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Hearst is chopping 145 heads at newly acquired Rodale, publisher of such titles as Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Prevention and Bicycling. The New York media combine finalized the $220M Rodale deal on Jan. 2. Hearst notified local officials in Emmaus, PA, Rodale’s home base, and the Pennsylvania Department of Labor on the layoffs in a letter dated Jan. 11. All but one of the laid off employees will work through March 10, and Hearst assumed responsibility for pension and severance payments, sources said. In addition to the 145 people losing their jobs, Hearst will also get rid of the Rodale name.
 Sheryl Sandberg |
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are leaving the board of the Walt Disney Company, a statement from Disney said on Friday. The reason for the departure is the increasing level of conflicts of interest between the companies. As traditional cable becomes less popular, Disney has shifted its focus toward online delivery of its content, setting itself up as a competitor to Twitter and Facebook, which are also trying to attract audiences to video content on their platforms. "Given our evolving business and the businesses Ms. Sandberg and Mr. Dorsey are in, it has become increasingly difficult for them to avoid conflicts relating to Board matters, and they are not standing for re-election," the statement from Disney said.
 Lizzie Crocker |
Lizzie Crocker has left The Daily Beast after plagiarism allegations against her were confirmed by the site, according to a report on The Wrap. In a piece entitled “How Katie Roiphe Became Feminism’s Nemesis-in-Chief,” Crocker lifted a considerable amount of copy from an article on the same topic written by Alice B. Lloyd for the Weekly Standard. Both articles addressed the controversy surrounding an upcoming article written for Harper’s Magazine by Roiphe which was allegedly going to reveal the author of the “Shitty Media Men” list that has been making the rounds of the publishing and entertainment industries. Moira Donegan, the list’s creator, revealed her identity in a piece for The Cut. The issue first came to light through a series of Twitter posts by Thomas Chatterton Williams, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, which showed several examples of Crocker using Lloyd’s material. “We take plagiarism seriously, and will not allow the hard-earned trust we’ve built with our millions of loyal readers to be compromised,” Daily Beast editor-in-chief John Avalon said in a statement to The Wrap. A notice on the site tells readers “The story published about author Katie Roiphe violated The Daily Beast’s Code of Ethics and Standards and has been removed.”
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
Trump Media & Technology Group is discussing a spin-off of the Truth Social platform following the expected closing of its $6B merger deal with TAE Technologies... Condé Nast sells off Them, the digital LGBTQ-focused platform it launched in 2017, to Equalpride, publisher of Out, The Advocate, Out Traveler, Health PLUS Wellness and Pride.com... CBS News has parted ways with longevity influencer Peter Attia, one of the 19 contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss brought on as part of her plan to present a wider variety of voices on the platform. 
Symbolic.ai forms a partnership with News Corp to begin using the company’s AI-native publisher platform in the newsrooms of News Corp publications to augment research, writing and publishing... Mediaite launches a newsletter that promises to give readers a summary of—media newsletters... The Fund for American Studies launches the Journalism Excellence Fellowship, a program that will provide promising young journalists the opportunity to work alongside top writers, reporters, and media professionals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
