 Edward Felsenthal |
Time magazine is keeping Edward Felsenthal on as editor-in-chief and is adding CEO to his job title. Felsenthal said that the magazine expects to hire 60 people, including 30 new editorial staffers plus executives in charge of revenue, technology and human resources. He also affirmed Time’s commitment to remaining a print publication. The magazine was purchased from Meredith by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne, in a $190 million deal that closed last week. Time’s connections with its previous owner will remain, however. The deal struck for the magazine included an arrangement for Meredith to keep on printing and distributing it.
 Kara Swisher |
Tech website Recode is being folded into Vox.com, whose parent company Vox Media purchased the site in 2015. Recode is expected to relaunch on Vox in early 2019. Dan Frommer will be leaving his post as editor of the site, but Recode founder Kara Swisher will remain a part of the company. According to the Wall Street Journal, the site drew 1.36 million unique viewers in September 2018, down 50 percent from 2.77 million unique viewers in September 2017. However, the other parts of Recode’s business—its podcasts, newsletters and conferences—have seen an uptick in their audiences, according to a Vox Media spokeswoman. In a piece on Recode, Swisher said that the site plans to “invest in more writers, more resources, more editorial reach with a more ambitious editorial vision.”
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Quad Graphics has acquired LSC Communications in an all-stock transaction valued at $1.4 billion. The move is the latest in a wave of printing industry consolidations that have greatly reduced the number of options that publications have. Quad and LSC rank No. 2 and 3 on Printing Impressions’ 2017 list of the 400 top printers serving the United States and Canada, trailing only printing conglomerate RR Donnelley. LSC, which serves the catalog, book and magazine printing space, was spun off from Donnelley in 2016. Quad says that the merger will bring about a series of “business efficiencies” that will result in $135 million in savings in less than two years.
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.
