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Five female reporters have resigned following the return of Newsweek chief content officer Dayan Candappa. Candappa was suspended Jan. 29 following allegations of sexual misconduct while serving as Americas editor at Reuters. Newsweek Media Group was allegedly unaware of those allegations when they hired Candappa in 2016. According to the New York Post, an investigation conducted by law firm Orrick Herrington and Sutcliffe said that there was “no evidence to substantiate the claims made against Mr. Candappa while at Reuters.” The resignation of the five reporters comes as a steady stream of editors and reporters are heading for the exits at the troubled magazine. Editor-in-chief Bob Roe, executive news director Kenneth Li and reporter Celeste Katz were all let go after having been involved in coverage of Newsweek’s current financial and legal difficulties. Those difficulties stem from alleged ties between NMG and Olivet University, a Christian college, and its leader, South Korean pastor David Jang. Following those firings, senior writer Matthew Cooper quit in protest, criticizing NMG for its “reckless leadership” on his way out the door. NMG co-owner Etienne Uzac and finance director Marion Kim, Uzac’s wife, stepped down earlier this month.
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Several dozen CNN Digital employees are set to lose their jobs in a re-structuring and re-organization of several departments at the network. According to a report in Vanity Fair, the changes will affect employees who work for divisions including CNN Money, video, tech and social publishing. In addition, the company will be paring down such digital endeavors as virtual reality productions and its efforts on Snapchat, where it recently axed a live daily webcast four months into its run. “Not every new project has paid off so we will stop some activities in order to reallocate those resources and enable future experimentation,” a CNN spokesman said in part in a statement. Despite coming in at $20 million under its 2017 revenue targets, CNN Digital remains profitable, generating $370 million in revenue for the year. CNN currently has more than 600 employees in its digital operations. The cuts, which should affect less than 10 percent of that workforce, are expected to come by the end of the week.
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Amazon.com has named NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke head of Amazon Studios, its movie and television unit. Salke takes over following the resignation of Roy Price amid sexual misconduct allegations. Her new position at Amazon will mark the first time she has run a world-wide digital business or worked in movies. At NBC, she spearheaded the development of such shows as the drama “This Is Us” and the comedy “The Good Place,” as well as overseeing Universal Television, NBCUniversal’s production studio. Before coming to NBC, she was a television executive at 21st Century Fox. Amazon Studios has an annual budget of more than $4.5 billion, according to people at the company, and while it has produced such successful films as “The Big Sick” and “Manchester by the Sea,” it is looking for greater traction in the television series sector. According to Variety, Salke plans to remain at NBC during a transition period.
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.
Michael Kaminer, who was responsible for the Observer’s “Power List” for the past 13 years, has cut ties with the publication... The New York Times Company continues the march toward its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is providing more than $6 million in funding to eight organizations working to address the challenges local news and information environments face along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Conservative outlets Fox News, Newsmax and the Daily Caller are holding back from signing Pete Hegseth’s edict restricting press access in the Pentagon... CBS News sees the first executive departure of the Bari Weiss era as head of standards and practices Claudia Milne exits... Indiana University shuts down the print version of The Indiana Daily Student.
Rothschild family plans to unload 26.7 percent stake in The Economist... STAT, a digital media company that focuses the life sciences, brings back Damian Garde, who anchored its biotech newsletter and podcast from 2016 to 2024... High Times officially resumes print publication (following its 2024 shutdown) with the release of a limited-edition, collectible 50th anniversary issue. 
CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her site for $155M... C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence... A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low.
