The Israel-Hamas war is testing news media struggling with how to present the heinous casualties, combat misinformation on social media and face criticisms of bias.
TV journalists face hurdles to getting on the ground — and dangers once there. Pictured: Raf Sanchez of NBC News reports from Israel.
CNN Chief Executive Mark Thompson told staff that the network needs to step up its digital game, saying conventional TV “can no longer define us,” and said its journalists shouldn’t be distracted by debates about balance or false equivalency. Speaking to employees in a video message on Monday, his first official day at CNN, Thompson said he would draw on his earlier experience as CEO of the New York Times to modernize the network.
The primetime anchors for the Nexstar-owned cable channel don’t shy away from opinion, but are trying to avoid “extreme” positions.
Cable news had a busy, peculiar day in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday when the House of Representatives voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker and, in one of his first actions as speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick T. McHenry ordered speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi to vacate her private Capitol office.
Exclusives
Altice Lays Off Up To 40 At News 12
“It was an extremely chaotic day,” says one laid-off staffer of the cuts and how they were handled at the company’s metro New York area news channel.
Semafor reviewed the rates the network shared with one prospective ad buyer for both the first and second GOP primary debates. For the first debate, the cost of a single 30-second spot topped $495,000. But the same 30-second spot during Wednesday night’s contest cost just over $200,000.
Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) have agreed to participate in a televised debate in November that will be moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity. The debate, which will air on Fox during Hannity’s 9 p.m. program, will take place Nov. 30, the network announced.
The former press secretary in the Bush White House will moderate the next Republican debate. She’s managed to rise at Fox without being a Trump supplicant.
When former CNN Chief Executive Officer Chris Licht started running the news organization last year, he was given a mission by his boss, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav: change the network’s programming and tone to emphasize news rather than “advocacy” journalism. With Licht now fired, CNN’s incoming CEO, Mark Thompson, has a new mission: everything else.
MSNBC has expanded its opinion programming at the expense of traditional news hours in recent months, but Rashida Jones, its president, has tried to carve out a daytime weekday block devoted not to the progressive chatter that makes the network a popular destination for anti-Trumpers and liberals, but to what executives hope is seen as just-the-facts reportage.
The weeknight primetime host will celebrate the second anniversary of Dan Abrams Live on Sept. 27.
Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Newsmax over the right-wing cable network’s airing of 2020 election lies is scheduled to go to trial in late September 2024, a Delaware judge decided.
CNN Throws In The Towel
In replacing Chris Licht with Mark Thompson, David Zaslav lost an opportunity to move the channel back towards straight news. The loss of reasoned debate among people who disagree, yet still respect each other, is the great tragedy of the 21st century. CNN had a chance to build a small bridge over that chasm of partisanship, but the opportunity now seems to be gone.
News 12 New York has set a new editorial partnership with Time Out New York to produce content for audiences of both local New York media companies who enjoy food […]
Lawrence Jones has been named a co-host of the Fox News Channel flagship morning program Fox & Friends, in a move that brings the number of on-air personnel to four on weekdays. He starts Sept. 18.
The funds accuse the Fox Corp. board of neglecting its responsibility to shareholders by leaving the company open to defamation lawsuits.
The Fox News anchor, who hosts the afternoon program Special Report and serves as FNC’s chief political anchor, has signed a contract extension with the cable news channel. Baier last signed a contract extension in 2021, in a deal that was set to run into 2026. It was not immediately clear how long Baier’s new contract runs, though Fox says it is a “multi-year” extension.
Nexstar’s NewsNation cable network today announced that Connell McShane will join the network as host of the afternoon weekday program NewsNation Now at 3-5 p.m. ET, beginning Monday, Sept. 25. The show will […]
Finley’s conduct was investigated by an outside law firm. He had also been the subject of an internal probe back in 2011 that cleared him.
ESPN scores second place primetime finish.
The former director-general of the BBC and president and CEO of the New York Times Co. to take the helm of the global news organization.
While a shot has yet to be fired, some of the nation’s largest newsrooms are actively taking defensive measures to safeguard their content from ChatGPT, the groundbreaking artificial intelligence chatbot that is seen as a potential aggressor to an already struggling news industry.
Mark Thompson, the former chief executive of The New York Times, is expected to take over Warner Bros. Discovery’s cable news business, a person familiar with the matter confirms. WBD is expected to make his hire official this week.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s search for an outsider to run CNN has taken it to two high-profile veterans of the BBC. The news broke last week that a leading contender for the job is Mark Thompson, the former New York Times and BBC chief. But the company has also spoken to another prominent British journalist, James Harding, who led BBC News from 2013 to 2017 and then founded the British digital media outlet Tortoise.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has reportedly made up his mind about who will replace Chris Licht as the next chairman of CNN. Zaslav has been trying to convince former New York Times boss Mark Thompson to take the reins at Hudson Yards, according to the news site Puck.
The network quietly removed the story based on false claims from a congressman, and says it has apologized to the Marine’s family. But questions remain. (Richard Drew/AP)
The network is seeking to dismiss the claim from Ray Epps, who accused Fox and ex-host Tucker Carlson of “spreading falsehoods” about him being a federal agent.
Fox News drew more than 12.8 million viewers in its coverage of the first 2024 Republican presidential debate. The figure is the combined audience for Fox News and Fox Business Network, per Nielsen. The number also is well above expectations given the absence of Donald Trump from the stage.
A Delaware judge on Wednesday rejected Newsmax’s attempt to throw out part of a defamation case brought by the election technology company Smartmatic against the right-wing network. Smartmatic sued Newsmax after the network repeatedly aired false claims about the 2020 election — specifically the lie that the company’s software was involved in an international plot to rig the presidential election against Donald Trump. The company later updated its lawsuit to add 26 additional examples of alleged defamation, claiming it found the new material during the discovery process, when Newsmax turned over “hundreds of hours” of broadcasts.
The former New York Times and BBC chief Mark Thompson is a leading candidate to lead CNN, according to people familiar with the conversations on both sides of the Atlantic. Thompson, who left the Times in 2020 after eight years, is among a group of candidates in the mix for the job, according to three people familiar with the recruiting process.
