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Graydon Carter, former Vanity Fair editor, is starting up a newsletter this summer that will be aimed at a high-end, international readership. He will be collaborating on the new venture, called Air Mail, with Alessandra Stanley, who was a critic and reporter for the New York Times. The newsletter will feature magazine-length original articles that will be sent out to readers at 6 a.m. every Saturday. In addition, it will sample articles from selected European and Asian publications. Its content, as well as related podcasts, will also be available on a website, AirMail.news. While he is moving into the digital arena, Carter says that his new project will maintain the same editorial standards he held to in print. “These are fully formed narratives,” he told the Times. “Vanity Fair was in the excellence business, and I want to stay in the excellence business. We’re not after clickbait.”
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American Media, which owns the National Enquirer as well as Us Weekly and Men’s Journal, has purchased the Adventure Sports Network, a portfolio of 14 adventure and sports brands, from TEN: Publishing. The acquisition includes Bike, POWDER and SURFER, as well as the Dew Tour, an action sports event series. American Media chairman and CEO David J. Pecker says that the combination of the newly acquired titles with Men’s Journal creates “a significant digital network.” With the addition, the American Media Active Lifestyle Group is projected to reach more than 35 million social media fans and followers. The ASN brands also pull in a significant millennial audience with video, delivering more than 60 million monthly views across its portfolio. Last June, American Media, picked up 13 brands from Bauer Media USA, including the celebrity titles In Touch, Closer and Life & Style.
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The Local Media Consortium and the Local Media Association have announced a call for applications, inviting media organizations to apply to participate in a pilot project focused on helping local newsrooms develop revenue streams through branded content. Funded by the Facebook Journalism Project, this branded content project will provide grant money to three to five organizations that have achieved some success with their branded content program to expand their program while increasing revenue. For more information and to apply, local broadcast, digital and print media companies can visit the application page. Applications will be accepted through March 1.
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.
