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The U.S. Department of Justice is planning to file suit to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, according to a report from Reuters. The legal challenge follows AT&T’s rejection of a DoJ demand made earlier this month requiring AT&T to shed its DirecTV unit or Time Warner to sell off Turner Broadcasting in order to win antitrust approval. AT&T’s chief executive said then that he would defend the deal in court to win approval if necessary. Turner Broadcasting is the parent company of CNN, a major Trump nemesis. In addition to the President, several consumer groups and smaller television networks object to the merger on the grounds that it would give AT&T too much power over the content it would distribute to its wireless customers. Neither AT&T nor Time Warner had any immediate comment on news of the impending lawsuit.
 Glenn Thrush |
The New York Times says it has put White House reporter Glenn Thrush on suspension while it looks into charges that he made unwanted advances on young women while working for Politico as a reporter. The suspension comes in the wake of a piece posted today on the website Vox by Laura McGann, who worked with Thrush at Politico. McGann claims that Thrush placed his hand on her thigh at a bar, after asking a person who had been sitting with them to leave. In a statement, the Times called the alleged behavior “very disturbing” and “not in keeping with the Times’ standards.” Thrush has decided to enter a substance abuse program, a decision which the Times says it supports.
 Sarah Ellison |
The Washington Post is bringing on Sarah Ellison as a media reporter, effective January 22. Ellison comes to the Post from Vanity Fair, where she had been a special correspondent and contributing editor since 2011…. The Wall Street Journal has named Adam Horvath senior editor, overseeing news and weekend coverage for the paper’s “Review” section. Horvath has been at the Journal since 2003, most recently serving as world editor…. Quartz has hired David Kaufman as global lifestyle editor. He will help to supervise Quartzy, the publication’s new lifestyle and culture edition. The site will be edited by Indrani Sen (who currently edits Quartzy the newsletter). Before coming to Quartz, Kaufman was co-editor in chief of the New York Post’s “Alexa” vertical.
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The New Yorker has joined the list of publications who have placed the sexual harassment scandals front and center. The cover of the Nov. 27 issue of the magazine, which hit newsstands today, is cartoonist Barry Blitt’s “Nowhere to Hide,” (shown at right) which addresses the string of revelations of sexual abuse committed by powerful men. “He could be any one of the parade of names that gets longer every day—from Harvey Weinstein to Roy Moore, Al Franken, Louis C.K., Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey, and even the current occupant of the White House,” Blitt says of the anonymous figure in the image. “He could be anybody, actually.”
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.
