Spirit of the Age:
Brooklyn-based blockchain media start-up Civil will begin selling CVL tokens on Tuesday. The sale will conclude on October 2 or when a "hard cap" of $24 million is reached. Tokens will enable users to start news organizations on the platform and participate in community regulatory decisions.
"Think Big":
Meredith Corp. has agreed to sell Time magazine to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and spouse Lynne Benioff for $190 million. In a statement, Time Editor in Chief Edward Felsenthal noted that the magazine "will have no connection to Salesforce." Meredith acquired Time Inc. for $2.8 billion in February and intends to sell other former Time properties, including Sports Illustrated and Fortune.
"Reach Their Dreams":
Fox News and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation have endowed a memorial scholarship in honor of 1987 Commentary winner Charles Krauthammer. Recipients of the scholarship, who will receive up to $8,000 over the course of their undergraduate studies, must be children of Fox News and Fox Business Network employees.
Growing Pains:
While venture capital-funded news site The Outline once was valued at $20 million, recent layoffs amid the rapid exhaustion of a $5 million funding round have cast doubt on its long-term viability and the future of venture capital in media. However, founder Joshua Topolsky maintained that the layoffs were predicated on attaining profitability. "We have to think about the future of the business," he said.
"A Good, Long, Productive Run":
GQ Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson announced his departure from the magazine in an internal memo Thursday. "Now feels like a good time for me to figure out the next chapter of my life. (It’ll be a good one, I promise),” Nelson said. During his 15-year tenure, the magazine received 64 National Magazine Award nominations and a Pulitzer Prize.
Fighting Misinformation:
Facebook announced Thursday that "it is giving all 27 of its global fact-checking partners the ability to debunk photos and videos on the platform." After a false rating is assigned, "its future reach in the News Feed will be reduced by up to 80 percent and a fact check will be appended in the Related Articles section."
Restructuring:
Meredith Corporation "swung the ax again on Wednesday, lopping about 200 jobs and merging its Cooking Light title into EatingWell and chopping the frequency of Coastal Living to a newsstand-only quarterly." "Combining the powerful EatingWell and Cooking Light magazines will strengthen our editorial product while providing advertisers with access to this passionate group of consumers seeking a healthier lifestyle," said Carey Witmer, executive vice president and group publisher of the Meredith Food Group.
"We Must Rally":
ASNE also announced that it will delay releasing the results of the 2018 Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey "to drive greater participation." Only 234 out of nearly 1,700 newspapers and digital media outlets have submitted data for this year's survey, resulting in a 14 percent response rate that "could not be interpreted as representative of the contemporary media landscape." ASNE will continue to collect data until October 12.
Departure:
Jacob Weisberg, a former Pulitzer Prize juror and the chairman and editor in chief of the Slate Group, announced in a Wednesday Twitter post "that he was leaving the company to start a new audio venture with the author Malcolm Gladwell." "After 22 years, there’s no good moment to leave, but you start to feel like it’s now or never if you’re ever going to," said Weisberg.
"A Strong, Unified Voice":
The American Society of News Editors and the Associated Press Media Editors will merge to form the News Leaders Association in 2019. "These are challenging times for our business and our country," said Nancy Barnes, a Pulitzer Prize Board member and the incoming president of ASNE for 2018-19. "We believe joining our two organizations will only strengthen our ability, as journalism leaders, to stand up for the principles we hold dear."
