Media Moves

Adrian Carrasquillo

BuzzFeed News axed its White House correspondent following allegations that he made inappropriate comments to a colleague. Adrian Carrasquillo was let go after BuzzFeed conducted an internal investigation. Carrasquillo’s firing comes after his appearance on a Google spreadsheet known as “Shitty Media Men,” which lists men in media and publishing circles that it claims were involved in sexual misconduct. “In responding to a complaint filed last week by an employee, we learned that Adrian violated our Code of Conduct by sending an inappropriate message to a colleague. This followed a recent reminder about our prohibition against inappropriate communications,” a BuzzFeed spokesperson told the New York Daily News. “We are saddened by these circumstances, but we take these issues extremely seriously. We're committed to ensuring that BuzzFeed remains a place where everyone is treated respectfully by his or her peers.”

Michael Ferro

Tronc chairman Michael Ferro gave himself an impressive Christmas gift this year: Three checks for $5 million each, one to be delivered on the first business day of the new year, with the other two following at the beginning of 2019 and 2020. The money is part of an agreement between tronc and Merrick Media, a company run by Ferro, and is meant to pay for “certain management expertise and technical services.” The first $5 million is set to hit Ferro’s bank account just as the newsroom employees at the Los Angeles Times, a tronc-owned newspaper, cast their votes on whether or not to form a union and have the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America represent them in collective bargaining. On its website, the Los Angeles Times Guild organizing committee claims that workers at the paper face stagnant wages and declining benefits while upper management benefits from such sweetheart deals as Ferro handing that lucrative contract to his own company. In addition, the site says executive compensation in general at tronc is disproportionately high. It cites a Columbia Journalism Review report that says the company’s executive pay ballooned by 80 percent from 2015 to 2016. The union vote is scheduled for Jan. 4.

James Rosen

James Rosen, who has served as Fox News Channel’s Chief Washington Correspondent, is leaving the network. “James Rosen is exiting the company at the end of the year,” a Fox News spokesperson said, without providing any additional details. Rosen, who has been with Fox News since 1999, often appeared on the network’s Washington-centered “Special Report,” but was seen throughout the programming day. In 2013, it was discovered that the Justice Department had investigated Rosen in a leak probe, a turn of events that Fox executives at the time referred to as “downright chilling.”