 Justin Dearborn |
Tribune Publishing chairman and CEO Justin Dearborn has stepped down. Tim Knight, currently president of the company will move to the CEO spot and will join Tribune’s board. David Dreier will assume the chairman role. Dearborn had been chief executive since 2016, when he took over from Michael Ferro, who resigned following allegations of sexual misconduct outside the company. In December, the company terminated negotiations to sell the newspaper chain to the California-based McClatchy Co.
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The Forward, which started out as TheJewish Daily Forward in April 1897, is stopping its print editions. It will continue to produce an English-language and a Yiddish-language edition online. The publication also plans to lay off about 40 percent of its editorial staff — including editor-in-chief Jane Eisner, executive editor Dan Friedman, digital director David Goldiner, design director Kurt Hoffman and vice president of marketing Kathleen Chambard. Started as a Yiddish-language daily, the Forward launched an English-language weekly edition in 1990, which became a monthly magazine in 2017. Over the years, writers at the paper have included Elie Wiesel, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Cynthia Ozick and Phillip Lopate. The Forward says the shift to digital-only is meant to capitalize on its growth among under-35 readers who prefer to read news online. Currently it says that segment amounts to a third of total readers.
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INTO, the news platform launched in August 2017 by gay dating app Grindr, laid off all editorial and social staffers on Jan. 15, according to a statement issued by the site’s editors. Grindr says it is shifting its focus from editorial content to a video-based format. “This decision was driven by the high user engagement and development we see through channels such as Twitter and YouTube,” the company said in a statement to The Wrap. INTO’s editor-in-chief, Zach Stafford, left the site to take the EIC post at The Advocate last year following anti-LGBTQ comments made by Grindr president Scott Chen.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
USA TODAY brings on Jamie Stockwell as VP of news, effective March 30. Stockwell was most recently deputy managing editor of news for the Washington Post... YouTube expands its likeness detection capabilities to a pilot group of government officials, journalists and political candidates... The AP Fund for Journalism adds 50 news organizations to its local news program, bringing the total number of participating newsrooms to 100. 
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.
