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| Dylan Howard |
National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard is parting ways with the company. According to a report in Variety, his contract with American Media, which owns the Enquirer, expired on March 31 and was not renewed. Howard is one of the people behind the “catch and kill” scheme in which women were paid for stories alleging affairs with president Trump. The stories were subsequently killed. He was also accused of extortion and blackmail by Amazon founder, CEO and president Jeff Bezos after the Enquirer reported on Bezos’s extramarital affair. Howard joined AMI in 2009 and in 2014 was promoted to chief content officer, its top editorial post. He has recently focused more on such projects as television production deals and podcasts. On April 1, AMI cut the salary of its employees by 23 percent. The $100 million sale of the company to magazine distributor James Cohen, which was announced last April, has yet to close.
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| Nick Catucci |
influence.co, an online community of influencers, creators and the clients they work with, has hired former Billboard executive editor Nick Catucci to spearhead the launch of nofilter, a publication that will target both industry professionals and a general audience. Catucci, who will also serve as editor-in-chief for the company’s newly launched media division, has also been editor-in-chief at RollingStone.com and articles editor at NYmag.com. The company says that the new publication will “focus on the generational shift towards influencers and creators as touchstones of our day-to-day lives and culture.” influence.co, which has members in 131 countries, lets users maintain professional profiles, share content and connect with collaborators. Last month, the company said that it had raised $4.4 million in seed capital to date.
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| Matthew Belloni |
Matthew Belloni, who has been editor-in-chief at the Hollywood Reporter since 2017, is leaving the publication. A successor has not been named, and Belloni will remain for a month as an editorial consultant. A report in the New York Times says that a dispute with executives from the publication’s parent company, Valence Media, over coverage of the entertainment industry was behind Belloni’s departure. Sources told the Times that Belloni was under pressure to give positive coverage of people and projects connected with Media Rights Capital, a film and TV studio founded by Valence’s chief executives, Modi Wiczyk and Asif Satchu. In a memo to staffers, Belloni says that the split is “100% amicable.” Valence has been working with the Poynter Institute for the last 18 months over how to maintain editorial independence and provide ethics training. THR is coming off the three biggest months in digital audience in its history, with 25 million unique visitors in February, according to Comscore.
CBS News Radio will go off the air on May 22, part of the axe-swinging managerial plan put into play by CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss... The Economist, which was first published in 1843, is changing hands. Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has agreed to acquire a 26.9 percent stake in the publication from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and family foundation... Nexstar Media Group says it has closed its acquisition of TEGNA, the broadcast, digital media and marketing services company that was formed in 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies.
USA TODAY brings on Jamie Stockwell as VP of news, effective March 30. Stockwell was most recently deputy managing editor of news for the Washington Post... YouTube expands its likeness detection capabilities to a pilot group of government officials, journalists and political candidates... The AP Fund for Journalism adds 50 news organizations to its local news program, bringing the total number of participating newsrooms to 100. 
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.
