 |
Facebook's system outages that started at about noon Wednesday and continued into Thursday may lead to refunds to advertisers on the company’s various platforms, according to a Bloomberg report. In addition to causing user problems, the outage also affected the company’s ad buying system. The outage is thought to be the largest that the social network has ever suffered. While rumors circulated online that the problems were the result of a distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attack, in which attackers flood a company's network, Facebook said—via Twitter—that "the issue is not related to a DDoS attack." Facebook’s shares slid 2.3 percent in pre-market trading on Thursday morning.
 Jeanine Pirro |
Advertisers are pulling their spots from both Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson’s programs on Fox News. “Justice with Judge Jeanine” has lost at least three corporate advertisers after Pirro’s March 9 on-air comment that Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar is “Sharia-compliant” because she wears a traditional hijab head covering. Fox News condemned the comments in a statement, saying the network has “addressed the matter with her directly.” Carlson's show lost advertising from bedding and sleepwear company SHEEX after audio released by Media Matters revealed Carlson making comments that derided women, minorities and LGBTQ people. In December, Carlson faced an advertiser boycott after he said on his Fox show that immigrants make the country “poorer and dirtier.” In response, at least 30 advertisers ended their relationship with his show, including Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, CareerBuilder, TD Ameritrade and Just For Men.
 Jess Cagle |
People magazine editor-in-chief Jess Cagle is stepping down. Cagle, who is also editorial director of Meredith’s entertainment group, which in addition to People includes such titles as Entertainment Weekly, will officially exit March 31. From 2009 to 2014, Cagle was editor-in-chief of Entertainment Weekly. His 32 years at Time Inc. (which was acquired by Meredith in 2017) also included a stint as a senior editor at Time. "I’ve decided it’s time to do some other things while I’m still young — or at least alive," Cagle said in a note to staffers. While sources told the New York Post that Cagle’s contract expired and Meredith did not renew it, a Meredith representative told the paper that it was Cagle’s decision not to renew his contract.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
Have a comment? Send it to 
No comments have been submitted for this story yet.