AT&T CEO Calls for Scrutiny of Tech Giants Over Apps
Wall Street Journal: Tech giants like Amazon and Apple should be scrutinized for their power to restrict the kinds of apps and services allowed on their platforms, says AT&T CEO John Stankey. HBO Max has been hemmed in for months by disagreements with Amazon and...
Fox Corp’s News Channel ‘Takes a Pass’ on Biden Story
Mediaite: Fox News was first approached by Rudy Giuliani to report on files alleged to have come from Hunter Biden's unclaimed laptop left at a computer repair shop, but that the news division chose not to run the story unless or until the sourcing and veracity of the...
News Corp’s Biden Story is Russian Disinfo, Officials Say
Politico: More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden's son "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." Their...
Study: Younger Americans Easily Fooled by Fake News
USA Today: College students are prone to being deceived online, says a new study from researchers at Stanford University. Most sophomores, juniors and seniors were easily fooled by misinformation, even when they were given the time and resources to fact-check the...
ViacomCBS Plans Stephen Colbert Election Night Show
CBS Los Angeles: Late-night host Stephen Colbert will return to Showtime to host another live election night special. “Stephen Colbert’s Election Night 2020: Democracy’s Last Stand: Building Back America Great Again Better 2020” will air Tuesday, November 3 at 11 p.m....
AT&T’s Warner Bros TV Names Netflix VP as New Chief
Reuters: Channing Dungey will take over as chairwoman of Warner Bros. Television Group, replacing veteran television executive Peter Roth, who will step down next year. Dungey, who is currently vice president of Original Series at Netflix, has previously worked at...
iHeartMedia’s Rush Limbaugh Talks of ‘Death Sentence’
Fox News: Cancer-stricken talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh provided listeners a somber update on his condition Monday after recent scans showed “some progression of cancer,” which he said is “not dramatic” but still a step in the wrong...
News Corp Turns to Street Criers to Help Protest Twitter
New York Post: The New York Post's Twitter account was frozen in the wake of its report on Hunter Biden’s e-mails, so it turned to an old-fashioned form of getting the word out: Street criers. "Our hearty band of newshounds started spreading the news early...
McClatchy Seeks to Tie Journalist Pay to Online Clicks
Sacramento Business Journal: Employees of the Sacramento Bee and their union say they are fighting an effort by owner McClatchy to base employee performance reviews on the popularity of their stories as measured by clicks. “This proposal should be troubling to...
Conde Nast Suspends Reporter for ‘Mistake’ on Zoom
Vice: The New Yorker has suspended reporter Jeffrey Toobin for "an embarrassingly stupid mistake" on a Zoom video chat between members of the magazine and WNYC radio last week. Toobin says he did not realize his video was on. "I believed I was not visible on...
Penske’s Rolling Stone Endorses Biden for President
TheHill: Rolling Stone magazine has endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president, saying in a piece on Monday that the US has lived “under a man categorically unfit to be president” for the last four years. “Joe Biden is Donald Trump’s opposite in nearly every...
Guardian Former CEO Launches Digital Branding Firm
Campaign: David Pemsel, former CEO of the Guardian Media Group, has teamed up with Julietta Dexter, founder of PR agency The Communications Store, to set up a digital branding agency called ScienceMagic. Pemsel will lead the business as chief...
Digiday Hires Former Adweek Head as Editor in Chief
Talking Biz News: Jim Cooper has been named editor in chief of Digiday, which covers the media industry. He replaces Brian Morrissey, who left last month. Cooper will lead Digiday's "tradition of high quality, honest and independent journalism for the media and...
Bustle Digital Staffers Join Media Push to Form Union
WWD: Staffers at Bustle Digital Group are forming a union with the Writers Guild of America East. A number of employees at brands including Bustle, Nylon, Input, Romper, Elite and The Zoe Report signed union cards last week and the company has been informed of the...
Group Nine Invests in Pet Insurance for New Revenue
Wall Street Journal: The Dodo, the animal-centric video brand of Group Nine Media, has built an audience of more than 90 million followers across social media platforms. Now it is getting into pet insurance. Group Nine has taken a minority stake in Petplan, a pet...
Facebook CEO Emerges as Active US Political Operator
Wall Street Journal: Mark Zuckerberg has dined with President Trump, talks regularly with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, and has pressed lawmakers and officials to scrutinize rivals including TikTok and Apple. Zuckerberg's new moves are part of an effort to...
Twitter Backtracks on Sharing Story by New York Post
CNBC: Twitter has reversed its controversial editorial decision to block users from sharing a New York Post story that claims to show “smoking gun” emails related to Joe Biden and his son. The company and rival Facebook made the decisions to block or limit the...
Netflix Says ‘Ratched’ is Streamer’s Top Series of 2020
Business Insider: Ryan Murphy's "Ratched" was watched by 48 million members in its first 28 days, making it Netflx's biggest original first season of the year. It's the first genuine Netflix hit for Murphy after he struck a deal worth up to $300 million with the...
Disney Gets Offers to Acquire Sidelined Streamer Hulu
Bloomberg: Some outsiders have concluded that Disney's interest in Hulu might be waning. Earlier this year, Comcast's NBCUniversal approached Disney about acquiring the service, or operating it as a partnership. So did a number of private equity firms. Disney...
AT&T’s WarnerMedia TV Chief to Exit During Transition
Reuters: Veteran television executive Peter Roth will leave his job as chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group in 2021, the AT&T-owned studio said in a statement. Roth "felt that this was the right time to transition in a new leader for the...
WPP Chief Says Ad Giant Looking to Make Acquisitions
Financial Times: WPP has rediscovered its appetite for acquisitions, according to CEO Mark Read, who has sought to repair the advertising group's finances and make it fit for the digital age. WPP was built through two decades of dealmaking under Read's predecessor,...
Comcast’s NBC Deflects Critics with Savannah Guthrie
Associated Press: Savannah Guthrie did more than just display her journalistic chops at NBC News's town hall with President Trump. She changed the subject for her bosses. NBC was reeling heading into event, under widespread criticism for scheduling it at the same time...
ViacomCBS Taps MTV Studio for Election Night on CBS
Associated Press: CBS News is building a new high-tech election night set in the Times Square studio where MTV's "Total Request Live" ruled the music world two decades ago. The set, at the ViacomCBS headquarters on Broadway, highlights modern wizardry like "augmented...
Sinclair Broadcast to Host Trump Town Hall on Local TV
Baltimore Sun: Sinclair Broadcast Group, the TV station owner and operator, will host a Wednesday town hall with President Trump at the White House to be shown on the company's nationwide network of stations. Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host, will...
Fox Corp Exports Global News Streamer to 15 Countries
Media Play News: Fox News Media's international streaming platform expanded its distribution in Europe to include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden. That brings the total number of countries where...
News Corp Insiders Scoff at ‘Flimsy’ Hunter Biden Story
New York: The New York Post’s own journalists say they are skeptical of the newspaper's stories about Hunter Biden, including the man who wrote most of the "smoking gun" story and would not put his name on it. Since Wednesday, the Post has published more than 50...
Gannett Eclipsed by Network of Pay-for-Play News Sites
New York Times: A network of nearly 1,300 websites -- more than twice as many sites as Gannett -- aims to fill a void left by vanishing local US newspapers. But behind the scenes, many of the stories are directed by political groups and corporate PR firms to promote a...
Belo Staffers Win Union Election at Flagship Newspaper
Dallas Morning News: Journalists at the Dallas Morning News and Al Día have won the right to negotiate as a group for a union contract governing their pay and working conditions. The National Relations Labor Board in Fort Worth said newsroom employees voted 84-28 in...
Lee Enterprises Job Cuts Reach Its Largest Newspaper
St Louis Business Journal: Lee Enterprises has been laying off staff for weeks. Now the cutting has reached its largest newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A Post-Dispatch spokeswoman confirmed that the newspaper recently laid off one newsroom...
Conde Nast to Make Masthead Changes After Cost Cuts
WWD: Conde Nast-owned Vogue and Glamour have quietly updated their mastheads recently. The moves come against the backdrop of recent cost cutting at Conde in the midst of the pandemic, which weighed heavily on ad...