 |
CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her company for $155M. David Ellison, CEO of Paramount called Weiss "a proven champion of independent, principled journalism." He's confident her "entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News." As editor-in-chief of CBS News, Weiss is to shape editorial priorities, champion core values across platforms, and lead innovation in how the organization reports and delivers the news. Weiss will report directly to Ellison and partner with CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, who reports to Paramount chair of TV media, George Cheeks. Weiss left her job at the Wall Street Journal to follow her boss Brett Stephens to the New York Times. She exited the paper in 2020, claiming that she had been “bullied” by liberal colleagues for her more conservative viewpoints. Expectedly, her leadership of CBS News has raised the ire of many liberal journalists. Founded in 2021, The Free Press has 1.5M subscribers, of which 170K of them are paid. Paramount is breaking down the site's paywall gthourgh October 12 for a special Free Press "free week."
 |
C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, the bipartisan Commission charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. C-SPAN will carry America250 Commission events across all its platforms — television, web, social media, YouTube, radio, and podcasts. The network says it will provide a minimum of 48 hours of dedicated America250 programming each week across its television networks. “This partnership is a continuation of C-SPAN’s enduring commitment to civic education and transparency, ensuring all Americans can take part in the nation’s 250th anniversary,” said C-SPAN CEO Sam Feist.
 |
A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low. Only 28 percent of those surveyed said that they had a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio. That number is down from 31 percent and 40 percent five years ago. On the flip side, 36 percent said that they had “not very much” confidence in the media, and 40 percent they had no confidence at all. When Gallup started measuring trust in the media in the 1970s, between 68 percent and 72 percent of respondents said they had confidence in reporting. However, by 2004, the number has dropped to 44 percent. For Republicans, the trust number descended into the single digits (eight percent), while 51 percent of Democrats said they trust the media. In addition, respondents 65 and older voiced a significantly higher level of trust (43 percent) than did any younger age group. “With confidence fractured along partisan and generational lines, the challenge for news organizations is not only to deliver fair and accurate reporting, but also to regain credibility across an increasingly polarized and skeptical public,” the study’s authors say.
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.
