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A hack that affected News Corp, as well as several of its publications, has been linked to China. The cyberattack, which was discovered on Jan. 20, was disclosed in a Feb. 4 securities filing, according to the New York Times. Targets of the hack included the Wall Street Journal, News UK (publisher of the Times and the Sun) and the New York Post. The company said it does not believe that any financial or user data had been affected, and that the threat has been contained. After the hack was uncovered, News Corp enlisted digital security firm Mandiant to investigate it. In an email to staff, News Corp chief technology officer David Kline said “Mandiant assesses that those behind this activity have a China nexus and believes they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China’s interest.”
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The New York Times, aided in large part by its recent acquisition of sports news website The Athletic, has crossed the 10-million subscriber line—well ahead of their original target date of 2025. The Athletic adds 1.2 million subscribers to the 8.8 million that the Times’ other platforms registered by the end of December. Of those subscriptions, about 5.9 million were for digital news; more than two million were for other digital products (including Games, Cooking, product-recommendation site Wirecutter and audio-news platform Audm) and 800,000 were for the print newspaper. The Times has also purchased the popular online word game Wordle, which will be part of the Games platform. And it has given itself another goal—15 million subscribers by 2025.
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NBC says that it has sold out all advertising inventory during Super Bowl LVI across NBC, Telemundo and digital platforms including Peacock. The broadcast’s 30-second commercial spots are going for as much as $7.1 million—a record price. According to the Hollywood Reporter, only “a handful of ad spots in the pregame programming” are still available. NBC says that 40 percent of the companies running ads during the game are new, with the biggest growth coming in the automotive, technology, entertainment, travel and health & wellness sectors. “The NFL has never been stronger and has led us to new records this year,} said NBCUniversal president of advertising and partnerships Mark Marshall in a statement.
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.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
