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The Zagat restaurant guide for New York City is back in print for its 2020 edition. Google, which purchased the guide for $151 million in 2011, discontinued its print version in 2016. Google sold it to online guide and ratings platform The Information last year. The Information chief executive Chris Stang said that the decision to start printing the guide again followed many requests from its followers. In addition to readers, Peter Luger Steak House should welcome back the guide, nabbing a spot as one of the three most popular restaurants—a big step up from its recent zero-star review in the New York Times. Also coming back in the 2020 guide is the rating system used by Tim and Nina Zagat, the guide’s originators. According to the Times, there are no set plans to bring the guide back for other cities.
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The Atlantic has released a new, subscriber-only version of its app. While the app is free to download, a paywall will kick in as soon as readers click on a story. On The Atlantic’s website, which relaunched its subscription service on Sept. 5, there is a five-article grace period before the paywall kicks in. And while subscriptions to the website are only available on an annual basis, app readers will be able to subscribe on a month-to-month basis. Andrew Phelps, the company’s senior director of product, told tech site Digiday that it is initiating its new subscription model with the app because it is “a more personal and habit-forming platform.”
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Bustle Digital Group has laid off at least 10 staffers and contributors at Bustle, its digital women’s publication. According to a report in Variety, the layoffs are due to a restructuring at the company. Layoffs also hit BDG earlier this year when it axed five staffers from science and business entertainment site Inverse after acquiring it, as well as getting rid of the entire staff of Gakwer after when its proposed relaunch was called off. The new round of layoffs comes as the company prepares for what it says is a major site relaunch in early 2020, which it says will include “several marquee hires.”
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. 
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.
