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The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation pledges $20 million to support newsrooms and provide journalism infrastructure as part of its commitment to revitalize local reporting. The grants will provide general operations and flexible support for infrastructure and shared services, along with direct support for local newsrooms. They are part of the foundation’s Local News Program, which supports Press Forward, a national initiative led by MacArthur to strengthen communities and democracy by supporting local news and information. The program was launched last year with a commitment of at least $150 million in new grantmaking to local news over five years, and the potential of $25 million in additional impact investments. “These investments are part of a collective effort to ensure that local communities have steady access to reliable and trustworthy information,” said MacArthur director of local news Silvia Rivera.
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| Paul Krugman |
Paul Krugman, who has written on political and economic topics for the New York Times for nearly 25 years, is retiring. His final column ran in the Dec. 6 edition of the Times. Spanning five US presidencies, his columns (and blog) looked at a wide range of issues on both the national and global level. In addition to his journalistic duties (which also included work on such platforms as Fortune and Slate), Krugman has authored 27 books and served on the faculties of MIT, Princeton, Stanford and the London School of Economics. He was also a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan Administration. Among the many honors he has received is the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on economic geography and international trade patterns. “Paul became an essential read in Opinion, helping countless readers become more fluent in and mindful of how trade, taxes, technology, the markets, labor and capital intersected with political leadership, ideology and partisanship to shape the lives of people across America and the world,” said New York Times opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury.
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The Onion now faces a major roadblock in its attempt to buy Info Wars, the hotbed of conspiracy theory founded in 1999 by Alex Jones. Global Tetrahedron, owner of The Onion, is in a battle with First United American Companies, which is affiliated with Jones, for control of the site. Judge Christopher M. Lopez offederal bankruptcy court in Houston ruled that the bankruptcy auction did not maximize the amount of money that the sale of Info Wars should provide to Jones’s creditors. Those creditors include the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, who won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones for using his site to claim that the shooting was a hoax. Lopez mandated that a court-appointed trustee come up with an alternate solution.
MSNBC president Rashida Jones is stepping down, after close to four years in the job... Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is preparing for what he says will be “an intense year” by dumping staffers that he terms “low performers.” ... CBS News is putting Susan Zirinsky, who served as its president from January 2019 until April 2021, back in the driver’s seat as its interim executive editor.
ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have called time on Venu Sports, their proposed joint sports streaming service, before its kickoff... Piers Morgan, via his Wake Up Productions media company, is acquiring “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” the talk show that started broadcasting on Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV in 2022 before moving to YouTube... HuffPost cuts 39 staffers. E-I-C Danielle Belton quits in protest.
Donald Trump’s campaign got a sneak preview of the questions for a Fox News town hall in January 2024, according to an upcoming book from POLITICO national political reporter Alex Isenstadt....The Washington Post laid off roughly 100 employees across its business division on Jan. 7....Getty Images and Shutterstock plans to merge under the corporate name of Getty Images Holdings, Inc.
President-elect Donald Trump has sued pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register and Gannett, the Register’s parent company for poll that predicted he was going to lose Iowa's presidential vote... Forbes, which has been in the magazine business since 1917, is launching a private members’ club in Madrid’s financial district... “Sesame Street” seeks new distribution partner after it is dropped by Warner Bros. Discovery. 
With streaming platforms growing, half of young adults in the United States now say they don't watch any traditional TV at all, according to Statista.
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