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The New York Times passes the 10 million subscriber barrier. A 210,000 bump in net digital-only subscribers brought that total number to 9.41 million and its 670,000 print subscribers put it over the 10 million mark overall. The company’s growth is at least in part due to its expansion beyond providing the news to customers. It says that close to 3.8 million of its digital subscribers have signed up for at least one of the company’s other offerings—Cooking, Games, the Wirecutter product review vertical and the sports-focused The Athletic. Adjusted operating profit for Q3 2023 was $89.8 million, up 30.1 percent from a year earlier. The Times still has the stated goal of reaching 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027.
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Vice Media, which pulled the plug on its flagship program “Vice News Tonight” in April and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy shortly afterward as it went on the auction block, has now laid off dozens more of its staffers. The company’s co-chief executives, Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala said the cuts were part of a plan to “restructure our overall corporate organization” by consolidating the newsroom’s five divisions into two lines of business—with publishing, news and creative services operating as one unit and studios along with TV and distribution operating as the other. In June, Vice was purchased by three investment companies, including Fortress Investment Group, for $350 million. In keeping with its reputation as a digital pioneer, Vice let the staffers go via what a Vice Union statement called “a livestream video that gave attendees no opportunity to ask questions.”
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Jezebel, the feminist web site that launched in 2007, has been shut down by owner G/O Media, which also owns The Onion, Jalopnik and Gizmodo. The company says that 23 staffers, including the Jezebel team, have been laid off. G/O Media’s editorial director Merrill Brown is also leaving the company. In announcing the closure, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller cited “economic headwinds” and changes in audience priorities as major factors behind the shutdown. Spanfeller also said that the company had talked with over two dozen potential buyers” in an effort to keep Jezebel going, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
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.
Rothschild family plans to unload 26.7 percent stake in The Economist... STAT, a digital media company that focuses the life sciences, brings back Damian Garde, who anchored its biotech newsletter and podcast from 2016 to 2024... High Times officially resumes print publication (following its 2024 shutdown) with the release of a limited-edition, collectible 50th anniversary issue. 
CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her site for $155M... C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence... A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low.
