Make No Mistake, Alden Is Bad News
Margaret Sullivan: “When Alden Global Capital announced Tuesday that it was positioned to buy the Chicago Tribune and several other major newspapers, its statement might have sounded promising. But only if you knew nothing about how this hedge fund has sucked much of the life out of the newspapers it already owns in places like Denver and San Jose.”
Journalists at newspapers across the United States were despondent Tuesday when they learned their parent company would be sold to Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund notorious for gutting newsrooms. But at their sister paper, the Baltimore Sun, people were celebrating an apparent reprieve. The Sun was not bound for the hedge-fund chopping block like several other papers owned by Tribune Publishing. Instead, a Maryland business executive and philanthropist plans to buy Baltimore’s nearly 184-year-old newspaper and preserve it as a nonprofit.
CNN announced changes to its weekday morning and dayside lineup, including new assignments for Victor Blackwell, Ana Cabrera, Alisyn Camerota and Brianna Keilar. The news network also unveiled new roles for Jim Acosta and Boris Sanchez on weekends, with all changes effective in April.
The Sunbeam Television Miami Fox affiliate’s 7Skyforce helicopter was forced to avoid a drone that got too close to it while hovering over the scene of a car that had crashed into a Southwest Miami-Dade gym. Law enforcement has started an investigation into the incident.
Australia’s government has condemned Facebook over its suprise move to prevent Australians sharing news that had also blocked some government communications. The digital platforms fear that what’s happening in Australia will become an expensive precedent for other countries as governments revamp laws to catch up with the fast changing digital world.
Hearst-owned KCCI Des Moines, Iowa, Chief Meteorologist Kurtis Gertz today announced plans to leave the station after 25 years forecasting weather in Central Iowa. The station said Gertz leaves an […]
Exclusives
The 15-year media veteran is promoted from executive producer to oversee multiplatform news efforts at the Telemundo-owned station in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.
News Corp. this morning announced what it described as a “historic” three-year deal with Google, ensuring it will receive “significant payments” from the search giant for its news sites’ content worldwide, including Australia. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the announcement comes as Google faces a potential stalemate with Australia, which recently passed a new law requiring Google to negotiate fair payment for news it distributes from publishers Down Under.
“Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes,” by Ira Rosen (St. Martin’s Press) Long-time multi-award winning producer Ira Rosen has written a sometimes sad, often funny, always revealing portrait […]
Unflinchingly conservative, wildly partisan, bombastically self-promoting and larger than life, Limbaugh galvanized listeners for more than 30 years with his talent for vituperation and sarcasm. He was 70.
Hedge fund Alden Global Capital will acquire Tribune Publishing, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, in a deal worth $630 million. The companies announced on Tuesday that Alden will acquire all of the outstanding shares in Tribune that Alden doesn’t currently own for $17.25 per share in cash.
Allison Gollust, a CNN executive and top lieutenant to Jeff Zucker, has emerged as the leading internal candidate to take over the network if Zucker steps down as president, two people at CNN familiar with the matter say.
TVN Focus On Digital | TV Station CMSs Streamline And Simplify
Content management systems are the workhorses of local stations’ digital operations. Executives from Tegna, NBCU, CBS, Gray, Nexstar and Fox have discovered that user simplicity and integrations for multiplatform distribution have become essential attributes. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.
His venture and another upstart by a rival group of investors will challenge the BBC and Britain’s efforts to guard against political bias in television news.
Swati Sharma, 34, prepares to take over the 90-person newsroom of a digital outlet known for its clearsighted articles on knotty issues in the news.
We can begin to glean at least the outlines of what happened when Donald Trump met the law that the late New York Times columnist William Safire said “has done more to inhibit the abuse of Government power… than any legislation in our lifetime.” The results of that clash are as revealing about the 45th president as they are about FOIA.
Asheville, N.C. is by no means a news desert. Residents there have access to The Asheville Citizen Times, Mountain Xpress and Blue Ridge Public Radio as well as other local publications. Yet, a small coalition of veteran professional journalists and media executives want to help produce more local journalism in the area.
“The global pandemic, the focus on racial justice and the intense partisanship of 2020 called on us to work harder and smarter than ever, and today we celebrate a few of the many Scripps employees across the country who rose to the occasion,” says Adam Symson, Scripps’ president.
TVN Newsroom Innovators | KNTV’s Digital Rethink Pays Off
NBCU-owned KNTV in the Bay Area built a digital innovation team composed of unique specialists whose goal was to transform the newsroom’s culture. The team’s ambitious, multimedia investigative projects have garnered an armful of Murrow awards and illuminated bold, new storytelling pathways.
Savannah Guthrie’s next one-hour special won’t appear on any of NBC News’ best known properties, which include Today and NBC Nightly News. And yet, it may be of more critical importance to the NBCUniversal-owned news organization than any in-depth report she’s presented in recent months. Guthrie will today kick off a week-long focus by NBC News on the mental health of young people during the pandemic, the first of what NBC News President Noah Oppenheim says will be a year-long effort to provide deep reports — one a week — around specific topics across NBC News media properties.
ABC News chief national correspondent Matt Gutman has been suspended for violating a company policy on COVID-19 safety. A spokesperson for the network declined to comment, as did Gutman. A source familiar with the situation said that Gutman was suspended for violating company safety rules having to do with going into a hospital for a story without first getting permission from management. It was not immediately clear how long the suspension will last.
Still reeling from the sudden departure of its news director, NewsNation just lost its best known and most experienced reporter. Dean Reynolds signed off Friday after six months as national political correspondent for the Chicago-based newscast on Nexstar Media Group’s WGN America cable network.
