 Cyma Zarghami |
Cyma Zarghami is stepping down as president of Nickelodeon Group. Zarghami, who joined Nickelodeon in 1985, has served as president since 2006. With her departure, the leadership of every Viacom cable network has changed hands since Bob Bakish became Viacom president and CEO in December 2016. Debra Lee, chairman and CEO of BET Networks, exited last week. While Viacom conducts a search for a successor to lead Nickelodeon, Sarah Levy, COO of Viacom Media Networks, will lead the network on an interim basis. Levy has had oversight of both Nickelodeon and BET since February. Viacom is currently in contentious merger negotiations with CBS.
 Gerard Baker |
Gerard Baker is leaving his post as editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal. Baker, who worked for the BBC, Financial Times and Times of London before coming to the Journal in 2009, is to remain with the paper as editor-at-large, with duties that will include writing a weekend column and hosting a Journal-themed show on the Fox Business Network. Baker will be replaced as editor-in-chief by Matt Murray, who has been with the Journal since 1994, most recently serving as executive editor. While Baker oversaw an upswing in readership at the Journal, he also came under fire from staffers for being soft on President Trump. There has also been a steady stream of reporters who have left the Journal to work for other papers, with 10 of them heading to the Washington Post.
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Bob Brody, a senior VP and media strategist at Powell Tate, has a new book out, in time for Father’s Day, that talks about mothers, fathers, parenting, work and growing up. “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age” expands on essays that Brody has written for the New York Times, Washington Post and Atlantic, among other publications. It describes his experiences of being raised by deaf parents, starting his own family and leaving the freelance world behind to enter the full-time workforce, “finally resembling an adult.” The book has been excerpted in Reader’s Digest, and is available on Amazon.
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.
