Media

Axios reports: Hundreds of staffers at The Washington Post sent a letter to the newspaper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, on Wednesday urging him to meet with newsroom leaders amid a confidence crisis with the leadership. It’s the most drastic step staffers have taken to address the myriad challenges facing The Post over the past year. “We are deeply alarmed by recent …

The New York Times reports: A coalition of Canada’s biggest news organizations is suing OpenAI, the maker of the artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, accusing the company of illegally using their content in the first case of its kind in the country. Five of the country’s major news companies, including the publishers of its top newspapers, newswires and the national broadcaster, …

NBC News reports: Comcast is expected to announce a plan Wednesday to spin off its cable networks into a separate company, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News. The split would cleave off some of NBCUniversal’s best-known brands, including MSNBC, E!, Syfy, Golf Channel, USA, CNBC and Oxygen, which now face the same cord-cutting challenges as many other …

CNN reports: “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski announced Monday, in dramatic fashion, that they went to Mar-a-Lago last week for a fence-mending meeting with Trump. Then the pair spent the rest of the day dealing with the uncomfortable blowback. According to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they …

Mediaite reports: Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski opened Monday’s show with the stunning revelation that they had traveled to Florida to “meet personally” with President-elect Donald Trump on Friday in a bid to “restart communications” and set a “new approach” to their coverage of his incoming administration. Brzezinski began on Monday by acknowledging that many viewers, spanning …

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump on Sunday chose Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, naming a veteran Republican regulator who has publicly agreed with the incoming administration’s promises to slash regulation, go after Big Tech and punish TV networks for political bias. Mr. Carr, who currently sits on the commission, is expected …

The Wrap reports: On election night, MSNBC scored 6 million viewers compared to CNN’s 5.1 million. But in the days after the election, the network’s total day ratings fell to 808,000 with a 90,000 in the coveted 25-to-54 year old demo, according to Nielsen. That marks a 54% decrease in the network’s viewership average in the month of October (1.765 …

Jeff Bezos writes for the Washington Post: In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not …

The Washington Post reports: The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president. More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday …

CNN reports: For the first time in decades, The Washington Post will not endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election, the newspaper’s publisher announced Friday. “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election,” Will Lewis said in a published statement. “We are returning to our …

The Wrap reports: The Los Angeles Times has lost two more longtime editorial writers, the latest in a growing exodus to protest owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s interference with the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, TheWrap can exclusively report. On Thursday, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene both quit; their exits come just one day after Editorial Editor …

Semafor reports: The owner of the Los Angeles Times has blocked the paper from endorsing a candidate for president this year. Last week, the LA Times published its electoral endorsements for the 2024 election. And while the paper noted in its first line that it is “no exaggeration to say this may be the most consequential election in a generation,” …

CNN reports: Olivia Nuzzi has parted ways with New York magazine, the publication shared on Monday, after the star Washington correspondent was placed on leave last month over a previously undisclosed personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Last month, the magazine enlisted the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine to review Olivia Nuzzi’s work during the 2024 campaign. They reached …

Deadline Hollywood reports: Netflix Executive Chairman Reed Hastings is backing Kamala Harris‘s presidential campaign, while he reportedly has made a multimillion dollar donation to a super PAC supporting her campaign. Deadline has confirmed a report by The Information that Hastings had given a $7 million donation on the recommendation of another Silicon Valley megadonor, Reid Hoffman. Hastings posted on X/Twitter …

The Washington Post reports: Ruth Westheimer, a child survivor of the Holocaust who became known to millions as Dr. Ruth, the perky sex therapist whose frankness on her long-running radio and television call-in shows made her a go-to guide for tips on the art and science of lovemaking, died July 12 at her home in Manhattan. She was 96. Described …

The Washington Post reports: Smartmatic, the voting technology company enmeshed in complex defamation lawsuits against Fox News and Newsmax, has a powerful new financial ally: billionaire tech entrepreneur Reid Hoffman. Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, has made a multimillion-dollar investment intended in part to help the company sustain its costly litigation. Smartmatic has said the two news outlets smeared it …

Axios reports: Conservative TV network Newsmax said it’s planning to go public and launched a $225 million private placement. In an investor presentation, Newsmax quoted former President Donald Trump saying, “You like Newsmax, I like it too. Newsmax has been really good, people are watching it, it’s terrific.” The company said it plans to go public later this year or …

The Daily Beast reports: Two weeks after abruptly leaving pro-Trump streaming channel Right Side Broadcasting Network, MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s paramour Brian Glenn has resurfaced at yet another fringe outlet. This time, he is the national campaign correspondent for far-right cable network Real America’s Voice. Besides covering Trump’s campaign rallies for RAV, Glenn will host a show featuring Trump …

From the Justice Department: Andrew Wroblewski, the Assistant Director of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service Domestic Operations, announced the unsealing of an Indictment charging WEIDONG GUAN, a/k/a “Bill Guan,” the Chief Financial Officer of a multinational media company headquartered in New York City with participating in a transnational scheme to launder at least approximately $67 million of …

The Daily Beast reports: Eric Bolling, who parted ways with Fox News in 2017 amid sexual misconduct allegations, is now leaving the wannabe Fox News competitor he joined in 2021. Pro-Trump cable news channel Newsmax confirmed on Friday that Bolling had departed the network, noting that they had “mutually agreed” to end his primetime program The Balance. “Newsmax wishes Eric …