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The New York Daily News has eliminated the position of sports editor. Eric Barrow, a 15-year veteran of the paper who had served in the position since January 2016, was fired Jan. 3. In a memo to his staff, Barrow said that he was not being replaced. Instead, according to the New York Post, the department will now be run by Kyle Wagner, who is taking on the title of director of digital audience development for sports. Wagner comes to the Daily News from FiveThirtyEight, where he was senior editor, sports. Barrow had reportedly been a vocal critic of the decision by Tribune Publishing, owner of the paper, to operate all the company’s papers from one design and copy desk, located in Chicago. That move meant that the Daily News was often unable to get stories and scores from late games into the paper. Poynter cites sources that say the Daily News is currently losing between $20 million and $30 million per year.
 William Kristol |
Several staffers from The Weekly Standard, which ceased publication last month, have been enlisted to work for The Bulwark, a conservative news aggregator site. The Bulwark is run by the Defending Democracy Together Institute, a non-profit organization helmed by former Weekly Standard editor-at-large William Kristol. The Wrap reports that radio host and MSNBC contributor Charlie Sykes will serve as the site’s new editor-in-chief and that former Weekly Standard writers, including Jonathan V. Last, Hannah Yoest, Ben Parker and Rachel Larimore, are coming on board. “TheBulwark.com will transform from an aggregator of news and opinion from a right-wing bent into a website that provides original opinion items, analysis and reporting,” Jim Swift, a former Weekly Standard deputy online editor who has joined The Bulwark, told The Wrap. The site’s “About Us” page says the mission of the revamped site is to “be a forum for rational, principled, fact-based conservative commentary.”
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PWxyz, the parent company of Publishers Weekly, has acquired online magazine the Millions, along with its website TheMillions.com. The Millions offers coverage of books, arts and culture aimed at a consumer audience. It was founded in 2003 by Max Magee. Although Magee will no longer be involved with the Millions, its writing and editorial staffs will remain largely unchanged. Adam Boretz, a PW editor who had also served as an associate editor at the Millions, will now be editor of the Millions, as well as being promoted to senior editor at PW. PW will focus on beefing up the magazine's advertising efforts under the direction of publisher Cevin Bryerman.
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.
Trump Media & Technology Group is discussing a spin-off of the Truth Social platform following the expected closing of its $6B merger deal with TAE Technologies... Condé Nast sells off Them, the digital LGBTQ-focused platform it launched in 2017, to Equalpride, publisher of Out, The Advocate, Out Traveler, Health PLUS Wellness and Pride.com... CBS News has parted ways with longevity influencer Peter Attia, one of the 19 contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss brought on as part of her plan to present a wider variety of voices on the platform. 
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.
