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Yankee Global Enterprises is partnering with Sinclair Broadcast Group and Amazon to acquire the 80 percent of the YES Network currently owned by The Walt Disney Company, in a deal with an enterprise value of close to $3.5 billion. Yankee Global Enterprises already owns 20 percent of the network. The three companies say they will work together to enhance the network and position it strategically across all forms of distribution. Jon Litner will remain in his existing role as YES Network president. YES broadcasts games, programs and specialty content for the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets, Major League Soccer’s New York City FC and the WNBA’s New York Liberty. Sinclair also recently closed a $10.6 billion deal to buy 21 regional Fox Sports networks from Disney.
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Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation has signed up more than 170 news outlets. The project, which aims to strengthen the media’s focus on the climate crisis, is led by CJR editor and publisher Kyle Pope and Nation environmental correspondent Mark Hertsgaard. Participating news outlets have committed to running a week’s worth of climate coverage in the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on Sept. 23. At that meeting, the world’s governments will submit plans to meet the Paris Agreement’s pledge to keep global temperature rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. The Guardian is the lead media partner for Covering Climate Now, and international partners include Bloomberg; CBS News; Spain’s El País; Japan’s Asahi Shimbun; Getty Images; Agence France-Presse; national public TV broadcasters in Italy, Sweden, and the United States; the Harvard Business Review; HuffPost and BuzzFeed News. “The need for solid climate coverage has never been greater,” says Pope. “We’re proud that so many organizations from across the U.S. and around the world have joined with Covering Climate Now to do our duty as journalists—to report this hugely important story.”
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| Jason Miller |
Jason Miller, who served as chief spokesman during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the subsequent presidential transition, then worked as a CNN correspondent, has lost his defamation suit against Gizmodo Media Group, according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter. Miller sued Gizmodo for $100 million over an article posted on Gizmodo’s Splinter news site. The article reported on court documents that alleged Miller had impregnated a woman and then gave her a smoothie containing an abortion pill, causing her to lose the child and suffer serious injury. Miller's suit claimed that since the accusation was taken from a sealed family court filing, the article was outside the bounds of immunity. The judge disagreed and dismissed the case. Miller was represented by Bajo Cuva Cohen and Turkel, a law firm that represented wrestler Hulk Hogan in his successful case against Gawker Media, which ultimately led to the sale of the company at a bankruptcy auction.
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.
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. 
