Associated Press: News Corp CEO Robert Thomson slammed Bertelsmann's deal to acquire Simon & Schuster. "Bertelsmann is not just buying a book publisher, but buying market dominance. This literary leviathan would have 70% of the US literary and general fiction...

The Information: Axel Springer, the German owner of Business Insider, is ready to take part in a second wave of consolidation in the US digital media market. Backed by its big new shareholder, private equity giant KKR, Axel Springer wants to spend 2021 on an expansion...

Business Insider: "The emergence of SPACs is an increasingly positive force for digital media. BuzzFeed, Vox, there are healthy, large-scale digital media companies that exist that have more or less given up on selling to big cable companies or other big media...

New Jersey Globe: Gannett is selling reprints of photos of a federal judge's home, possibly violating a newly-enacted state law as it markets images of the house where the judge's son was brutally slain last July. The website for Gannett and the USA Today Network is...

Orlando Sentinel: The Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel have launched community news funds to receive tax-deductible contributions for increasing news coverage. "The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated business trends that newspapers have long...

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Dan Puckett, 65, died on Thanksgiving, three days after being released from a San Antonio hospital with a positive Covid-19 test. Puckett was remembered across social media as journalists and former colleagues began to hear about his...

WWD: Conde Nast announced that Whembley Sewell, editor in chief of Them, will take charge of Love magazine, which will move from London to the US. Conde Nast plans to broaden the title's fashion-centric perspective "to highlight editorial opportunities that champion...

Awful Announcing: Sports Illustrated operator Maven has received a push from two key investors to make changes. B. Riley and 180 Degree Capital wrote a letter to the board urging "the company to pursue a new direction" and for the current board to...

Fox News: Politicians, celebrities and medical workers are among the newsmakers nominated for Time magazine's 2020 Person of the Year. Each year since 1928, Time has recognized the individual or group regarded as having had "the greatest influence on the events of the...

Digiday: With social distancing measures locked in through the end of 2020, the boozy, lavish holiday parties that used to define the middle weeks of December have been put on ice this year. In their place, employers are holding toasts over Zoom and sending care...

Financial Times: Bertelsmann is in pole position to buy Simon & Schuster, outbidding Rupert Murdoch's News Corp to strengthen its position as the world's biggest book publisher. The German owner of Penguin Random House was the highest bidder in a fiercely fought...

WWD: Now you can buy more than a desk calendar from The New Yorker. The magazine's new online store offers coffee mugs, pencils, notebooks, T-shirts, a hoodie, a beanie, and even a new baby onesie. But one thing you won’t find is a tote...

Digiday: Cosmopolitan's strategy for growing its audience of young women is growing its e-commerce business, according to editor-in-chief Jessica Pels. "This year for us has been [about] building additional new experiences that feel like promising areas of growth for...

MediaPost: One of the biggest surprises during the pandemic for Meredith magazine boss Doug Olson has been the rebound in newsstand sales despite the 10% decline in shopping trips that help drive impulse purchases at grocery checkouts. "Our numbers are...

TalkingBizNews: BuzzFeed News veteran Miriam Elder has been hired as executive editor of Vanity Fair's media, business and technology sub-section The Hive. "It's an incredible team and an incredible moment to shape coverage of our brave new world," she wrote on...

New York Post: TheLi.st — an oddly named, 10-year-old social network that has been linking successful women with up and comers — has been sold to New Power Media, headed by Ann Shoket, the author and one-time Seventeen magazine editor in...