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| Kristine Coratti Kelly |
The Washington Post promotes Kristine Coratti Kelly to chief communications officer, a newly created role at the paper. The Post’s PR blog says that the move is intended to “reflect the increased role the communications team is playing in The Post’s national and global expansion.” Kelly has been with the paper since 2009, most recently serving as vice president of communications and general manager of Washington Post Live, the newsroom’s live journalism platform. Taking on the vice president of communications role is Shani George, who most recently served as director of communications. “With their combined experience, we look forward to their continued dedication to growing The Post’s audience around the world,” said Post publisher and CEO Fred Ryan.
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Sinclair Broadcast Group is axing about five percent of its workforce (approximately 500 employees), in a move that the company says is due to the effects of COVID-19. “No component of our business’s ecosystem has been fully shielded from the impact of the global pandemic. In response to this, we are currently undergoing enterprise-wide reductions across our workforce, including corporate headquarters, to ensure we are well-positioned for future success.” according to a statement from a Sinclair spokesperson. Employees were notified of the layoffs in a Wednesday evening memo sent from Chris Ripley, the company's president and chief executive officer. Sinclair, which runs 186 TV stations in the U.S., reported a seven percent dip in total revenue for Q4 2020, compared to Q4 2019.
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Facebook is lifting the ban on political advertising that it instituted after the November elections. The company says that it will now permit advertisers to buy ads about “social issues, elections or politics,” from March 4, according to a report in the New York Times. The ban had been temporarily lifted in Georgia prior to that state’s senatorial runoff elections in January. Also, an article on Politico claimed that some political advertisers had been making their way around the regulations throughout the course of the ban. For now, political advertisers can either submit new ads to the platform, or reactivate existing ads. Ads will appear with a disclaimer noting that the ad was paid for by a political organization. Facebook has as yet said nothing about the “indefinite” ban placed on the account of former president Trump.
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.
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.
