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IBT Media, the former parent company of Newsweek, and faith-based online publisher Christian Media have been charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office of carrying out a scheme to defraud lenders out of millions of dollars. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, prosecutors are also examining possible advertising abuses at IBT Media and its connections to Olivet University, a Bible college in California. IBT Media owned Newsweek during the period of the alleged fraud; the company said Wednesday it had completed a spinoff of Newsweek into a separate entity. Top executives from IBT Media and Christian Media are accused of creating phony financial statements and using them to secure approximately $10 million in loans, which they said would go toward purchasing sophisticated computing services. Instead, the money was laundered through corporate bank accounts and went toward supporting business operations at the media organization, prosecutors alleged. In February, Newsweek editor-in-chief Bob Roe, executive editor Ken Li and reporter Celeste Katz were fired following a series of the articles in Newsweek about financial issues at the magazine.
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Redbook will cease print production, becoming a digital-only brand as of January 2019. The magazine has been operating without an editor-in-chief since Meredith Rollins exited last year. Redbook’s shift toward digital comes as Hearst Magazines president Troy Young continues his campaign of “cross-platform brand alignment.” As a part of that, the company is consolidating leadership at several of its titles. Men’s Health editor-in-chief Richard Dorment will now oversee the print publication and MensHealth.com; Women’s Health EIC Liz Plosser will oversee print and digital content for that brand, and Popular Mechanics EIC Ryan D’Agostino will also lead both print and digital. Redbook is the third of the so-called Seven Sisters magazines to cease regular publication. McCall’s shut down in 2002 and Ladies’ Home Journal stopped monthly publication in 2014.
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AT&T plans to join Disney, as well as Netflix and Amazon Prime, in the streaming service game. WarnerMedia, which was part of the $85.4 billion deal that AT&T struck in June for Time Warner, is preparing to launch a digital video service that would include content from WarnerMedia subsidiary HBO, plus some Warner Bros. films and programming from the company’s TV library. HBO Now, which streams live and on-demand HBO programming, will serve as the basis for the new service. As of February, HBO Now had over five million subscribers, according to market research company Statista. WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey said the new service would balance the company’s existing deals with distributors with its standalone streaming aspirations.
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.
USA TODAY brings on Jamie Stockwell as VP of news, effective March 30. Stockwell was most recently deputy managing editor of news for the Washington Post... YouTube expands its likeness detection capabilities to a pilot group of government officials, journalists and political candidates... The AP Fund for Journalism adds 50 news organizations to its local news program, bringing the total number of participating newsrooms to 100. 
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.
