MEDIA
Dylan Byers
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February 15, 2025
The Print Army Comes for A.I.
While publishers file sweeping, indignant (possibly useless) lawsuits against A.I. companies using their work to train their learning models, the industry is at a loss as to what to actually do about their A.I. futures—if there is anything that can be done at all.
Dylan Byers
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February 13, 2025
CBS News’s Blue Period
Amid the depressing Shari-Trump ‘60 Minutes’ settlement chatter, the newly reformatted and spruced-up ‘CBS Evening News’ seems to be a quickly metastasizing ratings and formatting disaster—and the latest reminder that few things unite a newsroom quite like one of their boss’s public shortcomings.
Dylan Byers
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February 8, 2025
Out of Fox to Give
Blue chip advertisers that long shunned Fox News (or at least its more crackpot-friendly time slots) are quietly coming back, leading the network to record-setting revenue. Is it the mainstreaming of Trump’s America, or an even broader cultural shift?
Dylan Byers
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February 6, 2025
60 Minutes to Midnight
Inside the agony and finger-pointing at CBS News, where executives and journalists are protesting Shari Redstone’s eagerness to settle Trump’s suit, countenancing their diminishing place in the firmament, and girding for the F.C.C. to extract maximum political pain.
Dylan Byers
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February 1, 2025
Shari Shrugged
Apparently, Shari Redstone has waited too long and stands to make too much on the sale of her declining family business to get tripped up in a journalistic ethics debate or public spat with the new president. Why not just cave? These days, everybody’s doing it.
Lauren Sherman
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January 31, 2025
A ‘New York’ Story Fit for ‘New York’
Until now, New York magazine’s union members have never threatened a work stoppage. And while their demands seem reasonable—over salary, health insurance, and (of course) concerns about A.I.—this is one of those unfortunate situations where the structural challenges of the parentco might preclude a tidy ending.
Dylan Byers
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January 30, 2025
Boiler Room
News, notes, and observations on the superficial changes inside the Brady Room and the far more significant transformations under the hood within the D.C. media industrial complex.
Dylan Byers
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January 25, 2025
CNN After CNN
The contracting news network is finally leveling with staff that its future won’t look anything like its past. But Mark Thompson is still focused on where and how people consume news, without offering a vision for how CNN competes in a more crowded media landscape.
Dylan Byers
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January 23, 2025
The Contracting News Network
With a defanged and fully demoralized staff, and a mandate from Mark Thompson to drop the #Resistance posturing, could the new year be any gloomier at the most trusted name in news? Layoffs are on the way…
Dylan Byers
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January 16, 2025
Kingdom Kutler
Rebecca Kutler, Jeff Zucker’s onetime heir apparent at CNN, is now the big boss at MSNBC, where she’ll lead the company into the SpinCo wilderness—managing talent, decline, and anxieties along the way. And yet, she’s not only the best person for the job, but perhaps the only one who can do it.
Dylan Byers
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January 9, 2025
A Matter of Life & Jeff
Yes, we’re all grossed out by billionaires and C.E.O.s genuflecting to the incoming president, even if much of it is cynical lip-service. But the agony and angst of it all has overly simplified a much more complex challenge.
Dylan Byers
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January 3, 2025
Politico, Brother, Where Art Thou?
More news and notes on the traditional inter-administration employment musical chairs within the D.C. media scene.
Dylan Byers
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December 27, 2024
The Ghosts of The Washington Post’s Past
News, notes, and H.R. updates on a series of significant fin de siècle leadership changes at Jeff Bezos’s constantly transmogrifying paper.
Eriq Gardner
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December 26, 2024
Murdoch v. Prince Harry: “They’re Going to Try to Destroy Him”
It’s been nearly 30 years since Rupert Murdoch’s News Group tabloid empire allegedly first hacked Prince Harry’s voicemail messages. But rather than settle, like Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller, the Duke of Sussex is putting The Murdoch Machine on trial. I spoke with a U.K. lawyer for a preview of the legal drama.
Dylan Byers
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December 20, 2024
And Then There Was Matt…
After six excruciating months, Washington Post C.E.O. Will Lewis is naming acting executive editor Matt Murray as his new editorial leader—a fitting capstone to a lackluster search effort that never quite came to fruition.
Dylan Byers
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December 19, 2024
Stephanopoulos’s Renewal & Will’s Plan B
News and notes on the most pressing topics at the intersection of the D.C. media axes of intrigue: Stephanopoulos’s sloppy electronics, and Washington Post top editor contingency planning.
Dylan Byers
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December 14, 2024
Zaz’s CNN Situation Room
The restructuring of Warner Bros. Discovery, designed to cleave the company’s declining cable assets from its studio and streaming business, has left CNN insiders and executives wondering where the network fits into WBD’s future—or if it does at all.