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The Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper, is taking “the next step into the digital future of journalism” by shutting down its print newspaper and closing its Montville, NJ, print production facility. The Star-Ledger’s owner, Newark Morning Ledger Co., attributes the move to rising costs, decreasing circulation and reduced demand for print. The final print edition of the Star-Ledger, as well as those of the Times of Trenton and South Jersey Times will be published on Feb. 2, 2025. The Star-Ledger’s sister publication, Jersey City-based, 157-year-old The Jersey Journal, is going out of existence completely. In addition, Advance Local, which owns NJ Advance Media and NJ.com, is ceasing publication of the weekly Hunterdon County Democrat, whose subscribers will have access to the Star-Ledger’s online newspaper. NJ Advance Media’s journalists will continue to produce content that appears on NJ.com, as well as in the online newspapers of the The Star-Ledger, The Times of Trenton and South Jersey Times. NJ Advance Media president Steve Alessi said the shutdown will let the company “invest more deeply than ever in our journalism and in serving our communities.”
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The Washington Post has shed 250,000 subscribers—10 percent of its subscriber base—since it made the decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election. “It’s a colossal number,” former Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli told NPR. An article in the Los Angeles Times indicated that, after making the same decision, it is suffering too—losing 7,000 subscribers as of Oct. 28. The Times also said it had received “as many as 1,000 emails and letters protesting the non-endorsement” by that date. Post owner Jeff Bezos said his only regret about the decision was making it “known when passions are heated so close to Election Day.”
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NewsMatch, the largest grassroots fundraising campaign to support nonprofit news in the US, begins on Nov. 1 with what it says is a record amount of funds pledged. So far, the annual campaign, spearheaded by the Institute for Nonprofit News, has received pledges totaling $7.5 million from eighteen national and regional funders. Since 2017, participating news organizations in the INN Network have leveraged $31 million in NewsMatch funding to help generate nearly $300 million in support from their communities. This year’s drive, which runs until Dec. 31, includes a fund that supports newsrooms led by and serving communities of color, a newly launched fund to support rural newsrooms, and a variety of statewide and local funds. “We know the civic health of our communities depends on access to reliable, truthful information, and INN has been a key part of this movement to bolster access to local news,” said Tim Murphy, a program officer for the McKnight Foundation (a major INN funder).
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.
