Despite the daily bombast across cable news and YouTube, it seems that network anchors and political pundits can all come together — at least when it comes to toasting the media’s clout.
On Monday night, ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams’ site Mediaite brought together stars from Fox News, CNN, MS NOW, ABC News and CBS News, along with a cadre of top reporters, network executives and PR flacks. The crowd gathered in Abrams’ newest restaurant, the cozy Danny’s in Flatiron, to celebrate the site’s 2025 “Most Influential in News Media” list. (Abrams is also a restaurateur, behind spots like White Street and The Lion.)
Abrams told me he enjoys throwing the Mediaite party given the cast of characters who come out, which makes for, essentially, the biggest crossover episode in news. This year’s A-list attendees included Megyn Kelly, MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, ABC News’ David Muir and CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.
“I always love getting people from the right and left to party together,” Abrams said.
One almost couldn’t enter Danny’s without being stopped by a photographer, though I narrowly avoided one before trickling in just ahead of the New York Times’ DealBook founder and “Squawk Box” host Andrew Ross Sorkin. The restaurant’s lights were dim, but the TV star wattage was bright.
“CNN News Central” co-host Sara Sidner stood over at the end of the bar alongside CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten. Brzezinski and Scarborough, the “Morning Joe” co-hosts, held court beyond the restaurant’s archway, speaking to Abrams’ father, the 89-year-old veteran First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams. Scarborough introduced me to the elder Abrams, whose childhood photos adorned the restaurant’s walls, before Donald Trump fixer-turned-critic Michael Cohen interrupted to say hello.
Meanwhile, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum stopped to say hello to Collins, CNN’s chief White House correspondent. Later, Collins caught up with CBS News’ newly minted “Evening News” host Tony Dokoupil.
Dokoupil told me he wasn’t taking any time off between his final episode of “CBS Mornings” on Wednesday and his Jan. 5 “Evening News” debut, and he was excited to figure out the show alongside his audience. (MS NOW host Katy Tur, also on Mediaite’s list, reiterated to me her excitement about her husband shifting off the early morning CBS gig.)
No-shows from Mediaite’s 2025 list included exes Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza, the latter of whom posted his sixth part in his eight-part series on Monday detailing their break-up and Nuzzi’s relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Cable news network stars Jake Tapper, Bret Baier and Sean Hannity also missed the event, as did CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss. Abrams said the website invites everyone who appears on the list, though it’s usually a New York-based crowd that attends.
Muir, who leads the pack of evening-news hosts, drew a frenzied crowd of guests and PR flacks upon his arrival around 7:40 p.m., fresh off hosting “World News Tonight.” Also on hand: CNN commentator Scott Jennings, “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire, frequent NewsNation guest Bill O’Reilly and Jessica Tarlov of Fox News’s “The Five,” the cast of which topped Mediaite’s list.
Past the archway, Kelly — the host of “The Megyn Kelly Show,” who often uses her show to criticize members of the mainstream media – got into a jovial, extended conversation with a group that included her former Fox News colleague Brian Kilmeade.
Kelly, a regular Mediaite party attendee, told TheWrap that her former Fox family remains “such good friends.” She said she continued to frequent both the parties and Mediaite’s website due to her longstanding friendship with Dan Abrams, owing to their shared history covering the 2006 Duke Lacrosse sexual assault hoax. “Amongst my top 10 sites, it’s definitely in there,” she said.
Though even Mediaite couldn’t escape a slight tinge of her skepticism toward the media.
“I read it all the time,” she said. “I think up until recently, it’s skewed pretty left. It still skews pretty left, but a little less left these days than it has.”
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