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| Stephen Labaton |
Former Finsbury president and partner Stephen Labaton has joined NBCUniversal News Group as executive vice president of communications.
Labaton comes to NBCUniversal from Booz Allen Hamilton, where he was EVP, corporate affairs, leading a team focused on all external and internal engagement by the firm.
At Finsbury, he led the worldwide crisis practice.
Before coming to Finsbury, Labaton was a senior writer at the New York Times, covering regulatory, legal, political, technology and economic issues.
In his new post, he succeeds Mark Kornblau, who left NBCUniversal this summer for the global head of communications post at Softbank.
Labaton “brings a considerable amount of experience in media relations, crisis management and brand-building and has a strong reputation for skillfully navigating high profile organizations through industry challenges and change,” said NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde.
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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.
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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.
