publication, lawyers for Murdoch had claimed that the revelations would involve ‘a significant privacy interest’ and could adversely affect the company’s stock price, providing ‘substantial probability of harm.’”

Breaker, Lachlan Cartwright — Global Chief Communications and Marketing Officer Finola McDonnell is departing the Financial Times at the end of August after serving at the publication since 2018. McDonnell’s departure comes after another high-profile exit: FT strategy chief Nick Fallon was revealed to be on the way out a week ago. QUOTE 📣 “Newsroom insiders say the FT’s notoriously conservative owners, Nikkei, will be perturbed by the series of top departures under CEO Jon Slade, who only took over from the highly respected John Ridding when he left the top job after two decades last year…”

Axios Media Trends, Sara Fischer — Former Stars and Stripes editor-in-chief Erik Slavin claims that prior to a controversial chat with CBS News in early July, the Pentagon never raised an objection about his many media interviews. Slavin was fired on Friday for “insubordination” after stating in that interview that hypothetical censorship of the independent military publication would be a “red line” for him. Fired alongside Slavin were publisher Max Lederer and Middle East reporter Lara Korte, marking a major escalation in the Pentagon’s efforts to control press coverage after chief spokesperson Sean Parnell declared in January that the Department plans to “refocus” the paper’s content “away from woke distractions.” QUOTE 📣 Slavin said, “We have always reported to the highest standards of journalism,” he said.

Status, Oliver Darcy — Instagram chief Adam Mosseri went under oath in a high-stakes social media addiction trial on Tuesday, insisting he never asked his team to conceal or minimize information that could legally pose problems for parent company Meta, defending his leadership style, and claiming he has always encouraged his team to bring more, not less, information to him.  QUOTE 📣 “I want to understand how things work. I can’t think of any time that I’ve encouraged people to bring less information to me.”

Digiday Daily, Jim Cooper and Sara Jerde — USA Today Co. is testing different ways to reformat its website content for an audience of AI bots. The goal is to adapt to a new reality and secure lucrative AI licensing agreements. According to Kara Chiles, USA Today Co.’s senior vice president of product management, restructuring content formats and templates is a core part of the publisher’s larger “generative engine optimization” (GEO) strategy, designed to make its reporting easily discoverable, accessible, and citable by AI answer engines.

CNN Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter — Curating a new scoop in its “Briefly…” section, the newsletter highlights a Variety report that digital media network Crooked Media has finalized an acquisition deal to revive the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast. The popular program will return under this new banner, continuing to be hosted by Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and Galen Druke.

Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, Simon Owens — Digital publishers are learning that posting links on X has become an undesirable, useless option, as the platform’s algorithm penalizes outbound links and frustrates creators who treat it as a marketing channel. Despite Elon Musk‘s assertions that he wants to turn X into a serious YouTube competitor, very few creators view it as a serious cash generator due to a convoluted revenue share model and a severely depleted advertiser base. QUOTE 📣 “While it does maintain a revenue share program, it’s somewhat convoluted in how it allocates its payouts, and there’s also just not a lot of revenue to share, since Musk alienated most advertisers and a huge portion of the platform’s user base with his far-Right antics.”

OTHER COOL STUFF

Puck’s Line Sheet — Swiss luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer has reportedly stopped production on its smartwatch, with plans to phase out sales entirely by the end of 2027 — which isn’t surprising since even sales of the pretty-popular Apple Watch have been down for years. Is this the end of the smartwatch era? Was there even a smartwatch era?

Morning Brew — More news on wearables: Fitbit co-founder James Park is launching the “Luffu Link,” a screen-free, AI-powered wearable tracker meant to help people manage care of others, like aging parents. The $300 wristband tracks standard health metrics and allows users to send voice recordings about symptoms or medications directly to Luffu’s AI system, which automatically monitors changes in vital signs. So are wearables in or out? Does anyone know?

Page Six Hollywood — The name’s Barton, Jack Barton—and if you haven’t heard it, don’t be surprised if you do soon. The very-unknown British actor is a favorite in the high-stakes race to be the next James Bond. While the usual slate of famous men is being considered and screen tests are forthcoming, this guy (whose Wikipedia page exists, but barely) seems to be the top choice for now.

👀 WHAT GOT MISSED? 👀

POLITICO Playbook, Megan Messerly, Adam Wren, Dasha Burns, and Will Steakin — Despite some distance from members of the Democratic Party, former Vice President Kamala Harris “is being welcomed into one red state for the midterms,” Wren reported. Harris endorsed Chris Jones, who is running in Arkansas’ 2nd District. Harris “joins a growing list of 2028ers jumping into the race: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have also backed Jones.” It may just be a House race, but it’s a sign that Harris still wants to be a big player in the Democratic Party — and still is a big player.

🏆 NEWSLETTER OF THE DAY 🏆

The Poynter Report, Tom Jones — Asking any of our authors to take on the task of writing a tribute to Dolly Parton and also balancing that with news that needs to be understood, evaluated, and disseminated is no small thing. But it’s unsurprising that Jones was up to the task. In addition to his note about Parton, who he said “was the joy we could all agree on,” Jones also elevated the story of Herridge, and the joint statement released by Reuters and the Associated Press yesterday “demanding more answers from Israeli officials on the one-year anniversary of Israeli strikes in Gaza that killed five journalists, including journalists who worked for or contributed to the two news organizations.”

As if that isn’t enough, Jones waded into the controversy surrounding an op-ed written by former Duquesne Capital chairman and president Stanley F. Druckenmiller, whose essay in The Wall Street Journal is being questioned amid speculation he used AI to pen it.

This newsletter was produced by Lindsey Ellefson.