Mediagazer: Reversing decades of precedent, the WHCA announces it will no longer coordinate shared coverage of President Trump amid an escalating dispute over press access (Ben Johansen/Politico)

1:15 PM ET, February 27, 2025

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Brian Steinberg / Variety:

WBD reports Q4 revenue down 2% YoY to $10B, ad revenue down 11% to $1.8B, and losses up 24% YoY to $494M, including $1.9B in charges and restructuring expenses — Like its rivals., Warner is navigating a difficult era for the media sector, one in which linear TV audiences, much easier to monetize …

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Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
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Harshita Mary Varghese / Reuters:
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Ben Johansen / Politico:

Reversing decades of precedent, the WHCA announces it will no longer coordinate shared coverage of President Trump amid an escalating dispute over press access — The move breaks from decades of cooperation between the White House and the journalists who cover the president.

Brian Stelter / CNN:
On day one of choosing its own “press pool”, the White House replaced HuffPost with Axios; two staunchly pro-Trump outlets, Newsmax and The Blaze, were added

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Memo: Warner Bros. Discovery renames its DEI group to simply “Inclusion” as part of changes to comply with “the evolving legal landscape” in the US and globally — Going forward, WBD's “overarching work in this space will now be referred to as Inclusion,” according to a memo sent to staffers Thursday.

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Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Internal memo: Paramount is making changes to its DEI policies to conform to efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate diversity programs

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Corbin Bolies / The Daily Beast:

Marty Baron condemns changes to WaPo's opinion section, says he is “disgusted” as Bezos is “betraying” WaPo's “longstanding principles” for commercial interests — Former executive editor Marty Baron told the Daily Beast there was “no doubt in my mind” …

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Memo: WaPo CEO Will Lewis says opinion section changes are “not about siding with any political party” but about “being crystal clear about what we stand for”

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Charlotte Klein / New York Magazine:
Sources: WaPo publisher Will Lewis told Jeff Bezos that changes to the Opinion section would have consequences for the health of the paper

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Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:

Sources: MrBeast is looking to raise a couple hundred million dollars at a ~$5B valuation; MrBeast has said he “lost tens of millions of dollars on Beast Games” — - YouTube star aims to raise a couple hundred million dollars — He lost ‘tens of millions’ of dollars on Amazon reality show

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Dylan Butts / CNBC:

Meta apologizes and says it had fixed an “error” that resulted in some Instagram users seeing violent and graphic content in their Reels recommendations — Meta apologized on Thursday and said it had fixed an “error” that resulted in some Instagram users reporting a flood …

Michael Levenson / New York Times:

A Mississippi judge lifts an order requiring a newspaper to remove an editorial, after Clarksdale city officials voted to abandon their libel lawsuit — The judge's order against The Clarksdale Press Register in Clarksdale, Miss., had alarmed press advocates, who said it was a violation of the First Amendment.

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Todd Spangler / Variety:

ESPN plans to launch SC+, a new SportsCenter show, on March 3 exclusively on Disney+ for US subscribers, designed for a casual, entertainment-focused audience — Disney and ESPN have cooked up a plan to try to whet the sports appetite of Disney+ U.S. customers — who may not necessarily be the more voracious fans of sporting events.

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John Koblin / New York Times:

Sony Pictures Entertainment says it is soliciting bids from media and tech companies for the streaming rights to new episodes of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune — Sony Pictures Entertainment is soliciting bids for the streaming rights to the two popular game shows.

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Nicole Sperling / New York Times:

A profile of London-based Mubi, a niche movie streaming service with 400 employees boosted by hit film The Substance, turning it into a real Hollywood player — Early on in “The Substance,” the body horror film starring Demi Moore that has been nominated for five Academy Awards …

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Reuters:

A Vietnam court sentences former journalist Truong Huy San to 30 months in prison over Facebook posts; San wrote “The Winning Side” about post-war Vietnam — A court in Vietnam on Thursday sentenced a former journalist to 30 months in prison after finding him guilty of …

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Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg:

WPP's shares drop 15%+ after the company forecasted adjusted sales for 2025 to remain flat or shrink in 2025, missing analysts' estimates — WPP Plc shares dropped the most in more than six years after the British advertising agency group forecast sales that would remain flat or shrink this year, missing analysts' estimates.

Discussion: Adweek, The Drum, The Independent, Yahoo Finance, CampaignUK, The Standard, Telegraph, Fortune, Financial Times, Reuters and More About Advertising

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

CBS News names Tom Cibrowski, a TV news veteran who has managed Good Morning America and the San Francisco station KGO, as president and executive editor — Your Privacy Rights — PMC, its service providers, and third-party partners collect information about you and how you use our services …

Discussion: TVNewsCheck, The Wrap, Radio & Television …, Barrett Media, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, @brianstelter, @ajkatztv and @brianstelter

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:

Sky COO Nick Herm criticizes Amazon for failing to tackle sports broadcast piracy, costing “hundreds of millions”, and to stop illegal Fire Stick TV devices — Broadcaster accuses company of failing to do enough to tackle piracy, often involving its Fire Stick TV devices

Discussion: Broadband TV News, Advanced Television and New York Times

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Netflix says its customers watched 94B+ hours in H2 2024, up 5% YoY; Squid Game, despite premiering on December 26, dominated the period with nearly 87M views — Netflix subscribers streamed more content than ever in the back half of 2024 — and the second season of Korean hit drama “Squid Game” was the biggest TV show on the service.

Discussion: Advanced Television, Radio Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Media Play News

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