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Condé Nast, facing losses that the New York Times says amounted to $120 million last year, is preparing to put three of its titles—Brides, W and Golf Digest—up for sale. Condé Nast CEO Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr. is scheduled to discuss the company’s plans with senior staff members on Aug. 8. After shutting down Details as well as the print editions of both Self and Teen Vogue, with a resultant loss of 80 employees, the publisher is now considering an additional series of cost-cutting moves to stem the flow of red ink. According to the Times, it is planning to lease six of the 23 floors that it occupies at 1 World Trade Center, where it has been headquartered since 2015. In addition, the company has already combined the research and photo departments of several of its magazines. While such titles as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vogue are said to be safe, rumors have circulated about the departure of Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. The company says those rumors are false.
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National Geographic Partners is eliminating the positions of Rachel Webber, executive vice president of digital; Rosa Zeegers, executive vice president of consumer products and experiences; and Laura Nichols, executive vice president and chief communications officer. Webber will be remaining with NGP as a strategic partner, while Zeeger and Nichols will be leaving the organization. National Geographic Partners is the division created through a strategic partnership between the National Geographic Society and 21thCentury Fox Television. NGP’s global communications team will now become part of a marketing, communications, research, data and insights team to be led by Jill Cress, while the digital unit will be subsumed by NG Media, which will be responsible for both print and digital platforms. NG Media will be co-led by current National Geographic magazine editor-in-chief Susan Goldberg and general manager of digital David Miller.
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Newsroom employment dropped 23 percent from 2008 to 2017, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics survey data. In 2008, according to the survey results, there were about 114,000 newsroom employees – reporters, editors, photographers and videographers – across newspaper, radio, broadcast television, cable and “other information services” in the U.S. By 2017, that number was about 88,000. Most of that decline, the survey concluded, is due to job losses at newspapers, which lost 32,000 newsroom workers during that time period. The number of digital-native newsroom employees, on the other hand, increased by 79 percent, from about 7,400 workers in 2008 to about 13,000 in 2017—not nearly enough to make up for the losses at newspapers. The drop in newspaper newsroom employment also means that industry now accounts for a smaller portion of overall newsroom workers. In 2008, about six in ten (62 percent) of all newsroom employees worked at newspapers. By 2017, they made up only 45 percent.
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.
