Mediagazer: Athan Stephanopoulos plans to leave as CNN's chief digital officer at the end of January, the second turnover of digital executives at CNN since WBD took over (Brian Steinberg/Variety)

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

Source: The Messenger is expected to lay off roughly two dozen out of ~300 employees this week; the company says it is “in the midst of a second-round raise” — The company, an aggressive entrant to the digital news space, is expected to cut roughly two-dozen employees later this week.

Discussion: @carlmacgowan, @carloseats, @stufalk, @tomaxwell, @lmoses, @theloniusly, @evolambert, @benjaminopowers, @benmullin, @benmullin, The Wrap, New York Post and The Information

Justin Baragona / The Daily Beast:
Richard Beckman, president of The Messenger, announces his resignation, citing health problems, and says January 31 will be his last day

Discussion: Richard Beckman on LinkedIn

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:

In an email, Cheddar furloughs at least some employees, effective immediately, and bars them from further work, blaming unforeseen internal and external factors — The “post-cable” news network said “unforeseen internal and external factors” caused the sudden work stoppage.

Discussion: @chrisharihar, @benmullin, @sherman4949, New York Post, Adweek, The Desk and Variety

Kelly Garrity / Politico:

Donald Trump plans to forgo the CNN's GOP primary debate in favor of a town hall on Fox moderated by Fox anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum — The former president has yet to debate other Republican primary candidates. — Former President Donald Trump will participate …

Discussion: Fox News, CNN, Boing Boing, Axios, Newser, @brianstelter, Semafor, Breitbart, Washington Post, CBS News, Adweek, Mediaite, Bloomberg, The Desk, The Hill, New York Post, Forbes and Media Matters for America

Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:

BPI: UK consumers streamed 179.6B audio tracks in 2023, up 12.8% YoY; women artists topped the UK's official singles chart for a record 31 of the 52 chart-weeks — British labels body the BPI has published its annual report on music consumption in the UK. — That means figures covering …

Discussion: BPI, CMU, Financial Times, The Guardian, BPI, Music Week and Music Ally

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Athan Stephanopoulos plans to leave as CNN's chief digital officer at the end of January, the second turnover of digital executives at CNN since WBD took over — Athan Stephanopoulos will leave his role as chief digital officer of CNN as the news outlet's new chief starts to implement …

Discussion: The Wrap, Deadline, @bristei, @pressgazette, @dylanbyers, The Hollywood Reporter and @dylanbyers

Jay Peters / The Verge:

X launches a Verified Organizations Basic tier for $200/month or $2,000/year, in addition to Full Access for $1,000/month and $50/month for each US affiliate — X (formerly Twitter) now has a “basic” tier for Verified Organizations, which gets you a gold checkmark badge (and a few other benefits) …

Discussion: @adrianpcarbone, @verified and X, more at Techmeme »

Casey Newton / Platformer:

Casey Newton says Platformer will meet with Substack, hoping Substack will remove pro-Nazi content, and Platformer plans to leave if Substack fails to do so — A New York Times lawsuit won't be the last challenge to LLMs' free-riding. PLUS: A note on Substack and Nazis — ∙ Paid

Discussion: @mmasnick.bsky.social, @reporterzoe@threads.net, @marisakabas@threads.net, @marc.e.elias@threads.net, @marisakabas@threads.net, @nopipbutcpip.bsky.social, @brianforrester8@threads.net, @johnbattelle@threads.net, @jacaranda7@threads.net, @marisakabas.bsky.social and @crumbler@threads.net

Aleks Chan / The Guardian:

The Guardian US raised $2.2M in its 2023 year-end fundraiser, up 25% from the previous record and the most successful raise since its first appeal six years ago — The Guardian US had its most successful end of year fundraiser ever, raising more than $2m to support our journalism in 2024

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

The UK Editors' Code of Practice Committee rejects calls to extend the discrimination clause in the code to cover Jews, Muslims, those with ADHD, and others — Leading editors have rejected new calls to extend the discrimination clause of the Editors' Code of Practice to cover groups.

Ray Schultz / MediaPost:

Quebec City's Le Soleil newspaper, founded in 1896, ends its print edition, going fully digital; the newspaper started printing on Saturdays only in March 2020 — Le Soleil, a newspaper based in Quebec City, has published its last print edition and is now going entirely digital.

Discussion: CBC News

Adam Chitwood / The Wrap:

USC study: women directed 12.1% of 2023's top films, up from 2022's 9%; Universal led with four top films directed by women, followed by Lionsgate and Disney — A USC Annenberg report finds that only 12.1% of the year's top films were directed by women — While Greta Gerwig's “Barbie” …

Discussion: Business Insider, The Hollywood Reporter, @Lilith111@mastodon.social, ScreenRant and Variety

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:

X posts with link previews now display titles or headlines in the bottom left corner of the image, but the text size is small and long headlines get cut off — X, the platform better known as Twitter, removed headlines from posts with links a few months ago, but is now bringing them back in a new format.

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Verge, Forbes, The Register, The Hill, New York Post, @crumbler@threads.net and Bloomberg

Christopher Williams / Telegraph:

Sources: The Telegraph delays its restructuring until January 31, after UK officials asked to wait until Ofcom reviews RedBird IMI's takeover — ‘Hive down’ delayed until after Ofcom delivers review of Abu Dhabi-backed takeover — A corporate restructuring of The Telegraph viewed …

Discussion: @pressgazette