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| Rashida Jones |
MSNBC president Rashida Jones is stepping down, after close to four years in the job. Jones will stay on in an advisory role until the end of March. She has been with MSNBC since 2013 and before being named president oversaw daytime and weekend news programming. Rebecca Kutler, currently SVP, content strategy at the channel, will step in as interim president. While MSNBC was the second-most-watched cable network in the runup to the 2024 election (with Fox News holding on to the lead), its post-election ratings have dropped. Jones’s departure is not the only change that MSNBC faces. It is one of several cable channels (including CNBC, USA and Syfy) that is slated to be spun off into a new unit by its owner, Comcast. NBCUniversal Media Group chairman Mark Lazarus said that MSNBC is also looking to recruit a new head of news gathering and head of talent.
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| Mark Zuckerberg |
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is preparing for what he says will be “an intense year” by dumping staffers that he terms “low performers.” The company plans to axe about five percent of its employees, which will probably amount to about 3,600 people. This will be the biggest cut since it let 10,000 workers go in March 2023. “We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year,” Zuckerberg said in an internal memo, “but now we’re going to do more extensive performance-based cuts.” He does, however, plan to soften the blow with “generous severance in line with what we’ve provided with previous cuts.” The announcement of the layoffs follows recent decisions to eliminate third-party fact checkers, get rid of its DEI-focused team and eliminate diversity programs in its hiring process.
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| Susan Zirinsky |
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, a new position created “with the specific mandate of ensuring we have the expertise, resources and oversight to enable coverage of the most challenging issues with the highest degree of balance and integrity,” according to CBS CEO George Cheeks. Since stepping down as president, Zirinsky has led CBS’s documentary division See It Now Studios, where she will remain in charge. CBS News has received criticism recently over perceived bias in some of its programming, particularly with regard to several stories about the Middle East crisis that were deemed anti-Israel.
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.
