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Condé Nast will be putting all of its titles behind a paywall by the end of the year. The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired already require consumers to subscribe in order to access more than four articles each month. The new paywalls, affecting such publications as Architectural Digest, Vogue and GQ, will not uniformly follow that plan. “Some brands may have specific content that will be gated, and some will have a wider metered paywall,” Bob Sauerberg, the exiting CEO of the company, said in a memo. “Every brand is distinct, and every brand’s paywall will be its own distinct product.” The paywalls are part of what the company says is a plan to generate $600 million in new revenue. Condé Nast is reported to have lost $120 million in 2017.
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A day after racking up 15 Oscar nominations for its films, Netflix has officially joined the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade association representing Hollywood’s six major film studios (Disney, Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal and Warner Bros.). “Adding Netflix will allow us to even more effectively advocate for the global community of creative storytellers,” said MPAA chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin in a statement. Netflix is the first internet streaming service to become a member of the group. The MPAA has long been active in the fight against online piracy, a topic that has become more important to Netflix as the streamer continues to produce more original content. Netflix left the Internet Association, a trade group representing such tech companies as Google, Amazon and Facebook, earlier this month.
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San José Spotlight, a news site serving the San Jose Silicon Valley region, has launched. Solely funded through community contributions, it will be the South Bay region’s first nonprofit news organization dedicated to political and business reporting. The site has raised nearly $84,000 from 320 individual donors. The San José Spotlight team is led by editor Ramona Giwargis and director of development Joshua Barousse. Giwargis has served as state government reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and city hall reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. Barousse has been a policy analyst in the offices of San Jose City Councilmembers Ash Kalra and Sylvia Arenas and state Sen. Jerry Hill. “San José Spotlight aims to be a conversation-starter around the issues affecting residents as well as be a responsible voice of journalism for those in our community,” said Giwargis. Singer Assocs. handled the Spotlight launch.
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.
Rothschild family plans to unload 26.7 percent stake in The Economist... STAT, a digital media company that focuses the life sciences, brings back Damian Garde, who anchored its biotech newsletter and podcast from 2016 to 2024... High Times officially resumes print publication (following its 2024 shutdown) with the release of a limited-edition, collectible 50th anniversary issue. 
CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her site for $155M... C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence... A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has named Kenneth Weinstein, former head of the conservative Hudson Institute, as ombudsman for CBS News.
