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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.
Underscore Media, a new creator-led media venture dedicated to New York sports, is built around three established New York sports personalities, Sal Licata, Jimmy Traina, and John Jastremski.
McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers across 14 states (including The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star), launches a wave of layoffs that extends to at least 13 of those papers... The Toledo Blade, which was founded in 1835, is set to shut down on Dec. 31, unless owner Block Communications manages to find a buyer for it... A bill awaiting approval by California governor Gavin Newsom would give local newsrooms a boost. 
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
