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Producers at “Fox & Friends” allowed an aide to former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to pre-approve a script for an interview with Pruitt on the program, according to email messages uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Sierra Club. The emails show that Fox contacted Pruitt’s staffers about his appearing on the show, and that those staff members had a say in determining what topics would be addressed in the interview. In addition, Diana Aloi, a “Fox & Friends” producer, sent an email to former EPA press representative Amy Graham with the lead-in that would be used, asking “Would this be OK as a setup to his segment?” The intro to the on-air interview held to the pre-arranged script. Fox says they are planning to discipline the employees behind the exchange.
 Laurene Powell Jobs |
Emerson Collective, the social-change focused organization run by Laurene Powell Jobs, has purchased Pop-Up Magazine Productions. The company operates Pop-Up Magazine, a “live magazine” that consists of events held in more than a dozen cities around the country, and California Sunday, whose print edition runs in the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle. “Both magazines have managed to create unique journalistic platforms that help foster empathy and a better understanding of the world,” Powell Jobs said in a statement. Emerson, which assumed majority ownership of the Atlantic last year, also supports such nonprofit journalism organizations as ProPublica, Mother Jones and the Texas Observer. It made a $10 million investment in Pop-Up last year.
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Bustle Digital Group is expected to soon close a deal to buy digital news site Mic, according to a report in the New York Post. The Post report says that the company laid off 60 to 70 employees Thursday morning, allegedly in preparation for the transaction. The move follows a decision by Facebook to call off a $5 million agreement with Mic to publish a news video series. Bustle owns several women’s lifestyle sites and purchased gossip site Gawker for $1.35 million in a U.S. Bankruptcy auction last year. Mic co-founders Jake Horowitz and company CEO Chris Altchek are expected to remain with the company.
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.
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.
