 Jere Hester |
The City, a local news website set to launch later this year, has formed a partnership with New York magazine. Readers will be able to access The City through the magazine’s website, and the New York website will also post content from The City on its pages. The new site is intended to fill in at least part of the gap left in New York City coverage by the demise of such outlets as the Village Voice and DNAinfo. It is slated to cover topics including transportation, immigration, housing and criminal justice. The City will be led by Jere Hester, who was city editor at the New York Daily News before becoming director of the NYCity News Service at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. The chairman of the site’s board of directors will be BuzzFeed News editor Ben Smith. The City will start operations with nearly $8.5 million in funding, which includes $2.5 million each from the Leon Levy Foundation, the Charles H. Revson Foundation and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.
 Richard Parsons |
CBS has named Richard Parsons, the former chairman of both Citibank and Time Warner, interim chairman of its board of directors. Parsons succeeds Les Moonves, who resigned Sept. 9 following a string of sexual misconduct charges. Parsons had been nominated for a spot on the CBS board earlier this year, officially joining the board as one of six new members this month. According to a report in the New York Times, he is an ally of Shari Redstone, who is vice chairman of the CBS board as well as controlling shareholder in the company. Redstone had been involved in a legal battle with Moonves over a possible merger between CBS and Viacom, but all parties have agreed to dismiss the lawsuit. “We have a distinguished and independent Board that is steadfast in its commitment to serve the best interests of all shareholders,” Parsons said in a statement issued by CBS. “I think I speak for all Board members when I say I look forward to learning more about CBS’ compelling opportunities and how we can help guide and support the Company's growth.”
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21st Century Fox, after losing out in its quest to purchase European pay-TV company Sky, is selling its 39 percent stake in Sky to Comcast, the top bidder in the auction for the company. According to Variety, the purchase price is $15 billion. The planned sale will allow Comcast to take full control of Sky. “In light of the premium Comcast has agreed to pay for Sky, we and Disney have decided to sell 21CF’s existing 39 percent holding in Sky to Comcast,” 21st Century Fox said in a statement Wednesday. In July, Comcast abandoned its efforts to purchase a large portion of 21st Century Fox’s assets, paving the way for Disney to acquire them. "The sale of Fox's Sky holdings will substantially reduce the cost of our overall acquisition and allow us to aggressively invest in building and creating high-quality content,” said Disney chairman and CEO Robert Iger.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
