 |
| Marty Baron |
Marty Baron announces that he is retiring from the executive editor slot at the Washington Post, effective Feb. 28. Baron has presided over a period of both critical acclaim and financial growth for the paper. Under his management, the Post has won 10 Pulitzers, the number of news staffers has grown from 580 to over 1,000, and its digital-only subscriber base has jumped by close to a million over the past year, currently coming in at more that 3 million. Baron joined the Post in 2013 after a decade-plus tenure as executive editor at the Boston Globe, where he oversaw its Pulitzer-winning coverage of the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal. Before that, he led the Miami Herald. Barron says that he is leaving the Post “well-positioned for the future,” with broadened coverage and more journalists. The paper says it plans to look at both internal and external candidates for Baron’s replacement. “Our success these past several years would not and simply could not have happened without you,” Post owner Jeff Bezos wrote about Baron in an Instagram post.
 |
| Joe Ricketts |
Joe Ricketts, who owned news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist, is getting back into the journalism business. Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, is starting up Straight Arrow News, an Omaha-based outlet that says it will produce bias-free coverage. Ricketts merged DNAinfo into Gothamist when he purchased the New York news outlet in 2017. He closed the merged company shortly thereafter, following a vote by employees to unionize. A longtime contributor to Republican candidates (his son, Pete Ricketts is the current Republican governor of Nebraska), Ricketts says he thinks there’s a “business opportunity” for news with no professed slant. “I think there’s a gap in the market—there’s no source for unbiased, fact-based news,” Ricketts told the Omana World-Herald.
 |
WGN America is also jumping on the “fact-based and unbiased” news bandwagon with its rebrand as NewsNation. Set to relaunch on March 1, NewsNation will be available in 75 million homes, thanks to new carriage deals that increased its reach by 8.5 million households. NewsNation will also add two hours of live programming to its Monday-to-Friday broadcast schedule. WGN America was acquired by local TV station chain Nexstar in 2019 as part of its $4.1 billion purchase of Tribune Media. “Rebranding WGN America as NewsNation underscores the network’s clearly defined mission of delivering fact-based and unbiased news,” said Nexstar networks division president Sean Compton.
Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. has replaced CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes with Kevin McGurn, a seasoned media sales executive.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is being bought by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit that is the parent organization of the Baltimore Banner... The British Broadcasting Corporation is axing approximately 2,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force... Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is also succumbing to layoff fever, announcing plans to lay off 16 percent of its employees, about 1,000 people.
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.
