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Thursday, October 26, 2023

TV news networks are forced to throw out their rundowns (again), Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief buries his family, share in Amazon surge after its Q3 report, Evan Gershkovich marks his 32nd birthday in a Russian prison, OpenAI forms team to study "catastrophic risks" of A.I., Taylor Swift achieves billionaire status, Hasan Minhaj responds to The New Yorker, and more. But first, the A1.

THE A1

Bezos on the Brink

CNN Photo Illustration/zz/Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx/AP

A new era is on the horizon for The Washington Post.

The broadsheet — which surged in readership during Donald Trump's chaotic presidency, but has since struggled to maintain that audience — is set to welcome a new chief executive and publisher in the coming weeks.

Owner Jeff Bezos is "very close" to making his selection, a person familiar with the matter told me Thursday, adding that the pick will likely be announced in November. Puck's Dylan Byers reported Wednesday that a pick could even be announced within days.

Whomever Bezos selects for the task will face enormous challenges. Interim chief executive Patty Stonesifer revealed to employees earlier this month that, under previous chief executive Fred Ryan, the company "overshot on expenses." Stonesifer described The Post as a "really good business," but added that she has been working to "right size" it.

Some of the problems stem from The Post's declining audience. Stonesifer disclosed that the publication's readership has plummeted since Trump's White House exit, with its digital audience sinking by a staggering 28% since 2021. Digital subscriptions, Stonesifer added, had dropped 15%.

That brutal reality has led to financial distress for the storied newspaper (it is on track to lose $100 million this year), forcing executives earlier this month to take evasive action, announcing that the company will reduce its workforce by 10% through voluntary buyouts.

Executive Editor Sally Buzbee, who held a town hall Thursday to answer questions from apprehensive Post staffers, told the troops that she expects to maintain 940 journalists across the company heading into 2024, people who attended the meeting told me. Still, she acknowledged that saying goodbye to such a large number of newsroom staffers will be difficult.

"It's not going to be easy to lose valued colleagues," Buzbee told the gathered staff, according to those who were there.

During the meeting, Buzbee said that The Post needs to be wholly committed to building workflows centered on its digital presence. In other words, the primary emphasis should no longer be on the print edition that has typically been the focal point throughout its history. The Post, she added, needs to be more engaging for new audiences and improve its offerings to maintain them.

To achieve those goals, Buzbee invoked what she said Bezos told senior leadership while in the office this week: "We need to be tactically impatient and strategically patient about our long term future."

For his part, Bezos directly communicated with The Post's journalists by way of a one-paragraph note Thursday. The billionaire Amazon founder said he had an "invigorating 48 hours" at The Post, "learning about our great and important work," according to a copy of the memo I obtained. Bezos affirmed he is "committed to the future of The Post as ever." But he reiterated his desire for The Post to be financially solvent.

"Long term it's important that The Post return to profitability – a key signal that we're serving readers in a way that's important to them," Bezos said. "If we work hard to understand our readers (and what they value) and keep producing the caliber of reporting I had the pleasure of reviewing with the teams this week, I know we'll again find financial success."

Getting to that juncture will not be a walk in the park. Media companies, broadly speaking, are navigating a formidable and rapidly-changing landscape posing existential threats to their businesses.

The Post, specifically, has a fair amount of work cut out for it.

One item certain to be on the agenda is expanding the aperture of the D.C.-focused outlet. It's no secret that the acquisition strategy executed in recent years by its arch rival, The New York Times, have frustrated some staffers inside The Post, who wished that Ryan had made similar plays. Will The Post move to make moves of its own under new leadership?

"Once we are given the green light to acquire, there is a lot of running room," a veteran staffer at The Post told me.

But The Post is not alone in its struggles. Legacy newspapers across the country, terrestrial broadcasters, CNN, and digital upstarts alike are grappling with the transition to new revenue models to sustain their newsrooms into the future. The rapid decline in their traditional business not only raises concerns for the future of journalism, it has sweeping implications for society at large.

As the Post proclaims next to its masthead, "Democracy dies in darkness."

——— BELOW THE FOLD ———

CNN Photo Illustration/CNN

Throwing Out the Rundown: News organizations juggled three developing news stories on Thursday night: the manhunt for the mass shooting suspect in Maine; the Israel-Hamas war; and late breaking news that U.S. warplanes had carried out air strikes on Iran-backed militias in Syria. Fox News, which broke the news about the strikes, stuck with commercial-free coverage throughout the 10pm ET hour and into the 11pm hour, anchoring the story with Trace Gallagher in Israel, Jennifer Griffin at the Pentagon, and Jacqui Heinrich at the White House. MSNBC also stuck with the story, not going to commercials until roughly 45 min into the 10pm hour. CNN, however, mixed in coverage of the manhunt in Maine and stuck with its typical ad slate.

MASS SHOOTING MAINE

The banner headline Thursday night on the Portland Press Herald: "GUNMAN STILL AT LARGE." (Press Herald)
Anchors were once again sent to another location to report live for a breaking news story. David Muir, Lester Holt, John Berman, and Chris Cuomo anchored from Maine.
In prime time on CNN, Kaitlan Collins grilled Ron DeSantis about whether red flag laws are effective. Over on Fox News, Sean Hannity chatted with newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said guns are not the problem. (Mediaite/Mediaite)
Piers Morgan confronted Fox News' hosts: "Guns do kill people." (Mediaite)
Justin Baragona called out Newsmax for having "stuck with its pre-taped primetime shows" on Wednesday rather than cover the massacre in Maine with breaking news coverage. (Daily Beast)
Eric Hananoki pointed out that "numerous verified X accounts" were stoking conspiracy theories, claiming the Maine shootings were a "false flag." (MMFA)

CNN Photo Illustration/Ashraf Amra/Anadolu/Getty Images

Dahdouh's Determination: Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh buried his wife, son, daughter, and grandson on Thursday, after the Qatari-funded news network reported they were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a refugee camp they were sheltering in. (The IDF told me they were targeting Hamas infrastructure in the area.) Speaking to reporters on Thursday after the emotional funeral, Dahdouh said the tremendous personal loss would not deter him from doing his job. "No doubt it will not stop me from doing my duties, no matter what the price we are paying," he said. "The voice of Al Jazeera; my voice will continue to tell the truth. In a few minutes I will go live on air."

ISRAEL AT WAR

The death toll among journalists has swelled to 27 since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. (CPJ)
Sherif Mansour, CPJ's Middle East coordinator, spoke to Diana Falzone about why this particular war has been so dangerous for journalists. (Mediaite)
A contributor for The Daily Beast, whose name the outlet withheld for safety reasons, was almost killed during an airstrike on their home in Gaza: "I forgot that I was a journalist. I was crying, screaming, praying, and terrified." (Daily Beast)
Clarissa Ward talks to David Rind about the moment a protester confronted her at the Rafah crossing: "I think that a big part of my job, honestly, is to listen to what people have to say and to allow them a platform to have their voices heard. These are legitimate voices. ... This woman is not calling for violence. She was calling for fairness and coverage." (Podcasts)
Jake Tapper had a must-see package about how Hamas terrorists killed a mom in front of her child, and then used the child for propaganda purposes afterward. (CNN)
Wikipedia's coverage of the war has proved to be more reliable than that of Elon Musk's X, Stephen Harrison contends. (Slate)
"On Rumble, right-wing creators use the violence in Israel and Gaza to spread antisemitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant rhetoric," Natalie Mathes and Jack Winstanley report. (MMFA)

THE INDUSTRY

IN THE MARKET

Shares in Amazon surged in after-hours trading Thursday after beating on its Q3 earnings report. The company reported advertising revenue of $12 billion, up 26% from a year ago — and, of course, before it introduces ads to its Prime streaming services next year. (THR)
Peacock has reached 28 million subscribers, adding 4 million in Q3. The streamer shrunk losses to $565 million — still a pretty penny — from $614 million a year ago. (THR)
Nexstar and ReachTV extended the distribution of both NewsNation and The CW. (TVNewsCheck)

THE FOURTH ESTATE

Detained WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich marked his 32nd birthday Thursday in a Russian prison. His family said they were relying on President Biden's pledge to bring him home. (WSJ)
"Mysterious bylines appeared on a USA Today site," Will Sommer writes. "Do these writers exist?" (WaPo)
Gannett promised to provide annual demographic reports in 2020 — it still has yet to do so for 2023, Angela Fu reports. ( Poynter)
The NewsGuild "risks harming reporter's privilege" as it battles a lawsuit from journalist Mike Elk, argues Seth Stern. (FPF)

MEDIA MOVES

RawStory hired Kathleen Culliton as its assistant managing editor and M.L. Nestel as a news writer. (RawStory)
The Cut and New York magazine hired Carol Smith as a strategic adviser. (New York)
The NYT announced Adam Nossiter joined the obituaries desk as a reporter. (NYT)

THE VALLEY

CNN Photo Illustration/Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Managing the Machines: OpenAI is taking concerns that A.I. tech could grow out of hand very seriously. The company announced Thursday that it formed a team to "track, evaluate, forecast, and protect against catastrophic risks spanning multiple categories" related to A.I. "We believe that frontier AI models, which will exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models, have the potential to benefit all of humanity," OpenAI said. "But they also pose increasingly severe risks." OpenAI added that it is imperative to "ensure we have the understanding and infrastructure needed for the safety of highly capable A.I. systems." I think everyone can agree with that. TechCrunch's Kyle Wiggers has more here.

TOO MANY TABS

Google has, over the years, lived with the anxiety that Apple would one day set out to get serious about launching a search engine — and has taken measures to stop that from happening, Nico Grant reports. (NYT)
"Grandpa Google"?: Google's head of search said the tech titan invests to avoid becoming "roadkill." (NYT)
Google is imbuing Maps with A.I.-powered features. (TechCrunch)
Chuck Schumer said that the "only real answer" to reining in A.I. is through congressional action. (WaPo)
Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the U.K. next week for an A.I.-related trip. (The Hill)
Elon Musk has overseen a dramatic drop in usage of the platform once called Twitter. (Axios)
Threads continued to roll out new features, injecting GIFs and polls into the platform. (TechCrunch)
TikTok and YouTube may join Meta in seeking an Indonesian e-commerce license. (Reuters)

CURTAIN CALL

CNN Photo Illustration/Gilbert Flores/Variety/Getty Images

Minhaj's Message: Suffice to say, Hasan Minhaj is no fan of The New Yorker. The comedian posted a 20-minute video to his YouTube channel Thursday, blasting the outlet for making him appear like a "psycho" in the piece it ran earlier this year. "Being accused of faking racism is not trivial," Minhaj said about the article that chronicled creative liberties he had taken in his stand-up routines. Minhaj said the roots of the stories were true, adding, "I do not appreciate The New Yorker implying I made up racism." The lengthy video included documentation Minhaj said he provided The New Yorker, but which reporter Clare Malone did not ultimately use. "It was so needlessly misleading," Minhaj said of the story. "Not just about my standup. But also me as a person."

► The New Yorker's response: "Hasan Minhaj confirms in this video that he selectively presents information and embellishes to make a point: exactly what we reported. Our piece, which includes Minhaj's perspective at length, was carefully reported and fact-checked. It is based on interviews with more than twenty people, including former 'Patriot Act' and 'Daily Show' staffers; members of Minhaj's security team; and people who have been the subject of his standup work, including the former F.B.I. informant 'Brother Eric' and the woman at the center of his prom-rejection story. We stand by our story."

HOLLYWOOD HELL

The actors and the studios met again on Thursday as both sides continue to work toward a deal.
SAG-AFTRA's chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, told Rosy Cordero that's he's "cautiously optimistic" as the union sits back down with the studios. ( Deadline)
The two sides will meet again on Friday. (Deadline)

OFF STAGE

Lionsgate is eyeing a $50 million box office opening for its November 17 launch of "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." (Deadline)
Taylor Swift is now a billionaire, Bloomberg says. (CNN)
The Beatles are set to release their so-called final song, "Now and Then," on November 2, over 50 years after the band broke up. (BBC)
Azealia Banks was allotted more time to find evidence in her royalties dispute with Prospect Park chief executive Jeff Kwatinetz. (Pitchfork)
Lady Gaga made a surprise performance during U2's performance at the Las Vegas Sphere on Wednesday. (Pitchfork)
Spotify will amend its royalties structure. (Pitchfork)
Netflix released the trailer for the first part of the sixth season of "The Crown." (YouTube)
Paramount+ canceled both "Fatal Attraction" and "Rabbit Hole" after a single season. (TheWrap)
David Yates said that Warner Bros. has "parked" production of future "Fantastic Beasts" films. (THR)

Thank you for reading! This newsletter was edited by Jon Passantino and produced with the assistance of Liam Reilly. Have feedback? Send us an email here. You can follow us on Instagram and Threads. We will see you back in your inbox next week.