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| John Ridding |
Financial Times group chief executive John Ridding is stepping down after close to 20 years in the position. Ridding will now serve as a special adviser to Nikkei, the Japanese media company that purchased the FT in 2015. He has been a special executive director at Nikkei since the sale and will leave Nikkei’s executive board in July. Ridding started at the FT 35 years ago as a junior sub-editor in the paper’s newsroom. The FT reported operating revenue of £520M ($697M) for 2024, up from £500M ($645M) in 2023. It also has a global paying audience of 2.9 million. Nikkei group chief executive Naotoshi Okada said Ridding had “stewarded the group through a period characterized by rapid international growth, diversification and digital transformation and leaves the business in robust health.” In a note to staff, Ridding said that the FT has “built a diverse portfolio that supports our gold standard journalism and strengthens our iconic brand.”
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| Scott Matthews |
MSNBC hires Scott Matthews as SVP of newsgathering, effective March 17, as the network prepares for life after its connection to NBC News. The network is set to be spun off by Comcast, which also owns NBC, and MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler is working to build up an independent news operation. Matthews will be charged with staffing and setting up that operation, as well as coordinating daily and breaking news coverage and setting editorial priorities. MSNBC will be casting its net for over 100 journalists, including field producers, correspondents and photographers. “Scott’s new role reflects our plans to build out MSNBC’s domestic, Washington and international newsgathering operations and expand our presence in the field,” said Kutler. Matthews previously worked for WABC-TV in New York, where he was vice president and news director
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Gallup has released a report showing that two-thirds of Americans either do not trust the media very much (31 percent) or do not trust it all (36 percent). On the Republican side of the divide, things are even worse: While 29 percent of Republicans said that they had “not much” trust in the news media, 59 percent said they had no trust in at all, meaning that almost nine out 10 had low trust in the news media’s reliability. Democrats reported much higher trust levels, with only six percent saying they had no trust at all and 40 percent saying they had not much trust. To put that in some historical context, back in post-Watergate America (1976), the amount of people reporting a high level of confidence in the media topped 70 percent. In addition, the downward trend looks likely to continue. More than four out of 10 (43 percent) of respondents over 50 said they had a high level of trust in the media, but that number drops to 26 percent for those under 50.
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.
