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| Jim Rich |
Former New York Daily News editor-in-chief Jim Rich has been tasked with the job of bringing sports-related site Deadspin back to life, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Rich will take the helm of the site, which has had no staffers since early November, on Jan. 27. He will be based in Chicago. Last year’s mass exodus followed a demand from the management of G/O Media, which owns Deadspin, that editors limit their coverage to sports-related topics. Rich says that he would consider re-hiring writers and editors who had walked out. He also told the Journal that he made no promises to G/O Media chief executive Jim Spanfeller that the revived site would stick solely to sports. G/O Media was formed when private-equity firm Great Hill Partners acquired the Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion from Univision last April.
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Meredith Corporation has sold fan-focused sports and entertainment site FanSided to Minute Media. FanSided and its platform of individual sites will remain standalone properties and operate within the Minute Media family of publishers. FanSided’s staff will join Minute Media. The acquisition is the fourth for Minute Media over the past 18 months. In December, the company announced it would acquire Derek Jeter’s The Players’ Tribune, which follows the company’s purchase of The Big Lead and Mental Floss. Launched in 2007 as a site centered on coverage of the Kansas City Chiefs, FanSided eventually encompassed 300 individual communities dedicated to bringing together fans of many teams. In 2015, the company was acquired by Time Inc., which was subsequently acquired by Meredith in November 2018.
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| Bill Abbott |
Bill Abbott, the president and chief executive of Crown Media Family Networks (owner of the Hallmark Channel), is stepping down after 11 years in the position. His departure follows the controversy generated by the Hallmark Channel’s decision to pull ads for wedding-planning firm Zola featuring a wedding between two brides. The ads were yanked after One Million Moms, an arm of the conservative American Family Association, circulated a petition asking Hallmark to “reconsider airing commercials with same-sex couples.” Mike Perry, the CEO of Hallmark Cards, which owns Crown Media, said he had begun a search for Abbott’s replacement.
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. 
