 |
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.
 |
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.”
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.
