Tribune Publishing Adopts Poison Pill to Fend Off Takeover
Chicago Tribune: Tribune Publishing's board has adopted a so-called "poison pill" plan to thwart any potential hostile takeover of the company. The move follows the addition last month of Alden Global Capital co-founder Randall Smith to the newspaper company's...
News Corp to Pay Damages Over Paywalled News Preview
Press Gazette: The Times of London is being forced to pay damages after the headline and preview of an article seen by non-subscribers outside the newspaper's digital paywall made a "libelous imputation" about the former chief executive of an Islamic...
Hearst Braces for Results of Magazine Staffer Union Push
New York Post: Hearst magazine editorial workers will find out Wednesday if their months-long drive to be represented by the Writers Guild of America East has been successful. Company executives are said to be bracing for a major loss in Wednesday's...
Meredith Wins $12 Million Tax Break as Mag Manufacturer
Des Moines Register: Meredith doesn't just publish magazines. It manufactures them. That is the conclusion of a three-year legal battle that ended when attorneys for the US Department of Justice dropped an appeal against the Des Moines-based magazine...
Access Intelligence to Cut, Furlough Trade Media Staffers
@kerrymflynn: Access Intelligence, which owns B2B media brands including PRNews and AdExchanger, has announced a mix of layoffs and furloughs. Some 35 staffers were affected (about 16 percent of staff). Also, the magazine-industry trade publication Folio will be...
G/O Media Expats to Launch New Competitor to Deadspin
New York Times: The G/O Media journalists who took part in a staff rebellion at Deadspin last year are starting Defector Media, a company with a podcast and a website dedicated to sports and culture. Defector will offer subscriptions at $8 a month, with an annual...
Politico Deletes Report of Biden Naming Harris as VP Pick
Daily Caller: Politico published and quickly deleted a report saying Joe Biden had picked Kamala Harris as his running mate. The report, which featured a quote from Biden saying Harris was "a worthy opponent and a worthy running mate," has now been scrubbed from the...
Apple to Give Workers Paid Time Off to Vote in US Election
Bloomberg: Apple has told US employees they can take as many as four hours off with pay on Election Day to vote or volunteer at a polling place. The policy applies to retail employees and hourly workers and is similar to moves made by other...
Google to Extend Work-at-Home Order Until Summer 2021
Wall Street Journal: Google will keep its employees home until at least next July, making the search-engine giant the first major US corporation to formalize such an extended timetable in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. The move affects nearly 200,000...
AT&T’s Warner Bros to Stagger Rollout of Top Film ‘Tenet’
CNBC: "Tenet," which has been delayed a number of times due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, will debut on Aug. 26 internationally before opening in select cities in the US over the Labor Day weekend. This is an unusual move for such a high-profile...
Netflix Age Means Traditional TV Viewers Likely to Vanish
MediaPost: Though traditional linear TV continues to fall, one analyst believes things could get much worse. "We believe viewership, TV advertising and pay TV subscribers will not recover to their pre-crisis levels," says Bernstein Research's Todd Juenger. "Decline...
Publicis Media: Covid Crisis is Accelerating Shift to Digital
Which-50: Digital now accounts for more than half the world's advertising for the first time, according to new figures from Zenith, a subsidiary of the global giant Publicis Media, which also forecasts that ad spend will drop 9.1 percent this...
AT&T’s WarnerMedia Plots Internal Investigation of ‘Ellen’
Variety: "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" has become the subject of an internal investigation by WarnerMedia following accounts of workplace problems on the long-running daytime series. The move comes on the heels of recent unflattering...
Twitter Faces Boycott Over Rapper’s Anti-Semitic Tweets
CNBC: Twitter is facing a "walkout" over its handling of a string of anti-Semitic tweets that appeared on the account of British rapper Wiley. The 41-year-old London grime artist has been dropped by his management company, A-List...
Facebook CEO to Tell Congress Tech Success is Patriotic
Bloomberg: Mark Zuckerberg is prepared with what he sees as a compelling argument for lawmakers ready to grill him on antitrust issues: hindering American tech innovation helps China. Zuckerberg plans to portray his company as an American success...
Social Media Content Targeted by FCC in Push from Trump
MarketWatch: The Trump administration has moved forward with plans to regulate content on social-media platforms, asking US regulators to start overseeing how these platforms treat content. "Large online platforms appear to engage in selective...
Spotify New Podcaster Rogan Says He’s Fleeing California
The Hill: Joe Rogan announced on his popular podcast that he is moving from his longtime home of Los Angeles to Texas "soon" after months of hints, with the host citing overpopulation and "a little bit more freedom" for the...
Match Group Taps CBS Interactive Alum for CEO of Tinder
Wall Street Journal: Jim Lanzone, a former CEO of CBS Interactive, will be the new CEO of Match Group's flagship dating app Tinder at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is redefining the online dating industry. Lanzone will join the company Aug....
Fox Corp’s News Channel ‘Jeopardizes’ Trump Reelection
Washington Post: Fox News could end up playing a role in helping destroy President Trump's chances at reelection. Trump has relied on Fox as a positive feedback loop. The news channel's pundits could reinforce Trump's belief that his messaging is working for...
Sinclair Says It Won’t Air Fauci Conspiracy Theory Report
Associated Press: Sinclair Broadcast Group says it will not air a segment on its “America This Week” program in which a conspiracy theorist speculates about Dr. Anthony Fauci and the coronavirus. Over the weekend, Sinclair said it was delaying the story for a...
Scripps TV Stations Go Dark in Dispute with Dish Network
Fast Company: Dish Network customers are no strangers to sudden blackouts, but for many who had been eagerly awaiting the return of Major League Baseball games, this one has to hurt. Local TV stations owned by E.W. Scripps went dark on Dish and Dish-owned Sling...
New York Times’s New CEO Doesn’t Like the Term ‘Paper’
Nieman Lab: "What 'the paper' means is a journalism company that is not born of the digital age, that has legacies," says Meredith Kopit Levien, the newly named CEO of the New York Times. "Something like 3 million people listen to The Daily every day. [It's] a...
Belo Leads Local Media Push to Launch Digital Sports Site
Variety: The Local News Consortium, an alliance of local-media companies, plans to launch The Matchup, a new online sports news effort that aims to give fans of specific teams more news about them from a wider range of outlets than just those covering it...
Oprah to Host New TV Series of ‘Conversations’ for Apple
Reuters: Oprah Winfrey is returning to her talk show format with a new series on Apple TV+ in which she will discuss the topics of the day with prominent newsmakers. “The Oprah Conversation” will debut July...
Hearst Quietly Cuts Print Frequency of Several Magazines
WWD: Hearst is quietly reducing the print frequency of some of its major titles, including Cosmopolitan, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, and Marie Claire. Hearst is looking to monetize digital more though membership programs and metered...
Conde Nast Makes Plans to Target ‘Post-Covid’ Shopping
MediaPost: Allure is redesigning its magazine for a special November issue. The aim is to help readers sample and shop beauty products. Integration with the YouCam Makeup app means readers can use augmented reality to "try on" products in the magazine....
Vox Media’s Strategist Preps First Site-Wide Product Sale
WWD: Amazon’s decision to push back its annual Prime Day of online shopping deals may have created something of an e-commerce vacuum and The Strategist is looking to fill it, to the extent that it...
Group Nine Media to Team with Old Navy on New Clothes
WWD: PopSugar and Old Navy are partnering to launch a unisex clothing line for tweens, called PS x ON. The limited-edition collection "is definitely an extension of the PopSugar brand," says PopSugar boss Lisa Sugar. "Our optimistic, playful vibe comes...
Amazon, Apple, Facebook CEO US Hearing Faces a Delay
CNBC: The major Congressional hearing on competition in the US tech sector has been delayed two days to Wednesday. The antirust hearing is to feature Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar...
Apple to Shift Streaming Strategy After Tom Hanks Movie
Fast Company: The success of Tom Hanks's World War II drama "Greyhound" has catalyzed Apple's ambitions in feature films, which are now being amped up to almost Netflix-like levels. Going forward, the streamer is discussing plans to release a dozen new movies a...