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The New York Times sues Open AI and Microsoft, a major Open AI backer, for copyright infringement. In its complaint, which was filed Dec. 27, the Times claimed that the companies have used Times content, without its consent, to help create such AI products as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot. “Defendants have effectively avoided spending the billions of dollars that The Times invested in creating that work by taking it without permission or compensation,” the Times said in the complaint. The paper is seeking damages, as well as asking that the tech companies be blocked from using its content and destroy any data sets that incorporate Times-generated material. Earlier this month Axel Springer and OpenAI reached an agreement to compensate the publisher for the use of its content in ChatGPT and OpenAI’s artificial intelligence tools.
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LinkedIn appears to be profiting from the exodus of advertisers turning away from Elon Musk’s X. The Financial Times reports that the platform’s ad revenues were up 10.1 percent year on year for 2023, reaching close to $4B. According to research firm Insider Intelligence, growth of 14.1 percent is expected for 2024. The FT said that prices for LinkedIn were spiking due to a surge of interest from advertisers—rising by up to 30 percent. The report also noted that more big brands are leaving Musk’s increasingly divisive platform. “A few weeks ago most of our clients were off X. Now they are all off X,” one ad agency executive told the FT. However, LinkedIn has yet to claim a top spot in the digital advertising market, accounting for just 1.5 percent of digital advertising by Insider Intellgence’s estimates—versus 27 percent for Google and 21 percent for Meta.
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Salem Media Group sells Regnery Publishing, which has released books from authors including Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard and Mitt Romney, to Skyhorse Publishing. The company expects to close the transaction by the end of the year. Regnery will keep its name and operate as an imprint of Skyhorse. One of the largest independent book publishers in the US, Skyhorse has had fifty-seven New York Times bestsellers and currently has over 10,000 titles in print. “We see a lot of synergies and opportunities for growth and will work hard to promote, market and sell the books we have acquired and those that are pending,” said Skyhorse Publishing president and publisher Tony Lyons.
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
Trump Media & Technology Group is discussing a spin-off of the Truth Social platform following the expected closing of its $6B merger deal with TAE Technologies... Condé Nast sells off Them, the digital LGBTQ-focused platform it launched in 2017, to Equalpride, publisher of Out, The Advocate, Out Traveler, Health PLUS Wellness and Pride.com... CBS News has parted ways with longevity influencer Peter Attia, one of the 19 contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss brought on as part of her plan to present a wider variety of voices on the platform. 
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.
