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Chicago Public Media, which owns the city's NPR outlet, WBEZ, is set to acquire the Chicago Sun-Times on Jan. 31. Upon completion of the deal, the Sun-Times will join WBEZ as a not-for-profit subsidiary of Chicago Public Media. WBEZ and the Sun-Times will maintain separate newsrooms, though they are expected to share content across platforms. Sun-Times CEO Nykia Wright will remain in her position, reporting to Chicago Public Media CEO Matt Moog. The Sun-Times, whose list of past owners includes Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, was sold to an investor group for $1 in 2017. In addition to current lead investor Michael Sacks, investors in the new organization include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Pritzker Traubert Foundation. "This is an important step to grow and strengthen local journalism in Chicago," said Moog.
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Gannett is axing the Saturday print edition of its papers in 136 markets. Heralding the move as "a new Saturday experience," the company says that it will transition "from delivering the Saturday print edition to providing exclusive access to the full Saturday e-Edition." Among the papers to drop their Saturday print edition are Nashville's The Tennesseean and the Austin American-Statesman. "It's been decades since we were just a daily, print newspaper, said Daniel Sforza, executive editor of The Record in Rockaway, NJ, which will also no longer issue a Saturday print paper. "Over the past 20 years, we have added a website, mobile app, social media platforms, multimedia and more. This is another step in that evolution, as we continually respond to subscriber and advertising trends."
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Netflix's stock plunged by 22 percent the morning of Jan. 21 following a series of downgrades by financial analysts that reflect a disappointing first-quarter subscriber outlook for the company. On Jan. 20, Netflix said that it expected to add 2.5 million subscribers in Q1 2022, a considerable drop from the four million it added in the same quarter last year. In addition, the company said that it failed to meet its subscriber estimate for the fourth quarter of last year, signing up 8.3 million subscribers rather than the projected 8.5 million. "Acquisition growth has not yet re-accelerated to pre-Covid levels," Netflix said in a letter to shareholders. By contrast, HBO Max and the cable channel HBO beat their projections for 2021, hitting 73.8 million total global subscribers, beating an estimate of 73 million.
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.
