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ViacomCBS is axing between 300 and 400 employees, citing financial pressure from the coronavirus pandemic and the effects of last year’s merger between Viacom and CBS. The cuts include staffers at CBS Entertainment, CBS News, CBS Sports, CBS Studios and CBS Television Studios. The Los Angeles Times reports that 12 people are being let go at Chicago CBS-affiliate WBBM. At CBS News, five percent of the division’s 1,400 full-time employees are expected to lose their jobs. “Working with reduced budgets, we have had to make some extremely difficult decisions,” CBS News president Susan Zirinsky said in a memo to employees. “But this restructuring is necessary to ensure CBS News remains strong long into the future.”
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| Jonathan Karp |
Simon & Schuster (which is owned by ViacomCBS) has named Jonathan Karp president and CEO, effective immediately. Karp succeeds Carolyn Reidy, who passed away earlier this month. He most recently served as president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, which includes Atria Books, Avid Reader Press, Gallery Books, Scribner, Simon & Schuster and their associated sub-imprints. Before joining Simon & Schuster in 2010, Karp was founder, publisher and editor in chief of Twelve, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group. “Jon embodies the values that Carolyn instilled at Simon & Schuster, and he is well suited to guide the continued growth and evolution of this incredible global brand,” said ViacomCBS president and CEO Bob Bakish. ViacomCBS recently announced plans to sell Simon & Schuster.
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A “news segment" about Amazon that was aired on local television stations around the country was actually put together by Amazon’s PR unit. A video from nonprofit media company Courier Newsroom shows reporters from stations in California, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia reading the same Amazon-provided script, which puts a favorable spin on the company’s role in delivering essential groceries and cleaning products during the COVID-19 pandemic, while "keeping its employees safe and healthy." The video footage that accompanied the reports also came from Amazon. “Just got an email from Amazon’s PR team with a pre-edited news story and script to run in our shows. They are selling this as giving our viewers an ‘inside look’ at the company’s response to COVID-19,” Zach Rael, an anchor for ABC affiliate KOCO 5 News in Oklahoma City said in a Tweet. A statement from Amazon said the package was designed to aid news media that cannot shoot on location during the pandemic.
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.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has named Kenneth Weinstein, former head of the conservative Hudson Institute, as ombudsman for CBS News.
