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Fox Broadcasting Company is facing a $30-million lawsuit from Muhammad Ali Enterprises over the “unauthorized use of Muhammad Ali’s identity” in a promotional video run just before Super Bowl LI. The complaint, filed in in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, claims that “Fox never requested or received MAE’s permission to use Ali’s identity or to imply his endorsement in connection with the services offered by Fox, including its broadcast of the Super Bowl.” The video intercuts images of Ali with shots of such NFL figures as Vince Lombardi, Tom Brady and Joe Namath, using the images of Ali “to define greatness and ultimately to compare the NFL legends to Ali and thus to define them and the Super Bowl as ‘greatness’ too.” Schiff Hardin LLP, the Chicago firm that won an $8.9 million verdict for Michael Jordan in 2015 over Sports Illustrated’s use of the NBA star’s “identity” in a limited edition publication, is representing Muhammad Ali Enterprises.
 Stephen Smith |
Stephen Smith is stepping down as National Journal’s editor-in-chief at the end of the year, at which time he will become senior editor for Atlantic Media. In that position, he will focus on special editorial projects for the parent company. Ben Pershing, currently National Journal’s managing editor, will assume Smith’s duties as editor of the company’s editorial products, National Journal Daily and Hotline. Smith was editor of National Journal when David G. Bradley, Chairman of Atlantic Media, purchased the company in 1997. He was asked to return two years ago. Pershing joined National Journal in 2014 as Washington editor and was promoted to managing editor in 2015.
 Troy Patterson |
The New Yorker has added Masha Gessen and Troy Patterson to its lineup of web columnists and is bringing on Adam Entous as a staff writer for both the magazine and newyorker.com. Gessen, author of “The Future is History, How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” has also written for such publications as The New York Review of Books and Vanity Fair. She will be writing on political subjects, both foreign and domestic. Patterson will be a cultural critic, writing primarily about television. He is currently the style editor at Bloomberg and previously wrote the “On Clothing” column for The New York Times Magazine. Entous will be joining The New Yorker early next year. He comes to the magazine from the Washington Post and was previously a national security correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.
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.
