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Nexstar Media acquires The Hill for $130M. Nexstar, which became the largest owner of local TV stations in the country following its 2018 acquisition of Tribune Media, says the deal will allow the company to expand its digital reach and political coverage. It also says that the combination of The Hill and Nexstar are used by a third of all US digital media viewers, with the transaction making Nexstar the fourth-largest digital news property in the country, ahead of Fox, ABC, CBS, the New York Times and BuzzFeed. The Hill owner Jimmy Finkelstein, who is leaving the company, says the platform is highly profitable, with revenue growing 50 percent annually. According to Comscore, The Hill had 48 million average monthly users and 2.2 billion total pageviews in 2020. “The accretive acquisition of The Hill’s independent, political digital media platform marks continued progress with Nexstar’s ‘content-first strategy’ and reflects our organization-wide commitment to deliver trusted, unbiased, fact-based journalism that engages and informs our audiences across all screens and devices,” said Nexstar president and COO Tom Carter.
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The Washington Post is bolstering its TikTok team. The company is looking for an associate producer and community editor to expedite the growth of the channel and focus its strategy on topics that resound with the audience. The Post says that the TikTok channel is its most popular channel, with more than one million followers. It currently produces 10 TikToks per week, addressing topics covered by the paper. “When we launched our TikTok channel two years ago, we saw an opportunity to deliver the news in a unique way and reach new audiences,” said director of editorial video Micah Gelman.
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ONYX Media launches EMPOWER ONYX, a diverse multi-channel platform celebrating the stories and transformative power of sports for Black women and girls. Each week, ONYX Media will create and distribute content on empoweronyx.com and social channels as well as distribute content to mission-aligned organizations. Produced in partnership with Sports Illustrated, the content will focus on and feature stories of Black women who are pioneers, innovators and creators, employing in-depth profiles, articles, podcasts and documentaries. “Our goal is to foster an environment allowing Black women and girls to share information, inspirational stories and intimate conversations about their successes, journeys, as well as their struggles,” said ONYM Media CEO Michelle Blake-Wilson.
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.
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.
