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| Neil Ripley |
Neil Ripley, who has more than 20 years of media and technology experience, will join NBCUniversal’s advertising and partnerships division unit as VP-communications on March 14.
He will promote the narrative around ad technology, data, and cross-platform media measurement.
Most recently, Ripley was head of communications at Comscore, where he guided the company's PR related to its media measurement capabilities.
He also worked at MWWPR (now MikeWorldwide), Golin and Hill+Knowlton Strategies.
NBCU also named Margaux Fleuranges senior manager in charge of executive thought leadership and social media strategy.
She was senior associate, corporate communications at Univision, where she led external communications for its local media division and social media strategy for the company’s corporate B2B accounts.
Earlier, Fleuranges worked at 5W Public Relations, Tractenberg & Co. and Rubenstein PR.
Underscore Media, a new creator-led media venture dedicated to New York sports, is built around three established New York sports personalities, Sal Licata, Jimmy Traina, and John Jastremski.
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.
