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Fox Broadcasting Company is facing a $30-million lawsuit from Muhammad Ali Enterprises over the “unauthorized use of Muhammad Ali’s identity” in a promotional video run just before Super Bowl LI. The complaint, filed in in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, claims that “Fox never requested or received MAE’s permission to use Ali’s identity or to imply his endorsement in connection with the services offered by Fox, including its broadcast of the Super Bowl.” The video intercuts images of Ali with shots of such NFL figures as Vince Lombardi, Tom Brady and Joe Namath, using the images of Ali “to define greatness and ultimately to compare the NFL legends to Ali and thus to define them and the Super Bowl as ‘greatness’ too.” Schiff Hardin LLP, the Chicago firm that won an $8.9 million verdict for Michael Jordan in 2015 over Sports Illustrated’s use of the NBA star’s “identity” in a limited edition publication, is representing Muhammad Ali Enterprises.
 Stephen Smith |
Stephen Smith is stepping down as National Journal’s editor-in-chief at the end of the year, at which time he will become senior editor for Atlantic Media. In that position, he will focus on special editorial projects for the parent company. Ben Pershing, currently National Journal’s managing editor, will assume Smith’s duties as editor of the company’s editorial products, National Journal Daily and Hotline. Smith was editor of National Journal when David G. Bradley, Chairman of Atlantic Media, purchased the company in 1997. He was asked to return two years ago. Pershing joined National Journal in 2014 as Washington editor and was promoted to managing editor in 2015.
 Troy Patterson |
The New Yorker has added Masha Gessen and Troy Patterson to its lineup of web columnists and is bringing on Adam Entous as a staff writer for both the magazine and newyorker.com. Gessen, author of “The Future is History, How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” has also written for such publications as The New York Review of Books and Vanity Fair. She will be writing on political subjects, both foreign and domestic. Patterson will be a cultural critic, writing primarily about television. He is currently the style editor at Bloomberg and previously wrote the “On Clothing” column for The New York Times Magazine. Entous will be joining The New Yorker early next year. He comes to the magazine from the Washington Post and was previously a national security correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
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