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MEDIA

Mark Thompson

After the Thompson Manifesto

A spirited and polite disagreement evinces CNN’s new lay of the land, old anxieties, and the latest power dynamics.
Dylan Byers • January 19, 2024
Dylan Byers • January 17, 2024
Mark Thompson’s Fourteen Points
Mark Thompson
After months of anticipation, CNN C.E.O. Mark Thompson has finally unveiled his shrewd, diplomatic, and resolute manifesto articulating CNN’s digital transformation. So what does it all mean?
Dylan Byers • January 12, 2024
The Declaration on the Rights of Ackman
The Ackman vs. Axel fight, wherever it goes, is only the latest manifestation of a broader tension between public figures and news organizations in the digital media age.
More news and notes on the hedge fund manager’s very public crusade against Business Insider, Axel Springer, and KKR.
Bill Ackman responded to the B.I. pieces by essentially placing the media company, which is owned by Axel Springer, at the center of his next activist campaign.
Dylan Byers • January 11, 2024
A Season of Ackman’s Life
News and notes on the media holy war of our time: Bill Ackman’s pressure campaign to persuade Business Insider’s investors and executives to disavow a report detailing improper attributions in his wife’s academic work.
Raúl Martinez, Anna Wintour’s favorite creative director, is returning to Condé Nast after a two-year stint at Victoria’s Secret.Raúl Martinez, Anna Wintour’s favorite creative director, is returning to Condé Nast after a two-year stint at Victoria’s Secret.
Lauren Sherman • January 8, 2024
As I Lay Designing
Notes on the third, and likely final, creative collaboration between Anna Wintour and her favorite (print) designer, Raúl Martinez.
The New York Times is trying to sell a court on the notion that ChatGPT, the chatbot operated by Sam Altman’s OpenAI, is a plagiarist, mimicking their unique expression of facts.
Eriq Gardner • January 8, 2024
Will OpenAI Eat The New York Times?
Gaming out the motivations, the countermoves, and the likely endgame of the Times-OpenAI legal fracas.
will lewis
Dylan Byers • January 6, 2024
Post Modernism Theories
Does Will Lewis, the Brit who just took over The Washington Post, have the hardest job in media? One week in and Alex MacCallum is off to CNN, and it turns out that his company’s traffic has dipped by more than 50 percent in the past few years.
CNN C.E.O. Mark Thompson has been in extensive talks with Alex MacCallum, the well-regarded digital product guru who served with him for eight years at the Times.
Dylan Byers • January 3, 2024
When Mark Met Alex
The newish CNN C.E.O. has his eye on Alex MacCallum, the Washington Post C.R.O. and his former Times disciple, to help him enact his drastic digital transformation effort.
Mark Thompson
Dylan Byers • December 28, 2023
Zaz’s Whale, Zucker’s Chase & The British Guys
As the year ends, a talmudic reading of the four most consequential plotlines bewitching the media industry as it enters 2024.
Dylan Byers • December 23, 2023
Can Zaz & Shari Go the Distance?
News and notes on the topics everyone is fulminating over as the holidays set in: Zazmount possibilities, Will Lewis’s forthcoming tenure at The Washington Post, and early grumblings from CNN on the Thompson era.
A combination of WBD and Paramount, even with a sale of various cable assets, would offer Zaz a true gem in many ways.
Dylan Byers • December 21, 2023
Zazmount Global & WaPo Gridlock
News and notes on the biggest stories roiling the industry: the Zaz-Shari deal possibilities and Will Lewis’s arrival at the union-torn, money-losing Washington Post.
James Bennet, the undeniably brilliant former New York Times Opinion editor, was ousted from the paper in June 2020 after greenlighting Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton’s op-ed calling for military intervention to quell the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd.
Dylan Byers • December 16, 2023
The Best of the Times, The Worst of the Times
News and notes on James Bennet’s biblically long screed against the Gray Lady, A.G., illiberalism, and more.
Most media executives see an obvious ceiling to Tucker’s ambitions, with Beck, Megyn, and O’Reilly providing ample evidence of the limits to going it alone in the subscription-based creator economy.
Dylan Byers • December 13, 2023
The Tucker Rule
TCN, Tucker’s new $9-a-month streaming service, may portend the limits of the direct-to-consumer media economy—and suggest whether there is, indeed, life after cable stardom.
Chris Licht emerged at the event under the banner of his own company, Licht Media.
Dylan Byers • December 9, 2023
Licht of Arabia
News and notes emanating from Hudson Yards: clues about Chris Licht’s next venture, a CNN-ABC debate beef, and Charles Barkley’s round mound of rough ratings.
EBITDA positive or not, it’s estimated by some executives at the company that Condé Nast has lost significant sums during Lynch’s four and a half years at the helm, albeit for some decisions made before his time.
Lauren Sherman • December 7, 2023
Slouching Toward One World Trade
A prolonged and botched layoff cycle has called attention to the financial engineering and further brand dilution of Si Newhouse’s former empire. As usual, the chorus of discontent appears to be a mixture of agita and inevitability, along with typical finger-pointing.
David Zaslav
Dylan Byers • December 7, 2023
A Very Zaz X-mas
News and notes on the media amid the season of yuletide gossip: WBD theories, CNN hypotheticals, and more Zuckerology.
Mark Thompson
Dylan Byers • December 2, 2023
The Mark Thompson Plan
CNN’s new boss has been working on a 2024 business plan that will restructure the network around a multiplatform philosophy. The plan, which will go into effect next quarter, will move significantly more resources into CNN’s digital efforts.
Jeff Zucker speaks at the 2019 Mirror Awards at Cipriani 42nd Street on June 13, 2019 in New York City
Dylan Byers • November 30, 2023
Zucker in Deal Heat
The C.E.O. of RedBird IMI took a romp through London Town—holding court at the Berkeley, making bold declarations about editorial independence, meeting with associates, winning hearts and minds—to try to bring home the fund’s acquisition of The Telegraph.