scoop: PBS is cutting its budget by 21% to deal with federal funding cuts nytimes.com/2025/08/14/bus…

just confirmed by YouTube: the livestream of Taylor Swift's "New Heights" episode reached more concurrent live viewers (1.3 million... before crashing) than any other podcast since YouTube got into the game in 2023

News: Penske Media CEO Jay Penske tells staff he is requiring “all PMC publishing/media, live event, and operating businesses to have all full-time, permanent US employees consistently in the office 4 days per week by Monday, October 20, 2025,” per a note he sent to employees

I wrote about people who sold their likenesses to TikTok for AI-fueled advertisements. Marketers have been able to use their “avatars” to promote all sorts of products - and several regret the work. The folks I spoke with were paid as little as $500 for it nytimes.com/2025/08/17/bus…

news: MSNBC is renaming itself MS NOW (My Source News Opinion World)

Newsmax pays $67 million to settle Dominion’s defamation suit. A Newsmax spox tells me the settlement had no requirement for apology or retraction nytimes.com/2025/08/18/bus…

new: inside the $100 million race to rescue NPR and PBS stations 🎁 🔗 nytimes.com/2025/08/19/bus…

New, from James B. Stewart: A lawyer for Skydance denied that the company had struck a side-deal with President Trump, calling the reports "bullshit." The lawyer added that his firm "would appreciate it if we were not recounting that to others, especially in the press."

News: Alden Global Capital has upped its bid for the Dallas Morning News again -- this time to $18.50/ share, originally $16.50. But DallasNews's controlling shareholder has said he won't sell to Alden and is pressing ahead with Hearst merger @ $15/share dallasnews.com/news/2025/08/0…

Today, 468 pages of filings from Smartmatic's lawsuit against Fox News were unredacted. I went through them to try to highlight new internal text messages, emails & depositions In one message, for example, Jeanine Pirro called Sean Hannity an "egomaniac" washingtonpost.com/business/2025/…

Newly unredacted documents in the Smartmatic v Fox lawsuit shed some more light on what was happening at the network during the 2020 election nytimes.com/2025/08/19/bus…

New, from the Pew Research Center: About half of U.S. adults say journalists are losing influence in society. pewresearch.org/journalism/202…

NPR host Ari Shapiro is leaving NPR at the end of September, staff just informed.

BREAKING: Eric Adams Advisor Winnie Greco Handed a CITY Reporter Cash Stuffed in a Bag of Potato Chips thecity.nyc/2025/08/20/win…

A truly insane story: Four publications, including Wired and Business Insider, remove articles that are "likely AI-generated works of fiction." pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/dig…

Out with the new, in with the old. The Onion's bet on print is paying off, with soaring subscribers and revenue growth wsj.com/business/media… via The Wall Street Journal

SiriusXM now reps half of the top 20 shows in the U.S, more than any other network. Alex Cooper, SmartLess, Crime Junkie, Mel Robbins … Never reported before: its pod revenue was about $600m last year. A ‘bright spot’ in a tough moment for the company nytimes.com/2025/08/22/bus…

scoop with Michael M. Grynbaum: Chris Wallace has been quietly advising RedBird and David Ellison, the new owner of CBS News nytimes.com/2025/08/22/bus…

A Friday scoop with Ben Mullin nytimes.com/2025/08/22/bus…

I’m not sure I understand the timing, but Newsmax has a new statement clarifying that Smartmatic was not found to have rigged the election. (Newsmax settled Smartmatic’s lawsuit last year) newsmax.com/newsfront/liti…