Jeffrey Herbst resigned Monday as CEO of the Newseum in Washington as the board considers selling the 250,000 sq. ft. Pennsylvania Ave. facility, putting the future of the hard-pressed institution dedicated to freedom of the press in doubt.
As primary funder, the Gannett Foundation pumped about $500M into the Newseum during the past 20 years.
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That level of funding is no longer sustainable, according to Jan Neuharth, CEO of the renamed Freedom Forum.
“Left unchecked, this deficit spending rate would eventually drain the Freedom Forum’s entire endowment, and the annual cash drain prevents us from allocating any new capital to First Amendment programs that are at the heart of our educational mission,” Neuharth said in a statement.
The FF has assets of $804M, according to 2015 tax records. The Washington Post reports the Newseum building was appraised at $667M in 2014.
The Newseum’s board is also looking at joint venture opportunities and the partial divestiture of part of building, which includes apartments, conference center, restaurant and parking garages, as an alternative to the sale of the entire facility.
Opened in Arlington in 1997, the Newseum moved into its current glass building in 2008.
Neuharth, Newseum board member Peter Prichard and COO Scott Williams will assume Herbst’s duties.
Underscore Media, a new creator-led media venture dedicated to New York sports, is built around three established New York sports personalities, Sal Licata, Jimmy Traina, and John Jastremski.
McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers across 14 states (including The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star), launches a wave of layoffs that extends to at least 13 of those papers... The Toledo Blade, which was founded in 1835, is set to shut down on Dec. 31, unless owner Block Communications manages to find a buyer for it... A bill awaiting approval by California governor Gavin Newsom would give local newsrooms a boost. 
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
