Mediagazer: NBCU Chair Cesar Conde says the company will launch a “mobile-first” news outlet in Q4 2025, featuring short- and long-form videos from NBC News talent and more (Brian Steinberg/Variety)

7:45 PM ET, February 28, 2025

Top News:

David Folkenflik / NPR:

Source: more than 75,000 Washington Post digital subscribers have cancelled their subscriptions following Jeff Bezos' overhaul of the paper's opinion section — More than 75,000 digital subscribers to The Washington Post have cancelled since its owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos …

Jaden Amos / Axios:

Trump says he had dinner with Jeff Bezos on February 26, the day Bezos announced that WaPo's opinion pages would focus on personal liberties and free markets — - “I never even understood it,” Trump said. … - In July 2024, Bezos privately urged Trump to choose Doug Burgum as his vice president …

Discussion: American Prospect, @shelleybwoke.bsky.social, The Wrap, @cemck.bsky.social, The Independent, @screw-reality.bsky.social, @mehdirhasan.bsky.social, @wagatwe.com, @rewhan.bsky.social, Daily Mail, Columbia Journalism Review and @maxwelltani

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Jeff Bezos' opinion section changes contradict his October 2024 edict that WaPo won't endorse a presidential candidate because it can't be seen as taking a side

Gene Weingarten / The Gene Pool:
Source: The Washington Post's media critic Erik Wemple wrote about the changes at its opinion section, but the piece was killed

Discussion: HuffPost, The Post Millennial, New York Post, @joshgerstein, Eric Anderson on LinkedIn, @jpodhoretz, @jonathanchait, @muwxguy.bsky.social, @jongorey@threads.net, @froomkin.bsky.social, CNN and Deseret News

CNN:

A TASS journalist gained access to Trump's meeting with Zelensky, even as AP and Reuters were barred; the White House says he was unauthorized and escorted out — A member of Russia's state-owned news agency gained access to the Oval Office on Friday to cover President Trump's sit …

New York Times:

Sources: VOA's parent opened probes into VOA journalists for reporting on criticism of Trump or for comments seen as critical; Steve Herman was placed on leave — The broadcaster placed a longtime journalist on leave amid growing concerns about its editorial independence.

Discussion: @davidenrich.bsky.social, Voice of America and The Daily Signal

Oliver Darcy / Status:

Sources: in a tense meeting with journalists, Pentagon Press Secretary Sean Parnell said he'll end the travel pool and implied reporters “trash the warfighter” — Inside a tense off-the-record meeting, the Pentagon's new press chief confronted reporters and indicated they will do away …

Discussion: Mediaite, Townhall, @sashotodorov.bsky.social, @dodresponse, @cthomasjamh.bsky.social, TVNewsCheck, Newsbusters, @oliverdarcy.bsky.social, @oliverdarcy.bsky.social, @ohiorob.bsky.social, @moivtx.bsky.social, @timtrautmann.com and @status.news

S.V. Date / HuffPost:
The US political press has not dealt with autocrats working this hard to seize power; trading soft coverage for access could fail media audiences and democracy

Discussion: MSNBC, The Atlantic, @joeperticone, @fritschner, @dwass, @andrewfeinberg, @svdate, @brianstelter, @lizskalka, @arifleischer, @afrakroon.bsky.social, @blueangie.bsky.social, Daily Kos, Politico, @ruralindependent.bsky.social and Raw Story

Greg Bensinger / Reuters:

Amazon says it has cut “a small number” of jobs at its Wondery podcast unit; Wondery closed its operations in Brazil and Mexico earlier in February — Amazon.com (AMZN.O) cut “a small number” of jobs at its Wondery podcast unit, known for “Dr. Death” and “Business Wars,” …

Ted Johnson / Deadline:

FCC Chair Brendan Carr says the Skydance-Paramount merger review is far from finished and defends his solicitation of comments on a complaint about 60 Minutes — FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said that the agency's review of the proposed Skydance-Paramount Global merger is far from finished …

Discussion: TVNewsCheck, C-SPAN.org, Free Press, TVNewsCheck, @bsdtectr.bsky.social, New York Post, New York Times, The Hill, Variety, Semafor, Reuters, Bloomberg and Adweek

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

NBCU Chair Cesar Conde says the company will launch a “mobile-first” news outlet in Q4 2025, featuring short- and long-form videos from NBC News talent and more — NBCUniversal is working on what its top news executive called a “mobile-first” news outlet that it expects to launch in the fourth quarter of this year.

Discussion: Broadband TV News, Semafor, NewscastStudio, Adweek and Deadline

Jake Kanter / Deadline:

GB News wins a landmark broadcasting code case as a UK judge overturns an Ofcom ruling that said GB News broke impartiality rules with Jacob Rees-Mogg's show — In a High Court ruling, a judge found that Ofcom was unlawful in determining that GB News breached broadcasting rules …

Discussion: TVNewsCheck, Telegraph, Press Gazette, Variety, GB News, GB News, @nigel_farage, Financial Times, @bubbaprog.lol, @gbnews and Mirror

Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:

Fubo reports Q4 North America revenue up 8% to $433.8M, a net loss of $40.9M, down from $71M in Q4 2023, and 1.67M paid subscribers; FUBO drops 21%+ — The sports-focused streamer earlier unveiled a deal to merge with Walt Disney's Hulu+ live TV business. — Fubo TV ended the fourth quarter …

Discussion: Advanced Television, Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance, Engadget, StreamTV Insider, The Streamable, Deadline, Benzinga, Streaming Better, Cord Cutters News and ir.fubo.tv

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

Disney sells out ad inventory for Oscars 2025, which will stream on Hulu for the first time; source: 30-second spots went for $1.7M to $2.3M, in line with 2024 — Advertising inventory for Sunday's Oscar telecast is sold out, Disney has confirmed, with pricing said to be holding steady with 2024 levels.

Discussion: MediaPost, Marketing Brew, Rolling Stone, Variety, The Wrap and Adweek

Kathleen Kingsbury / The New York Times Company:

The NYT announces David Leonhardt will be joining Opinion as an editorial director and says it won't retreat from having editorials or an editorial board — As editorial director, David will work to carve out a new vision for the editorial board true to our longstanding values and updated for today's world.

Discussion: @gregjkrieg, @maxwelltani, @glennf.com and @tweetbenmax

Sharon Knolle / The Wrap:

Source: over 40 newsroom employees at the Los Angeles Times have taken buyout offers from owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, including roughly 17 reporters — “We should put out a missing flyer in search of the man who bought our paper and made promises about its future,” one employee tells TheWrap

Discussion: @jen_rice_, @gerrickkennedy, @davidfolkenflik, @joelrubin, @benmullin and @mediaevan.bsky.social

Sewell Chan / Columbia Journalism Review:
The last remaining member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board, Carla Hall, says she is taking a buyout, ending her 32-year tenure at the paper

Discussion: @brittny_mejia, @mikebonin, @geholland, @abbeyr28.bsky.social, @hannahcwiley.bsky.social, @nicosan1.bsky.social and @mattkrasnowski.bsky.social

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More News:

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
GB News reports revenue for the year to May 2024 up 132% YoY to £15.8M, losses down ~23% YoY to £33.4M, bringing total losses since its 2021 launch to £105.9M

Discussion: The Times

New York Times:
Sources: at a Paramount board meeting this month, Shari Redstone said she was in favor of resolving President Trump's $20B lawsuit against CBS News

Discussion: Associated Press, TVNewsCheck, @mgallagher.bsky.social, CBS News, @mattgertz, Reason and @mediaevan

Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal:
Websites and apps for all 32 NFL teams had been collecting detailed consumer data without notice or opt-out choices; the NFL has updated policies to fix issues

Discussion: Adweek, TVNewsCheck and The Hill

Mark K. Miller / TVNewsCheck:
Nexstar Q4: revenue up 14.1% YoY to $1.49B, ad revenue up 29.6% to $758M driven by election year political advertising, net income of $229M; NXST jumps 11.1%

Discussion: RADIO ONLINE, Yahoo Finance, The Desk and Nexstar Media Group, Inc.

Earlier Picks:

BBC:
The BBC apologizes and admits “serious flaws” in the making of a documentary on children in Gaza, after criticism that the narrator was a Hamas official's son

Discussion: BBC, The Guardian, The Sun, Canary, GB News, Algemeiner.com, Reuters, Twitchy, Declassified Media Ltd, The Independent, BBC, @baldybane.bsky.social, Deadline, GB News, The Wrap, Variety and The European Conservative

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
TikTok is preparing to shut down Creator Marketplace, which connects brands with creators, and replacing it with TikTok One, which includes AI tools, on April 1

Discussion: Passionfruit, Digiday and TikTok For Business

Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
Google Search's new rules for product-review sites upend publishers' business models; Similarweb says Forbes Advisor's traffic fell 83% YoY in January 2025

Discussion: Alison Barretta on LinkedIn, Glenn Gabe on LinkedIn and Jeff Li on LinkedIn

From Techmeme:

Bloomberg:
The Trump administration exempts smartphones, laptops, hard drives, processors, memory chips, and machines used to make semiconductors from reciprocal tariffs

Washington Post:
Arguments start Monday in the FTC's antitrust suit targeting Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, amid reports Zuckerberg asked Trump to intervene

James O'Donnell / MIT Technology Review:
How the Pentagon uses AI tools from Vannevar Labs, which got a DoD deal worth up to $99M, to scan open-source intelligence, write intelligence reports, and more

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