Grossman to Time:
Keith Grossman has joined Time as its president, Editor and Chief and CEO, Edward Felsenthal announced Wednesday. Grossman "will lead the business operations of [the] company, including global advertising, marketing, and [...] digital and consumer businesses." He previously served as global chief revenue officer of Bloomberg and chief operating officer of marketing agency Engine.
Baltimore Sun Union Votes Against Contract Extension:
Citing a lack of pay increases, reporters and advertising representatives at The Baltimore Sun have voted against a proposed three-year extension of their 12-year-old union contract. The bargaining unit last received a raise in 2013. "People are fired up," said unit chair Scott Dance. "We're ready to do what we have to do."
G/O Media Tensions:
According to The Daily Beast, G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller has attempted to interfere in the editorial independence of auto industry news site Jalopnik and its gaming-oriented counterpart, Kotaku, by personally reviewing coverage of Lexus and suggesting that staffers bring sales representatives to meetings with executives. Most of the company's sites now feature targeted ads "after nearly every two paragraphs," potentially violating standards set by the Coalition for Better Ads. Formerly operating as Gizmodo Media Group, G/O's portfolio includes most of the news and lifestyle properies once owned by Gawker Media.
Gabler's Return:
Sony and HarperCollins will jointly fund a production company under the auspices of Elizabeth Gabler, the companies announced Monday. Gabler, who previously ran the defunct Fox 2000 subsidiary, played a key role in facilitating adaptations of "The Devil Wears Prada," "Hidden Figures" and other books.
Newsletter Bet:
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is leading a $15.3 million Series A funding round in Substack, a newsletter platform that also supports discussion threads and podcasts. According to blogger Andrew Chen, who recently joined the company's board of directors, the platform may enable freelance writers to reach "passionate online communities" while also pursuing "a new way of doing micro-entrepreneurship."
Barstow to Berkeley:
Four-time Pulitzer winner David Barstow will succeed former collaborator and 2004 Public Service named contributor Lowell Bergman as the head of the University of California, Berkeley's Investigative Reporting Program next month, the institution announced Monday. "It is an enormous honor to now fill [Bergman]'s shoes, and I can't wait to mentor, encourage and work side by side with the brilliant students at the [Graduate] School of Journalism who are enthusiastically taking up the torch of investigative reporting," said Barstow.
Dreier Moves to Post:
2019 Feature Writing winner Hannah Dreier will join The Washington Post as a staff writer for its National Enterprise team, the newspaper announced Monday. "I'll be on a narrative features team I've admired for as long as I've been a reporter," Dreier said.
The State of Science Writing:
Science journalism faces unique challenges, including the elimination of a quarter of staff positions over the past decade and misunderstandings stemming from the academic peer-review process. Yet practitioners remain sanguine about the future. "What we do in my view is especially important," said 2014 General Nonfiction winner Dan Fagin, director of the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University, "because our responsibility is solely to the consumer of information."
Post & Courier on Pew Study:
In the aftermath of a recent Pew Research Center study that indicated many Americans believe the local news industry is financially sound, Brooks Bunson of The Post & Courier of Charleston, S.C. sat down with Executive Editor Mitch Pugh to discuss the harsh reality as part of its Understanding SC podcast series. "As an industry, we've done a poor job of explaining the landscape that we're facing," Pugh said.
Sullivan on Trump Tweets:
Former Pulitzer Prize Board member and Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan has weighed in on President Trump's controversial tweets against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive members of the House of Representatives. "Journalists don’t need to see themselves as political advocates when they say obvious things in plain terms," Sullivan said. "And doing so doesn’t make them Democratic operatives as their pro-Trump critics are sure to charge."
