 |
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.”
 |
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.
 |
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.
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.
