For the Record

Max Frankel (1930-2025): 1973 International Reporting winner Max Frankel died on Sunday from complications of bladder cancer at his home in Manhattan, according to his widow, Joyce Purnick. He was 94. Frankel "landed in New York in 1940 without a word of English, a refugee in knickerbockers with European sensibilities for opera, art, languages and mathematics," his obituarist, 1996 Spot News Reporting winner Robert D. McFadden, wrote. "But he found his calling in journalism, and it led to global news assignments, associations with world leaders, the pantheon of Pulitzer honorees and the editorships, successively, of The Times's opinion pages and of its news coverage. It thrust him, too, into the major events of his era — the Cuban missile crisis, the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union — and into the Moscow of Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Havana of Fidel Castro, the Peking of Mao Zedong and the Washington of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. Accompanying Nixon to China in 1972 on a historic mission to establish contacts after decades of estrangement, [...] Frankel, then chief of The Times's Washington bureau, chronicled the president's meetings with Mao and China’s premier, Chou En-lai, analyzed the news and, in Reporter's Notebook pieces, took readers into the homes, factories and lives of a people who had been isolated since the 1949 Communist revolution. He wrote 35,000 words and 24 articles in eight days in Shanghai, Peking (now Beijing) and Hangchow (Hangzhou), and won the 1973 Pulitzer for international reporting." McFadden continued: "As executive editor of The Times from 1986 to 1994, [...] Frankel presided over a newspaper in transition — financially, technologically and journalistically — after years of innovation and record growth in circulation, advertising and profitability. Despite readership gains on his watch, The Times lost advertisers and revenues in a long recession that began a year after he took over. Instead of retrenching, and with the support of the publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger, [...] Frankel expanded metropolitan and sports coverage; maintained world, national and business reporting levels; widened the reach of the national edition; introduced color to some sections; and changed the mission of the daily report, with a wider mix of news and feature articles, a less predictable front page and more interpretation and analysis of news that was widely available elsewhere, including on 24-hour cable news channels and on a nascent internet." The heir to a German dry goods business that "lost half its trade when Hitler came to power in 1933 and ordered a boycott of Jewish businesses," Frankel and his mother emigrated to New York via Rotterdam in 1940 (his father would follow after World War II) after being deported to Poland two years earlier. As a student at the High School of Music & Art, he did exceptionally well in most subjects (save for the English that he was still mastering and not forestalling his editorship of the school newspaper), enabling his admission to Columbia College (then the traditional men's undergraduate division) of Columbia University in 1948. Although he secured a full-time position at The New York Times in 1952 via the newspaper's campus correspondent pipeline (a pathway also taken by his lifelong older rival, the City College of New York's Abe Rosenthal) in tandem with receiving his undergraduate degree, he remained on campus for an additional year, taking an M.A. in political science from Columbia's graduate faculties in 1953. Save for fulfilling the era's military service obligation from 1953 to 1955 in the Army, he would be almost exclusively employed by the newspaper thereafter, covering news events in such disparate locales as Moscow, Havana and Washington, D.C.; in the latter milieu, he fit in well among a generation of New York City "expatriates" reared in such formative middle-income neighborhoods as Frankel's own Washington Heights and Brooklyn's Flatbush, ultimately ascending to the role of chief Washington correspondent and Washington bureau chief from 1968 to 1972. While ensconced as The Times's editorial page editor in 1976, Frankel attracted national attention when Gerald Ford erroneously answered one of his questions during a presidential debate with Jimmy Carter. "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration," Ford said. When a vexatious Frankel doubled down on his earlier query, Ford said that Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland were not within the Soviet sphere of influence. The protracted gaffe instantly reinvigorated the Carter campaign among political independents in the aftermath of a lengthy farrago stemming from an awkward Playboy interview in which the Democratic nominee (and 2002 Biography finalist) ruminated on the "lust in [his] heart" for myriad women, likely catapulting the erstwhile one-term Georgia governor to the presidency. As executive editor, Frankel "hired and promoted more Black and Hispanic staff members, but acknowledged that racial diversification was fitful and slow," McFadden wrote, "Women fared better. There were none on the masthead of news executives, or even in line to lead major departments, in 1986. But during his tenure, women were hired in equal numbers with men, and filled more than a third of the professional jobs. He demurred from same-sex marriage announcements, but lifted a ban on the term gay and assigned a gay reporter, Jeffrey Schmalz, to write about gay politics and AIDS (from which he died at 39). The Times also began citing AIDS in obituaries as a cause of death, and in another bow to popular usage, began listing companions as survivors of the deceased. The Times won 13 Pulitzer Prizes on Mr. Frankel’s watch. In 1993, a 10-part series, "Children of the Shadows," examined the effects of racism and poverty on children and families in America. It did not win a Pulitzer, but [...] Frankel called it the most important series of his editorship." A year later, he was "widely criticized" when The Times "profiled Patricia Bowman, who had accused William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, of raping her in Palm Beach [...] As well as detailing her background, the article named her, called her an aggressive driver, said she had borne a child out of wedlock and quoted a woman anonymously as saying [...] Bowman 'had a little wild streak.'" This prompted "readers and even staff members [to accuse] the paper of sexism," McFadden added. After relinquishing the executive editorship to fellow Pulitzer winner Joseph Lelyveld, the managing editor, in 1994, he continued to write a column, Word & Image, for The New York Times Magazine through 2000. In a 1986 memo written as he assumed the editorship, Frankel offered a mission statement of sorts for his tenure: "I bring only one commitment: that we remain a family newspaper in every sense. We are led by a family devoted to fearless reporting and peerless quality. We address a family of readers whose trust and devotion we must earn anew each morning. And though grown huge and multifaceted, we best serve those families by honoring our kinship to one another, in an exciting and creative but always collective enterprise." 

Meta Attempts to Block Release of Former Employee's Memoir:

A third-party adjudicator "has decided in favor of Meta in a case the company brought against Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Meta employee who wrote a memoir published this week detailing alleged claims of misconduct at the company," Jay Peters of The Verge reported Wednesday. The book ("Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism") reportedly details claims of sexual harassment, including alleged misconduct by longtime Meta political advisor Joel Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff for policy in the George W. Bush administration who currently serves as the company's president of global affairs/chief global affairs officer. Peters continued: "In the decision, the arbitrator said Wynn-Williams must stop making disparaging remarks against Meta and its employees and, to the extent that she can control, cease further promoting the book, further publishing the book, and further repetition of previous disparaging remarks. The decision also says she must retract disparaging remarks from where they have appeared. However, it's unclear if this arbitrator actually has the authority to halt the publishing of the book or if Wynn-Williams can stop the creation of future versions; as of this writing, it’s currently for sale at stores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In the decision, the arbitrator noted that the lawyer representing Macmillian and Flatiron objected to its jurisdiction. Wynn-Williams appears to have signed an arbitration agreement when she left Meta in 2017." In a statement, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said that the "urgent legal action was made necessary by Williams, who more than eight years after being terminated by the company, deliberately concealed the existence of her book project and avoided the industry's standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years." According to NBC News, Meta has maintained that Wynn-Williams was terminated last year for "poor performance and toxic behavior"; in a statement, supervisor Elliot Schrage said that he dismissed her due to "repeated failures” tied to "indecision, shifting focus, and failure to execute on hiring." A former New Zealand diplomat, Wynn-Williams joined Meta (then known as Facebook) in 2011. "We’re in a moment now where technology CEOs and political leaders around the world are joining forces and compounding their influence, compounding their power, and that’s got consequences for everybody," she said. "People need to understand what has actually gone on."

NBC News, Digital Editorial Staff Reach Tentative Bargaining Agreement:

After more than four years of negotiations, NBC News has reached a "provisional three-year" agreement with members of its digital editorial staff that "offers union members advance notice of layoffs and preferential treatment for rehire [alongside] a minimum of eight weeks of severance if they are cut from the job," according to Katie Kilkenny of The Hollywood Reporter. Kilkenny added: "The deal was reached just weeks after NBC News laid off dozens of employees, including 20 workers covered by the union, after previous rounds of layoffs in 2023 and 2024. If ratified, the deal will cover some 300-odd union members who work on the digital side at NBC News, NBC News NOW and Today as reporters, producers, editors, designers and videographers, among other roles. A ratification vote is currently set for Tuesday." Carlin McCarthy, a segment producer and first vice chair of the NewsGuild of New York-organized bargaining unit, said that the group is "incredibly excited about this deal [...] Our members persevered, we took a series of direct actions over the years as we’ve been bargaining this contract and we're very excited about this deal and look forward to sharing more." The agreement also encompasses "terms on pay rates, enshrining a salary floor of $65,000 for union members by its third year." Kilkenny continued: "Pay increases over the course of the contract range per role between 9 and 17 percent. The deal bars the use of forced arbitration in cases involving harassment or discrimination and offers union members renumeration for working long weekdays or on weekends. [...] This moment has been a long time coming for union members, their effort having begun in 2019 with an organizing drive backed by the NewsGuild of New York. The drive began around the same time that Ronan Farrow’s book 'Catch and Kill' was raising concerns over the internal culture at NBC and alleging that the company had killed his reporting on Harvey Weinstein, which he later brought to The New Yorker. (NBC has denied these claims.) While the union effort was already in an advanced stage by the time 'Catch and Kill' was released, unionizing workers emphasized its reporting during their drive. A National Labor Relations Board election in December 2019 made the union official, with the majority of workers voting to support organizing. In the intervening years, union workers claimed that management committed violations of labor laws in its handling of layoffs and walked off the job in protest in 2023." In a statement, NewsGuild of New York President Susan DeCarava echoed McCarthy's approbation. "NYGuild members contribute to the reach and value of NBC News every day," she said. "I'm glad that NBC is finally recognizing their essential work by agreeing to a contract that enshrines the wages and workplace protections they deserve."

Kingsolver Funds Local Rehab Center With 'Copperhead' Profits:

2023 Fiction winner Barbara Kingsolver "has founded a recovery house for women" in Lee County, Va., the southern Appalachian milieu that informed her Pulitzer-winning "Demon Copperhead," with profits from the work, Alexandra Alter of The New York Times reported Friday. "I sat down and spent many hours with people talking about their addiction journey," Kingsolver said of discussions with local residents that informed her work. "There are stories that went straight into the book. [...] I felt like, I am getting a novel from this place, and I’m going to give something back." According to Alter, the Higher Ground Women’s Recovery Residence "will house between eight and 12 women recovering from drug addiction, offering them a place to stay, for a small fee, for up to two years, as well as counseling and other forms of support, like free community college classes." She added: "Kingsolver grew up in rural Kentucky and lives on a farm in Virginia. As someone raised in the region, she said, she felt she couldn’t ignore the opioid epidemic in her fiction. But she struggled for years with how to write about the issue in a way that would make readers pay attention. While on a book tour in England, Kingsolver stayed in a bed-and-breakfast where Charles Dickens had worked on his novel 'David Copperfield,' and found inspiration in the story and its resilient young narrator. In 'Demon Copperhead,' which is loosely based on Dickens’ novel, Kingsolver tells the story of Damon Fields, a boy who is born to a single teenage mother who struggles with drug addiction. He ends up in foster care and later succumbs to opioid abuse. As soon as the novel was released, she resolved to find a tangible way to help people whose lives have been upended by addiction." Kingsolver continued: "The first week that this book hit the stores and was so successful, I said OK, I'm going to bring this home, I'm going to be able to do something concrete with this book that will help the people who told me their stories. I had these royalties that 'Demon' brought me. I took that money and went back to Lee County and said, what can we do with this?" The author also has been "heartened by support the project has received from local organizations, including church groups that have helped get the living space in shape, a local store that donated furniture and a grant from the Lee County Community Foundation," Alter added. "You might, in earlier times, have expected stigma, for people not to be open to this, but instead it’s been, 'Yes in my backyard,'" Kingsolver said. "This is the reality of where we live. Everybody knows someone touched by the opioid epidemic."

MacArthur Foundation Announces $6 Million in Climate Journalism Grants:

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation yesterday "announced more than $6 million in grants to support the growing field of climate journalism in the United States," according to a press release published by Editor & Publisher. The announcement continued: "This funding for independent newsrooms and organizations that support environmental journalism will help inform the public about the complexities of climate change and the economic opportunities of the clean energy transition. Support for local environmental journalism and newsroom collaborations will strengthen investigative journalism, educate the public and stakeholders, and promote accountability. The grants stem from a cross-program collaboration between MacArthur's Climate Solutions, Journalism and Media, and Local News programs. As the Foundation prepares to wind down more than a decade of grantmaking in Climate Solutions, it is making these one-time strategic grants to help elevate a field needing more investment." MacArthur President John Palfrey added: “One of the most important stories of our time centers on both the existential crisis climate change poses to humanity and the positive health benefits and economic opportunities inherent in the clean energy transition. We need more independent journalism focused on climate and clean energy issues, a more diverse field of reporters covering the story from communities most impacted by climate change, and more cross-newsroom collaborations to reach wider audiences and leverage shared resources." Among the grantees, Pulitzer-winning Inside Climate News (a seminal force in the subfield) "will receive $500,000 to support its general operations, including reporting, investigations, and analysis about the climate crisis that counters misinformation, holds polluters responsible, exposes environmental injustice, and scrutinizes solutions," while fellow progenitor Grist (founded as a nonprofit environmental news website in 1999) "will receive $500,000 to support its general operations, including reporting on climate solutions and progress being made toward a just and sustainable future and its expansion of Indigenous-focused climate stories and local bureaus across the United States," according to the release. In addition, the 2021 Local Reporting Prize-nominated Rising Waters Lab at Charleston's Post and Courier "will receive $400,000 for its reporting about how climate change-fueled flooding, rising seawater, and related issues impact South Carolina's diverse communities." Other grantees include the University of Missouri School of Journalism's Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk (which "will receive $300,000 to support its publishing collaborative with local newsrooms to improve the quality and quantity of coverage that water, agriculture, and impacts of climate change receive"), California nonprofit newsroom Capital & Main (which "will receive $500,000 to support its general operations, including accountability reporting on climate change and the fossil fuel industry and their impacts on communities around the country") and Colorado news magazine High Country News (which "will receive $500,000 to support its general operations, including reporting on climate, environment, the ongoing energy transition, and intersecting Indigenous and rural issues across the Western United States"; in 2017, the publication established a regional Indigenous Affairs beat, becoming the first non-Indigenous publication to do so). The Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation was established by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, who owned and ran the Bankers Life insurance firm from the mid-1930s until their respective deaths in 1978 and 1981. (The family has evinced a journalistic penchant through the legacy of John D. MacArthur's elder brother Charles, who was an Academy Award-winning playwright and screenwriter best known for co-writing "The Front Page" [based in part on his experiences at the City News Bureau of Chicago] with Ben Hecht in 1928; the play was subsequently adapted into several films, most notably Howard Hawks' "His Girl Friday" [1940].) It is best known for administering the annual MacArthur Fellows Program, which awards a discrete $800,000 monetary award paid over five years to 20- 30 individuals per year who have shown "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction" (irrespective of their field) as citizens or residents of the United States. Although the program has become known colloquially as the "genius grant," the Foundation discourages this nomenclature.

Jules Feiffer (1929-2025):

1986 Editorial Cartooning winner Jules Feiffer died on January 17 at his home in Richfield Springs, New York from complications of congestive heart failure, according to his wife, JZ Holden. He was 95. According to Ali Bahrampour of The Washington Post, Feiffer's eponymous weekly comic strip "ran in The Village Voice from 1956 to 2000 and was syndicated to more than 100 newspapers. In an era defined by the nuclear bomb, the Cold War, racial tensions and the sexual revolution, Feiffer added his nerve-racked perspective to an influential cultural stage occupied by humorists such as Woody Allen, Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce and the team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Feiffer found his voice in comics that provided a sardonic and sarcastic takedown of authority and conventional wisdom. In addition, he told the Los Angeles Times, his work explored 'how people use language not to communicate, and the use of power in relationships.'" Although he acquired something of a polymathic elan (scripting an Academy Award-winning short film based on his bestselling 1959 book "Munro"; Nichols's "Carnal Knowledge" [1971], a somewhat improbable vehicle for Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, Art Garfunkel and Ann-Margret that interrogated the repressive middle class social mores of the early postwar era; and Robert Altman's vertiginously fulsome [and concomitantly divisive] 1980 adaptation of "Popeye", conceived under the shaky aegis of a cocaine-addled Robert Evans at his most vituperative), Feiffer's formal education could not surmount his family's Depression-era fallout, ending with the customary diploma from the Bronx's storied James Madison High School and basic vocational training in anatomic drawing at the Art Students League of New York. Instead, while his contemporaries pursued split-level transcendence in the nascent suburbs, he became a key acolyte of vanguard cartoonist/graphic novelist Will Eisner (who appreciated Feiffer's "hunger for comics" despite fundamental aesthetic differences) for the better part of a decade. Although Feiffer was a distant cousin of incipient anti-Communist agitator (and Bronx Democratic machine paragon) Roy Cohn (notwithstanding his antipodean politics), Feiffer's father was a "taciturn" salesman who did not share in his relative's prosperity. As with contemporary Shel Silverstein, he endured the customary travails and vicissitudes of his class (primarily encompassing a requisite Cold War-era service obligation in the Army) and further intermittent employment (including the end of his collaboration with Eisner and early Voice-era work on his strip, originally titled "Sick, Sick, Sick") until he was platformed to a mass audience in earnest through the burgeoning Playboy magazine empire, which foregrounded irreverent cartooning alongside more outre pictorials due to founder/publisher Hugh Hefner's long-standing penchant for the form. While he was never linked to the plenitude of sexual assault allegations that sullied Hefner's posthumous reputation as a First Amendment-venerating lodestar of cultural freedom, the cartoonist was at his frequent employer's side during a dyspeptic confrontation with Chicago police officers as the rancor surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention finally engulfed the sylvan streets of the Near North Side's Gold Coast, where the original Playboy Mansion was situated; this experience would "radicalize" Hefner and emerged as a fulcrumatic turning point in his self-mythology.) In addition to his third wife, Feiffer is survived by a daughter from his first marriage; two daughters from his second marriage; and two granddaughters. Other highlights of Feiffer's oeuvre include his contribution to the condign 1969 "erotic revue" "Oh! Calcutta!” (alongside the likes of John Lennon, Samuel Beckett and 1979 Drama winner Sam Shepard); the early Eighties mimetic realism of "Grown Ups," his 1981 play about Jewish family dynamics; and his gently surrealistic illustrations for the classic young adult novel "The Phantom Tollbooth" (1961), written by friend Norton Juster. He remained active into his final decades, publishing "Kill My Mother" (a noir-influenced graphic novel) in 2014. In a 2024 interview with The New York Times, he discussed his late-in-life relocation from his native New York City (where he had primarily resided on the Upper West Side after his Bronx upbringing) to the more rustic confines of Shelter Island (an exclave of Long Island's East End) amid a teaching offer from Stony Brook University when his Voice salary was greatly curtailed. Later still, he moved to his final residence in the northern Hudson Valley, which greatly enhanced his work and quality of life as he struggled with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and the quotidian difficulties of advanced aging. "You come up the driveway and you see a majestic, beautiful lake and countryside," he said. "You think you're in Bavaria. Where we are now is beyond what I’m used to seeing." 

18 Former European Heads of State Call for Dismantling of Google Ad-Tech:

18 former European heads of state (including onetime Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven and erstwhile French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin) "have called on the European Commission to break up Google's highly lucrative advertising-technology business, claiming it erodes" the continent's historically robust "media landscape," Edith Hancock of The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. "We write in support of bold structural actions to end Google's monopoly over digital advertising technologies,” the political figures wrote. "Recent events have underscored how the consolidation of power over vital tech platforms jeopardizes our independence and undermines efforts to enforce our laws [...] [Google's dominance in the space] has stifled competition and consolidated its control over every segment of the ad-tech market." The Commission, which functions as the European Union's antitrust regulator in a manner analogous to the Federal Trade Commission, "is in the final stages of an investigation into Google’s ad-tech business and sent formal charges to the tech giant in 2023, suggesting it could order Google to divest part of the business," Hancock added. A Google spokesperson said that the tech behemoth has been "engaging constructively" with the regulator while reiterating its opposition to its findings. In 2023, Commissioner Margrethe Vestager "called the company 'pervasive' across the sector's value chain and said that a divestment could ease the regulator’s concerns the company is abusing its dominant position in the digital economy," Hancock continued. Teresa Ribera, who has since replaced Vestager as the regulator's competition compliance officer, noted in a December interview with Bloomberg that "a divestment order is still on the table," adding that it continues to liaise on the matter with its global counterparts. "European regulators investigating anticompetitive practices in digital markets should be given the resources and authority to implement structural remedies that restore fair competition," the letter continued. 

Zuckerberg Defends Fact-Checking Drawdown to Rogan:

In a wide-ranging three-hour discussion with podcaster Joe Rogan, Meta Platforms Chairman/CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his sweeping decision to eliminate Facebook's long-standing fact-checking process, opining that it was akin to "something out of 1984" and precipitated perceptions that fact-checkers "were too biased," Angrej Singh of Axios reported Friday. Zuckerberg added: "It really is a slippery slope, and it just got to a point where it's just, okay, this is destroying so much trust, especially in the United States, to have this program." (The program's fact-checking partners underwent a rigorous certification process under the aegis of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), a subsidiary of the Poynter Institute. Poynter Institute President Neil Brown is a former co-chair and member of the Pulitzer Prize Board. In an open letter to Zuckerberg published Thursday, the IFCN defended its record, alleging that Meta "never gave fact-checkers the ability or the authority to remove content or accounts" and that the company itself "decided on how content found to be false by fact-checkers should be downranked or labeled" even as fact-checking exemptions for nearly all political speech was instituted "as a precautionary measure"; moreover, they have asserted that Meta "provided only limited information on the program's results, even though fact-checkers and independent researchers asked again and again for more data.") In tandem with the decision, Zuckerberg said that "social media creators are replacing the government and traditional media as arbiters of truth, becoming 'a new kind of cultural elite that people look up to.'" Singh continued: "Under Meta's newly relaxed moderation policies, women can be compared to household objects, ethnic groups can be called 'filth,' users can call for the exclusion of gay people from certain professions and people can refer to a transgender or non-binary person as an 'it' [...] In justifying the content moderation re-think, Zuckerberg told Rogan that Facebook's policies would not have allowed someone to post that women should not be allowed in combat roles in the military," a stance espoused by Pete Hegseth, the presumptive nominee to serve as the 29th United States secretary of defense. "If it's okay to say on the floor of Congress, you should probably be able to debate it on social media," Zuckerberg said. Additionally, the technology magnate "said a turning point for his approach to censorship came after [President] Biden publicly said social media companies were 'killing people' by allowing Covid misinformation to spread, and politicians started coming after the company" from various political persuasions. 

Reuters, Gannett Offer Bundled Subscription Plan:

Global wire service Reuters and newspaper-dominated Gannett "are launching a new content bundle" in the first quarter of 2025, Sara Fischer of Axios reported Thursday. Although the bundle will be sold by Reuters, Gannett "will get a cut of the sales revenue," according to Chief Content Officer Kristin Roberts. "Customers can access Reuters' national and international coverage, combined via a bundle with Gannett's national news coverage from USA Today and its local news coverage from the more than 200 national publications within its USA Today Network," Fischer added. "The bundle will include feeds of ready-to-publish stories, photos, graphics and video from both entities for media companies to license. It won't include access to games and puzzles from Gannett's newspaper brands, said Alphonse Hardel, the head of Reuters News Agency." Additionally, Hardel noted that "the primary target customers for the offering are U.S. regional and local publishers and broadcasters, [...] although national and international news companies looking to beef up their local U.S. coverage could also be a good fit." Although Reuters does cover a modicum of U.S.-based local news, it "doesn't have the breadth of local reporters that Gannett has, which limits its coverage around things like local sports," Fischer added. "I think there are opportunities for us to be serving other local media companies in our competitive set, as well as very, very small organizations that are looking for national, state or regional content," Roberts said. She noted that the bundle "could also be a good opportunity for larger video companies or digital news companies that need access to local text-based stories or infographics." Fischer continued: "The partnership between Gannett and Reuters is underpinned by a similar commitment by both brands to non-partisan coverage. While Gannett's news brands do have opinion sections, the company declined endorsements in the 2024 presidential race. Because Reuters is heavily reliant on licensing its content to other news and tech firms, the company has always prioritized accuracy and independence over opinion coverage. [...] The Reuters deal opens access to a new content licensing and syndication business for Gannett, which is critical as the company tries to grow and diversify in the digital era. Gannett's business strategy since combining with GateHouse in 2019 has been to focus on digital subscription growth and advertising. Even in the AI era, it hasn't focused as much on licensing deals. For Reuters, the deal helps to expand its customer set to more U.S. publishers and expand its local coverage ahead of a new administration.
Reuters' business is mostly dependent on content licensing already, which is why it's taking the lead in selling the bundle."

Syrian Rebels Offer to Assist Austin Tice Search:

The political division of Syrian rebel group/interim governing faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) "offered on Thursday to 'cooperate directly' with the United States to search for missing American journalist Austin Tice" also while indicating the search has commenced, "a move that analysts said could hasten efforts to learn his whereabouts, or whether he is living or dead," according to Ellen Nakashima of The Washington Post. She added: "The development was welcomed by the Tice family, who have grown frustrated with the Biden administration and what they see as its inadequate action to this point. [...] Thus far, the Biden administration has been communicating indirectly with the rebel group, through Turkey, officials say. It declined to comment on whether Thursday's outreach from HTS would change that. The United States considers the organization, once affiliated with al-Qaeda, a terrorist group. For now, the administration is refraining from deploying U.S. personnel to aid in the search in Syria for Tice, who was abducted 12 years ago outside Damascus while reporting on Syria's civil war." Earlier this week, a senior administration official told The Post that the government "unfortunately [does] not have any verifiable information about where Austin Tice is." Bruce Hoffman, a senior fellow for counterterrorism at the Council on Foreign Relations, indicated that the group would be "best postioned on the ground" to trace the erstwhile Marine's whereabouts. Although President Biden and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan "have sought to project optimism that Tice will be located, saying the fall of Syria's longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, presents an opportunity to collect and assess leads," the CIA's "low confidence" assessment of Tice's survival has engendered requisite circumspection among Beltway officials. "We're hopeful," an unnamed official said. "But there's been no proof of life in a long time." Nakashima continued: "Tice was abducted in August 2012. Weeks later, video emerged showing him blindfolded, being led through rugged terrain by armed men in white robes. That 47-second clip, in which Tice can be heard uttering 'Oh, Jesus,' was the last direct indication he was living, officials say. Tice wrote for The Post, McClatchy newspapers and other U.S.-based media outlets before his disappearance. A gritty and determined journalist, he was committed to telling the story of Syrian civilians caught up in the conflict, colleagues have said. Last week, Tice's parents and six siblings held a news conference in Washington after meetings at the White House and State Department, talks that Marc Tice characterized to reporters as 'complaints and finger-pointing about who is preventing things from happening, and who’s responsible for doing what.'" Nevertheless, The Times of London "reported Wednesday that a Syrian journalist, Saher al-Ahmad, who was imprisoned by the Assad regime, said in an interview that he believes he was held in the same Damascus jail as Tice as recently as 2022," while a Syrian opposition official stated that Tice "had been in a Damascus prison since July 2021" in an unconfirmed March 2022 intelligence report. Nakashima added: "There have been more than a dozen other reports this year alone, including some that indicate Tice was held variously in an Iranian-controlled prison and in a Hezbollah facility [...] Hezbollah is a militant group based in Lebanon that is closely aligned with Tehran. As recently as this week, there was fresh information suggesting Tice might be at a Damascus facility formerly controlled by Syrian military intelligence [...] The State Department is offering a reward of $10 million, and FBI $1 million, for information that leads to Tice's safe return."