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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.
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.
