 Harvey Weinstein |
The Weinstein Co. has reached an agreement with its unsecured creditors that clears the way for Lantern Capital to acquire the company. TWC declared bankruptcy in March. The unsecured creditors’ committee represents accusers of former TWC head Harvey Weinstein, among others. The agreement will remove the need for further litigation, and ensures the close of the sale. TWC and Lantern said the sale price would be $289 million, down $21 million from the initial $310 million price. The companies had previously considered a $23 million price cut. While the deal was expected to close last month, Lantern reportedly got cold feet, and has since claimed that TWC misled it. The sale is expected to close next week, contingent on its approval at a bankruptcy court hearing scheduled for July 11.
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Tariffs are taking a hit at the U.S. newspaper industry. Tariffs being levied on the Canadian paper used to make newsprint are hiking costs for many U.S. newspapers, putting an additional squeeze on an industry that is already hurting. In January, duties of from 4.42 percent to 9.93 percent were levied after the U.S. Commerce Department made a preliminary determination that Canadian paper suppliers had received financial assistance from the country’s government. A Commerce Department finding in June added another 22.16 percent to the price tag of paper from some Canadian paper producers and exporters. The hikes are leading to cutbacks in other areas of some publishers’ business—particularly when it comes to payroll. The Tampa Bay Times has said it is cutting about 50 jobs to compensate for what it says is an additional $3.5 million in expenditures on paper.
 Ed Schultz |
Ed Schultz, who hosted “The Ed Show” on MSNBC from 2009 to 2015, died on Thursday at his Washington, D.C. home. While Schultz started out hosting a conservative radio show in Fargo, N.D., he announced that he was a Democrat in 2000, subsequently moving his show toward a more left-wing, though staunchly middle-class, point of view. By 2005, he was hosting a liberal-leaning radio show funded by Democracy Radio, a New York nonprofit. At MSNBC he joined a lineup that included such liberal stalwarts as Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. After MSNBC canceled “The Ed Show,” Schultz joined Russian-government backed news outlet Russia Today, hosting a prime-time program called “News with Ed,” which was still on the RT lineup at the time of his death. Russia Today was forced to register as a foreign agent earlier this year. “We are devastated by the news of the sudden death of our brilliant anchor, one of the best TV journalists in America, Ed Schultz,” RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said in a statement. Schultz was 64.
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.
