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Time named “The Guardians”—four individual journalists and the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, MD—as its 2018 Person of the Year. The four journalists are Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was murdered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in October; Maria Ressa, chief executive of the Rappler news website in the Philippines and a fierce critic of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte; and Wa Long and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been held in jail for almost a year for their work to expose the mass killing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Five staff members of the Capital Gazette were killed when a gunman opened fire in their newsroom in June. The recipients were recognized for helping to expose what magazine called “the manipulation and the abuse of truth” occurring in countries around the world. “As we looked at the choices, it became clear that the manipulation and the abuse of truth is really the common thread in so many of this year’s major stories, from Russia to Riyadh to Silicon,” Time editor Edward Felsenthal said while announcing the award winner on Tuesday morning’s “Today” show.
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A Reuters report says that Sports Illustrated magazine will likely be acquired by Ulysses Lee “Junior” Bridgeman, who played for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers. After his basketball career ended, Bridgeman acquired various Chili’s and Wendy’s restaurants, which he sold for $400 million in 2016. Meredith announced its plans to sell Sports Illustrated, along with Time and Fortune, shortly after it acquired Time Inc. in January. Time was sold to Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff for $190 million, and Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon paid $150 million for Fortune. While the deal is still being worked out, the Reuters report cites sources that indicate the selling price of SI will be around $150 million.
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Fox News has been the most tweeted about news outlet in the U.S. for 2018, according to Twitter News. Coming in at No. 2 is CNN, followed by The Hill, MSNBC and the New York Times. In addition to listing the news outlets, Twitter News also named the most popular reporter/host at each. Sean Hannity is at top of Fox’s roster in that regard, and Jake Tapper is the most tweeted-about reporter/host at CNN. Joe Concha takes the top spot at The Hill, and Kyle Griffin and Maggie Haberman are most popular at MSNBC and the Times. In Twitter’s list of the Most Influential Men on Twitter 2018, president Trump did not do quite as well as his favorite news source. In that ranking, the president took second place, falling behind English singer/songwriter Liam Payne, formerly of the boy band One Direction. And close behind the president is his predecessor, Barack Obama, who came in at No. 4.
Underscore Media, a new creator-led media venture dedicated to New York sports, is built around three established New York sports personalities, Sal Licata, Jimmy Traina, and John Jastremski.
McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers across 14 states (including The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star), launches a wave of layoffs that extends to at least 13 of those papers... The Toledo Blade, which was founded in 1835, is set to shut down on Dec. 31, unless owner Block Communications manages to find a buyer for it... A bill awaiting approval by California governor Gavin Newsom would give local newsrooms a boost. 
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
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.
