MEDIA
Dylan Byers
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February 4, 2026
For Whom Will Tolls
When Bezos bought the ‘Post’ in 2013, he said, “You can’t shrink your way to relevance.” Today, however, his newspaper is attempting to do just that and then some—shuttering entire sections, laying off 300 reporters, and pulling back on crucial reporting. Is a comeback possible, or has K Street officially entered its late Ottoman era?
Dylan Byers
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January 30, 2026
Who Will End Up With CNN?
Speculation that Barry Diller had considered buying CNN has set off another wave of panicked fever dreams surrounding the future of the network if or when WBD’s cable portfolio is severed from the Studios and Streaming mothership. Is it all just industry psychobabble, or has Zaz enlisted a pal to help close his deal with Netflix?
Dylan Byers
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January 28, 2026
Bari the Hatchet
No one said that turning around a legacy news institution in the age of inexorable decline, shattered attention spans, and staff revolts was supposed to be easy. But as Mark Thompson, Will Lewis, and Bari Weiss are proving, you can’t move forward without taking the lead.
John Ourand & Dylan Byers
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January 26, 2026
The WaPo Extinction Event
The Washington Post cuts, which could affect as many as 300 employees, according to sources, are the culmination of a two-year effort by C.E.O. Will Lewis to fundamentally transform the paper and reverse hundreds of millions in annual losses. In that effort, Lewis has decided to focus the Post’s editorial investment on a few core coverage areas—national security, politics, etcetera—and not sports.
Dylan Byers
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January 23, 2026
The Times 4-Day Workweek Holy War
Each era seems to get the New York Times union the negotiations it deserves. The latest, already contentious round of labor relations at the paper is likely to come down to issues like A.I. and return-to-office. Don’t expect a return to the recent age of conciliation.
Dylan Byers
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January 21, 2026
Bari’s Prison of Her Own Design
After a month of contentious delays, 60 Minutes finally aired its piece on the notorious El Salvador prison CECOT. The “hostage standoff,” as one person put it, ended in an uneasy truce that could have been reached a month ago—and without exposing the distrust and division at Bari Weiss’s CBS News.
Dylan Byers
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January 16, 2026
The Politico Succession Games Begin…
An era at Politico has been ending for the last decade—at least since the departures of Mike and Jim, then Jake and Anna, and, of course, the sale to Axel Springer. But with John Harris ascending to the chairmanship, again, it’s finally Axel’s baby. And Mathias Döpfner may be looking outside the mothership for Harris’s successor.
Dylan Byers
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January 14, 2026
Tony and Bari on the Rocks
The sponcon set dressing at ‘Evening News’ provoked predictable outcry at the House of Bari. But are brand partners in TV news just an inevitability at this point?
Dylan Byers
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January 9, 2026
Semafornication
Ben and Justin’s recent fundraise at an 8x trailing revenue multiple, which follows David Ellison’s extravagant purchase of The Free Press, suggests we’ve entered a new era of digital media valuations. Unless we’ve just reentered the old one. Anyway, is Punchbowl next in line?
Dylan Byers
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January 7, 2026
The Tony Accords
Tony Dokoupil’s disastrous debut as anchor of CBS Evening News highlights the uncomfortable truth about Bari Weiss’s tenure: While her politics take center stage, it’s her inexperience that’s her real liability.
Dylan Byers
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January 2, 2026
Common Sense & Sensibility
A candid chat with Common Sense Media founder Jim Steyer on what lies in the hearts of Silicon Valley’s biggest bigwigs and what the A.I. bros are doing to your children. Plus, thoughts on Sundar, Zuck, and his brother Tom’s California gubernatorial bid.
Dylan Byers
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December 26, 2025
The Weiss Flag
It’s tempting to view Bari Weiss’s first big blunder—pulling a 60 Minutes segment critical of the administration’s deportation efforts—as purely political, which it may have been. But it may have been the product of something more mundane: Bari doesn’t know how to lead a newsroom.
Dylan Byers
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December 19, 2025
The 2025 Media State of the Union
The inherent tension of the journalist-as-brand model, the continued erosion of institutional authority, the potential for an A.I. newsroom: Industry leaders weighed in on all this and more at a panel this week to unveil the results of our latest Puck–Orchestra survey.
Dylan Byers
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December 17, 2025
The Gulf of Semafor
As Semafor expands further into the Gulf, it’s becoming clear that Justin Smith and Ben Smith’s media baby is looking a lot more like the former than the latter.
Dylan Byers
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December 12, 2025
The Lanzone That Time Forgot
Don’t waste your tears on Yahoo, the Internet 1.0 relic that collapsed into Verizon and then the warm embrace of private equity. C.E.O. Jim Lanzone explains how the Apollo-owned company is poised to make the most of its post-search distribution, and why niche is the new scale.
Dylan Byers
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December 10, 2025
A Weiss Christmas
While The Free Press is flush with holiday spirit, Bari’s job reinventing CBS News is proving more vexing, amid anchor dreams dashed and the age-old challenge of enacting institutional change.
Dylan Byers
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December 5, 2025
CNN’s Bari Christmas
In the wake of Netflix’s Warner Bros. coup, the folks at CNN are, perhaps naively, looking on the bright side: They may not have to work for Bari Weiss after all. But times in Spinoffville are going to get tough—and fast.