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Facebook is planning to make a $300 million investment in local news coverage. The investment is expected to include more than $20 million to expand Facebook’s Accelerator program, which is intended to assist local publishers with their membership and subscription models. It also will fund such initiatives as the U.K.-based Community News Project, a program that will recruit trainee “community journalists” and place them in local newsrooms, the Pulitzer Center and the Local Media Association and Local Media Consortium. Facebook’s new efforts will not be tied to Facebook-related products, recipients of the investments told Reuters. Facebook vice president of global news partnerships Campbell Brown said the investments are part of the company’s “responsibility to help local news organizations grow and thrive.” The move follows recent criticism of Facebook, claiming that it offers a platform for hate speech, misinformation and meddling in politics.
 Adam Moss |
Adam Moss is leaving the editor-in-chief spot at New York magazine, a position he has held since 2004. Both Moss and New York Media chief executive Pamela Wasserstein said that it was Moss’s decision to step down. Moss, who was editor of the New York Times Magazine and the late 1980s weekly 7 Days, was one of several people considered to take over at Vanity Fair when Graydon Carter stepped down as editor in 2017. At New York, Moss was credited with maintaining the tone of the publication, while successfully steering it into the digital age. “Adam showed the world that a legacy print publisher could lead invention in digital products,” Wasserman said in a statement. “He leaves the company in an enviable position—reaching the largest, most engaged audience in our history.” In November, Moss oversaw the implementation of a pay wall for the company’s websites. According to the New York Times, Wasserstein is expected to announce a successor in the coming days.
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Netflix is looking to subscribers to help foot its ever increasing bill for original content and finance its substantial debt. The company’s most popular streaming plan will see its price tag go up from $11 per month to $13, while its basic plan will rise from $8 per month to $9. The increases are the largest since the company started its streaming service 12 years ago. Wall Street seemed to approve of the move, with Netflix’s stock up by $20.91 (6 percent) on Tuesday morning. The price hike still makes Netflix less expensive than HBO, whose streaming service runs $15 per month. Amazon’s streaming services comes as part of its $13 per month Prime shipping service, while Hulu’s ad-free service is $12 per month. The move comes as a slew of competing streaming services—from Apple, Walt Disney and NBCUniversal, among others—prepare to launch.
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.
