For the Record

Federal Judge Orders Unmasking of Confidential Source in Chen Case:

In a Tuesday ruling, United States District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Christopher R. Cooper "upheld a subpoena requiring former Fox News journalist Catherine Herridge" to identify a confidential source "in a privacy case brought by Yanping Chen, a scientist who was the subject of a series of investigative articles" published by Fox News' website in 2017, according to a report by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Chen, who trained as a medical doctor before working in China's space program in the 1980s and earning a Ph.D. in public policy (with a dissertation on the history of the program) from George Washington University in 1999, has served as president and chief executive of the Arlington-based, for-profit University of Management and Technology since 1998. Following publication, Chen "filed a lawsuit in 2018 against the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security for violations of the Privacy Act, alleging that a government official had leaked materials from an investigation into Chen's possible foreign military ties, excerpts of which were included in Herridge’s articles," the report continued. "Chen subpoenaed Herridge and Fox News in mid-2022 to determine the identity of the alleged leaker, demanding testimony and documents from each. An attorney for both the journalist and news outlet filed motions to quash Chen's subpoenas, arguing at a court hearing in May 2023 that they posed a threat to First Amendment protections." Although Cooper wrote that Chen's "need for the requested evidence overcomes Herridge’s qualified First Amendment privilege," he "quashed a subpoena seeking her documents [...]  with the caveat that if Herridge is unable to provide Chen with the information she seeks, Chen may reissue the subpoenas to the outlet." Published over a four month period, the 2017 articles "cited, and included excerpts of, materials from" an earlier government investigation, including "FBI interviews, Chen's immigration forms and photos of her in a Chinese military uniform." Nevertheless, the six-year probe "concluded in 2016" and "no charges were brought against Chen."

Critic: Influencers 'Devalue' Film Journalism, Audience Engagement:

The increasing prevalence of review embargos for films and the concomitant rise of influencer-only screenings that generally exclude accredited film critics "are symptomatic of a trend that has been evolving over the past few years and that concerns not only the film criticism profession, but culture at large," freelance critic Manuela Lazic wrote in The Guardian Tuesday. "If all discussion of a film's merits before release is left to influencers, whose driving ambition is to receive free merchandise by speaking well of the studio's products, what can we expect the film landscape to look like? Where will engaging, challenging and, if not completely unbiased then at least impartial conversation about cinema take place, and how is the audience to think critically of what is being sold to it?" Lazic cited the recent example of the marketing strategy for Greta Gerwig's "Barbie," which excluded critics from Paris advance screenings and "presented [...] exclusive interviews with the cast [that] turned out to be prerecorded and pre-approved by the studio." Lazic added: "If the internet has paved the way for the devaluation of cinema via streaming platforms, it has also done the same for film criticism. The democratizing effect is undeniable, but so is the cheapening one, literally and figuratively. With so many more people writing about cinema online, fees for reviews have fallen to shockingly low levels and the expertise supposedly required of film critics has been forgotten – knowledge of the film history and good writing skills are less and less valued. From typos and poor grammar to evident misunderstandings about what certain words mean (the Cambridge Dictionary defines "bombastic" as "forceful and confident in a way that is intended to be very powerful and impressive, but may not have much real meaning or effect," which would mean that 'Barbie' is pompous rather than remarkable) and superficial readings of complex films, the quality of film writing has dwindled. It is hard to recommend people read more criticism when it so often makes for a tedious or actively infuriating experience. This low quality, mass availability and low interest has in turn hurt publications and encourages editors to pay their writers ever less – and the vicious cycle continues." According to Lazic, venerable filmmaker Paul Schrader (who worked as a critic for the now-defunct Los Angeles Free Press while earning his M.A. in film studies at UCLA) characterized the trend in a July interview with Sight and Sound as being emblematic of a broader "crisis" in film culture. "There was a shift from 'Let's go to the movies' to 'Let’s go to a movie,'" Schrader said. "How do you find out what to see? You read. This made film criticism an elite intellectual profession, one created by the market. When that market shifted and print shifted, it started going away. There are more film critics today than at any time in history. Everybody has a blog. But only a handful of them actually make a living out of it, and it’s hard to do for a whole lifetime. [...] [One] single leg cannot lift the horse up again. Criticism can't do it on its own. If audiences suddenly had a taste for more engaged films, things might change. When we were experiencing the multiple cultural crises of the 1960s and 1970s – anti-militarism, civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, sexual freedom – movies bloomed because people wanted to know what was going on. [...] But when audiences don’t want important movies – movies that, even if they're bad, talk about substantial subjects – then it's very hard to make good movies. More and more, you have cinema that is made for suspended adolescence, the kind of movies that you liked before you went to college, before you became an elitist. Movies with people who wear capes. Will that reverse itself? I don't know."

AP Includes 'Most Favored Nation' Clause in OpenAI Agreement:

The Associated Press "built in a first-mover safeguard" (usually characterized as a 'most favored nation' clause) in a recent agreement to license nearly forty years of content to American artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory OpenAI, ensuring the "right to reset the terms if another company gets a better deal from OpenAI," Alexandra Bruell of The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. "News organizations are still in the early stages of evaluating generative AI tools from companies including OpenAI, Microsoft and Google, which are trained on vast amounts of internet data, including news articles," Bruell wrote. "Several publishers are seeking payments for the use of their content. With no precedent in the industry, determining the fair value of what they produce isn't straightforward. The AP was the first major publisher to strike a pact with a major AI platform, and its favored nation clause reflects the uncertainty in the industry about how much news content is worth to AI bots." The AP did not disclose the terms of the agreement, with a spokesperson asserting that the nonprofit news agency "refrains from discussing the details of its business arrangements." OpenAI also refused to comment on the matter. "The phenomenon of generative AI, unleashed by OpenAI’s sophisticated chatbot ChatGPT, has shaken up big technology companies and threatens to transform publishers’ business models, which are largely reliant on revenue from advertising and subscriptions," Bruell continued. "Early versions of Google and Microsoft’s generative AI-powered search tools provide users with detailed answers pulled from various sources. Publishers fear that feature will make people less likely to click on their sites, putting a major dent in their traffic and ad revenue." Compensatory payments could "offset the impact of the technology [...] to some degree," with Wall Street Journal parent company News Corp utilizing various means (including an external consultant) to "assess the value of its content for the purpose of AI training" for future negotiations with current industry leaders Google and Microsoft. In particular, Google is reportedly working on "Genesis," a generative AI product that amounts to a publishing platform. "In partnership with news publishers, especially smaller publishers, we're in the earliest stages of exploring ideas to potentially provide AI-enabled tools to help journalists with their work,” a Google spokesperson said. "For instance, AI-enabled tools could assist journalists with options for headlines or different writing styles." Under the terms of OpenAI's agreement with the AP, "OpenAI will license part of the news business’s text archive, and AP in turn will 'leverage OpenAI’s technology and product expertise,'" Bruell continued. (Pulitzer Administrator Marjorie Miller previously served as vice president and global enterprise editor at the AP, while AP Vice President and Editor at Large for Standards John Daniszewski is a former member and co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board.)

Chapin to Lead NPR Newsroom:

National Public Radio has named longtime journalist Edith Chapin as its senior vice president for news and editor in chief, a role she has held on an interim basis since the autumn of 2022, the nonprofit media organization's David Folkenflik reported Monday. "NPR has extraordinary journalists who tell stories and getting to participate in the leadership of that journalism is a tremendous privilege," Chapin said in an interview with Folkenflik. "We all aim every day to serve our audience with information and moments of joy that are useful and relevant." According to Folkenflik, Chapin "has helped lead NPR for more than a decade, joining in 2012 as foreign editor and then rising to become executive editor, the effective top deputy for the news division." A graduate of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, she was employed by CNN for 25 years, "working her way up from intern to vice president." While assigned as a producer for the network, she covered many notable events of the 1990s (including "Nelson Mandela's election to the presidency of South Africa, the first Gulf War [and] genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia") before helping to lead CNN's coverage of the September 11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina and extreme weather in south Asia. In an interview, NPR CEO John Lansing lauded Chapin as a "a steady hand and wise counsel to me," adding: "Her editorial leadership has helped NPR produce some of the most excellent journalism that we've ever had." Chapin succeeds Pulitzer Prize Board member Nancy Barnes, who left the role last year to become editor of The Boston Globe "after Lansing announced he would hire a chief content officer above her," Folkenflik continued. "That new executive is to set NPR's strategy in an age of streaming, when podcasts have become nearly as important to the public broadcaster's bottom line as traditional radio shows. The content chief will also oversee NPR's programming and music divisions, which encompasses most, although not all, of its podcasts." A similar position was eliminated by former CEO Jarl Mohn in 2014 as part of an effort "to ease tensions between the radio and digital sides of the network." However, NPR's news and programming divisions have continued to "[clash] frequently over their priorities, resources and need to innovate" in recent years. Barnes' departure was followed "in ensuing months by the announcement NPR would freeze much of its spending due to a sharp drop in podcast revenues; the subsequent need to lay off and buy out about 10 percent of the network's staff; the departure of the network's chief financial officer, Deborah Cowan; the departure of Chapin's top deputy, Terence Samuel, to become editor in chief of USA Today this month; and, most recently, the announcement on July 14 that NPR's chief operating officer, Will Lee, will leave the network after less than two years for a new corporate position as yet unannounced," Folkenflik wrote. "Not all of those developments are related; taken together they spell a steep challenge for Lansing and the network. According to three people with direct knowledge, NPR had fixed on Alex MacCallum, a former senior executive at CNN and The New York Times, to be its chief content officer. Earlier this month, however, she accepted a position as chief revenue officer for The Washington Post." Nevertheless, Lansing and Chapin remain optimistic about the state of the news organization. "We're starting to click on all cylinders again," the chief executive said. Chapin believes that ongoing collaborations with local stations will ultimately "bolster" the network's reporting. "The distinct proposition that public radio has is knitting together local, regional, national and international," she said. "We've shown success with the work so far. And now we need to scale that up."

High-Profile University Departures Foreground Student Journalism:

In an unusual confluence of events, the Wednesday resignation of Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Northwestern University's recent termination of Wildcats football team Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald were augured by the "common link" of "inquisitive student journalists," highlighting "the important role of college newspapers in holding to account the powerful institutions that house them," according to Katie Robertson of The New York Times. In a November 29 article for The Stanford Daily, Investigations Editor Theo Baker (the son of past Pulitzer juror/New Yorker Staff Writer Susan Glasser and longtime New York Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker; both were avid student journalists, and the latter famously withdrew from Oberlin College in 1986 because he "worked too much at [student newspaper The Oberlin Review] when [he] probably should have gone to some more classes") "resurfaced claims [...] that neuroscience research papers in which Dr. Tessier-Lavigne was listed either as principal author or co-author had altered imagery," Robertson added. "The claims had been repeated over the years on PubPeer, a website that allows scientists to discuss research." Immediately thereafter, the university "opened an investigation into Dr. Tessier-Lavigne with a panel of outside scientists." In February, Baker received a special George Polk Award for his work, becoming the youngest recipient of the prize. Released Wednesday, the report "found that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne 'did not personally engage in research misconduct' for the 12 papers the panel reviewed, but that some of the papers did show manipulated research data by members of his labs and that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne did not take sufficient steps to correct the record." The report also "pushed back on a claim made by The Stanford Daily in February that a 2009 Alzheimer's research paper Dr. Tessier-Lavigne wrote when he was an executive at the biotech company Genentech had been the subject of an internal review that had found falsified data and that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne had covered it up," with the reviewers noting that the allegation "appears to be mistaken, as Genentech has stated" despite the presence of "multiple problems." Kaushikee Nayudu, the editor in chief and president of The Daily, said in a statement that the publication stands by its reporting: "The Daily never reported that Marc Tessier-Lavigne personally engaged in manipulation of research. We had access to different information and sources than the panel, which acknowledged that they did not grant sources anonymity. It's possible that different conclusions may be reached based on these differences of process." Although he declined to comment on the matter, Baker "reported that some witnesses had refused to talk to Stanford's panel because they were not guaranteed anonymity and that the panel had been aware of additional allegations that were not included in the final report" in an article published following Dr. Tessier-Lavigne's resignation. In the disparate milieu of suburban Chicagoland, a July 8 article by Daily Northwestern contributors Nicole Markus, Alyce Brown, Cole Reynolds and Divya Bhardwaj "reported the extent of hazing allegations among football players at the university, including forced nudity and coerced sexual acts, and showed how the university had mishandled its investigation into the hazing, placing [...] Fitzgerald, the coach, only on a two-week suspension," Robertson wrote. "Two days later, the reporters followed up with an article on the racist culture in the football program," prompting Fitzgerald's dismissal. In a statement to ESPN, Fitzgerald "said he was 'surprised' and that his agent and lawyer would 'take the necessary steps to protect my rights in accordance with the law.'" The investigation also "prompted a lawsuit against Northwestern and [...] Fitzgerald that was filed Tuesday by a former Northwestern football player who alleges that he was subjected to hazing, physical abuse and racial discrimination." The younger Baker reflected on the impact of student journalism in an interview with Robertson. "More than anything, to me, this should raise conversations about the value of student journalism," he said. "If you love a place, and I really do love Stanford, you want to push it to be more transparent."

Top Editors at Penguin Random House Accept Buyouts Amid Layoffs:

A litany of "publishing’s most celebrated and enduring editors are leaving Penguin Random House after accepting buyout packages" following the implementation of "an undetermined number of company-wide layoffs," Hillel Italie of the Associated Press reported Monday. "Longtime editors of such prominent writers as Anne Rice, Lorrie Moore and Nobel laureates Alice Munro and Elie Wiesel are among those stepping down by the end of the year," Italie wrote. "Penguin Random House declined Monday to comment on any individual staff members, but multiple publishing officials with knowledge of the buyouts confirmed that departing editors include" such prominent figures as Vicky Wilson, Jonathan Segal and Ann Close. "All of us at Penguin Random House greatly respect the life-changing decisions of those U.S. colleagues who have chosen to take the recent company-wide Voluntary Separation Offer," the company said in a statement provided to The AP. "Their contributions to our publishing, our booksellers, and to our readers have made a meaningful difference in who we are as a company and community, and their dedication to mentoring and to sharing their expertise and experience with our next generation of talent will be one of their major legacies. We thank them and wish them a joyful and fulfilling next chapter." According to "multiple publishing sources," the role of editor Daniel Halperin (a frequent collaborator of four-time Fiction finalist Joyce Carol Oates who "joined Knopf in 2021 after heading the HarperCollins imprint Ecco since the early 1970s") was among the layoffs, which "come amid a broader reorganization at Penguin Random House" and "numerous other high-profile changes [...] Global company CEO Markus Dohle and U.S. CEO Madeline McIntosh both left within months of PRH's failed attempt to purchase rival publisher Simon & Schuster, a deal struck down last fall by a federal judge." Former Knopf Editor-in-Chief and stalwart Editor Ex Officio Robert Gottlieb, who worked on two-time Biography winner Robert Caro’s Lyndon Johnson opus for five decades, died last month at age 92; in the interim, Knopf "has not yet announced a new editor for the fifth volume." Italie added: "Wilson, Segal and Close have all worked for decades at [...] Knopf," a leading imprint of PRH. "Others leaving include Knopf Managing Editor Kathy Hourigan, who joined the company in 1963; and Andy Hughes, the imprint's senior vice president of production and design. Joan Didion's editor at Knopf, Shelley Wanger, also took the buyout. Hourigan and Hughes have been closely involved in the publication of Caro's series on Johnson, a project dating back to the 1970s. A spokesperson for Caro said no plan was yet in place for Hourigan and/or Hughes to continue on a freelance basis with Caro, who is currently writing the long-awaited fifth and likely final volume on Johnson."

Texas TikTok Ban Challenged by Knight Institute:

Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute has filed a lawsuit challenging a ban of TikTok on Texas state devices and networks "on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, whose members include Texas college professors who say their work was compromised after they lost access" to the app on campus wi-fi networks and university-maintained computers, Sapna Maheshwari of The New York Times reported Thursday. According to Maheshwari, the lawsuit "offers a glimpse into the real-world effect of bans targeting TikTok and the mounting legal pushback accompanying the efforts [...] Universities in more than 20 states have banned TikTok in some fashion, according to the institute, based on new rules from lawmakers who say TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, poses a national security threat." The Institute, which works on pro bono First Amendment cases, "wants Texas and other states to exempt university faculty from the bans." In an interview, Knight lawyer Ramya Krishnan noted that the Supreme Court has previously "characterized academic freedom as a special concern of the First Amendment," adding: "With so many Americans on TikTok, it's important that researchers are able to study the impact that this platform is having on public discourse and society more generally." The lawsuit maintains that University of North Texas digital media scholar Jacqueline Vickery had to "suspend research projects and change her research agenda, alter her teaching methodology and eliminate course material" after the ban was effectuated. Previously, Vickery was "able to collect and analyze large numbers of TikTok videos for her work, which focuses on how young people use digital and social media for informal learning and activism, but she can no longer do this on her university-owned computers or internet networks," Maheshwari wrote. The ban "also appears to extend to her personal cellphone based on her use of university email and other apps there," according to the lawsuit. "This isn't just an app that young people use for fun, but there is a whole lot of research happening with and through the site as well as a whole lot of teaching," said Vickery, an associate professor of media arts at the institution. "It doesn’t seem like the ban has really taken into consideration the trickle-down consequences." 

Federal Trade Commission Initiates OpenAI Investigation:

The Federal Trade Commission "has opened an expansive investigation into OpenAI, probing whether the maker of the popular ChatGPT bot has run afoul of consumer protection laws by putting personal reputations and data at risk," Cat Zakrzewski of The Washington Post reported Thursday. The agency (which has enjoyed newfound prominence under Chairperson Lina Khan, a Columbia Law School associate professor and the youngest person ever appointed to the role) "sent the San Francisco company a 20-page demand for records about how it addresses risks related to its AI models, according to a document reviewed by The Washington Post," Zakrzewski continued. "The salvo represents the most potent regulatory threat to date to OpenAI’s business in the United States, as the company goes on a global charm offensive to shape the future of artificial intelligence policy." Characterized by myriad analysts as the fastest-growing consumer app since the advent of the digital era, its chief executive, former Y Combinator President Sam Altman, has "emerged as an influential figure in the debate over AI regulation, testifying on Capitol Hill, dining with lawmakers and meeting with President Biden and Vice President Harris," Zakrzewski wrote. "But now the company faces a new test in Washington, where the FTC has issued multiple warnings that existing consumer protection laws apply to AI, even as the administration and Congress struggle to outline new regulations." At a "high-profile speech" last month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged colleagues to surmount partisanship in the matter while predicting that regulatory legislation would be a medium-term concern. "It's not going to be days or weeks, but it's not going to be years," the Brooklyn-based lawmaker said in an interview following the speech. "Months would be the proper timeline that I would give you." Following an all-senator briefing earlier this week, Schumer "told reporters [...] that it’s going to be 'very hard' to regulate AI, as lawmakers try to balance the need for innovation with ensuring there are proper safeguards on the technology." According to Zakrzewski, if the agency identifies violations of consumer protection laws, it can "levy fines or put a business under a consent decree, which can dictate how the company handles data." The agency has previously fined Meta, Amazon and Twitter for "alleged violations" of these laws. Zakrzewski added: "The agency's focus on such fabrications comes after numerous high-profile reports of the chatbot producing incorrect information that could damage people’s reputations. Mark Walters, a radio talk show host in Georgia sued OpenAI for defamation, alleging the chabot made up legal claims against him. The lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT falsely claimed that Walters, the host of 'Armed American Radio,' was accused of defrauding and embezzling funds from the Second Amendment Foundation. The response was provided in response to a question about a lawsuit about the foundation that Walters is not a party to, according to the complaint." The FTC "also asked the company to provide extensive details about its products and the way it advertises them." Additionally, it requested "details about the policies and procedures that OpenAI takes before it releases any new product to the public, including a list of times that OpenAI held back a large language model because of safety risks." Other requests encompass descriptions of the data that OpenAI uses to train its language models ("which mimic humanlike speech by ingesting text, mostly scraped from Wikipedia, Scribd and other sites across the open web") and "how it refines its models to address their tendency to 'hallucinate,' making up answers when the models don’t know the answer to a question." 

Merida Discusses Los Angeles Times Subscription Growth, De Los Vertical:

The Los Angeles Times has 550,000 digital subscriptions, up from 450,000 in late 2022 and "over 250,000" in late 2020, Executive Editor Kevin Merida revealed in a Tuesday interview with Sara Fischer of Axios. Merida, a Pulitzer Prize Board member since 2020, also discussed the launch of De Los, a "new brand focused on identity and culture targeted to English-speaking Gen Z and millennial Latinos in the U.S." that will "offer a mix of commentary, comics, social media videos and eventually community events from voices within the Los Angeles Times' newsroom and from external contributors whose audiences the Times hopes to tap into, such as author John Paul 'JP' Brammer, Salvadoran poet Javier Zamora and culture journalist Alex Zaragoza." According to Fischer, the brand "is colorful, urban and youthful, featuring videos and graphics from reporters behind the scenes at local events"; its recent TikTok activity "chronicles a Mexican bull riding event called a jaripeo in the Hispanic Los Angeles suburb of Pico Rivera." Angel Rodriguez, the newspaper's general manager for Latino initiatives; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor, design director for Latino initiatives; and Latinx Files newsletter writer Fidel Martinez are leading the unit, which will utilize "nearly a dozen" Los Angeles Times journalists. Delta and California Endowment are serving as early sponsors, while the newspaper also is "actively pursuing additional advertising funding," Merida added. The Times intends to "develop subscription models" for the vertical at a later juncture. Best known for his long tenure at The Washington Post and subsequent work at ESPN, Merida "has been tasked with bringing more inclusivity to the paper amid growing tensions among the Latino community." According to Fischer, a Latino caucus that criticized a perceived lack of diversity in the newspaper was formed in its union in 2020. Merida said that "20% of the paper's newsroom is Latino, up from 13% in 2020," while "a quarter of the masthead [...] is Latino, and the newsroom overall is 48% journalists of color." However, 74 newsroom positions (including as many as 19 Latino journalists) were eliminated last month as the publication remains "far from [...] owner Patrick Soon-Shiong's stated goal of reaching 1 million digital-only subscribers," a benchmark most recently set for the end of 2022. Although Soon-Shiong sold the San Diego Union-Tribune sister newspaper to hedge fund Alden Global Capital's MediaNews Group on Monday, Merida "said he is optimistic about the paper's prospects, given how much more closely the revenue and editorial sides are working together to build long-term revenue models," Fischer continued. As part of this effort, The Times "is experimenting more with digital products, like newsletters and guides, to help bolster its audience and subscription numbers."

New York Times Closes Sports Desk, Will Publish Athletic Coverage:

The New York Times "said it is dismantling its sports desk and will rely on The Athletic for its daily sports coverage, part of an effort to further integrate the publication it bought for $550 million last year," Alexandra Bruell of The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. According to an internal memo from Executive Editor Joseph Kahn and Deputy Managing Editor Monica Drake, current staff "will be offered other roles in the Times newsroom," with no layoffs currently envisaged. The Times also plans to "form a group within its business section focused on covering money and power in sports," with Kahn and Drake affirming their intention to "focus even more directly on distinctive, high-impact news and enterprise journalism about how sports intersect with money, power, culture, politics and society at large" in the memo. The decision coincides with the publication's intention to "[go] all in on its strategy to sell subscriptions to a multi-product offering, including news, games and sports, and justify its Athletic purchase," Bruell added. "We intend to utilize The Athletic—which has among the largest sports newsrooms in the world—to provide Times readers with a greater abundance of sports coverage than ever before," Publisher A.G. Sulzberger and Chief Executive Officer Meredith Kopit Levien said in a separate internal note. The acquisition of The Athletic "created tensions within [...] from the start, and fueled concerns among staffers that it may lead to the sports section eventually being shut down," Bruell continued. "On Sunday, members of the sports desk sent a letter to management asking for transparency about the company's plans." Currently, both newsrooms "keep a different set of standards and editorial processes," with The Times prohibiting sports staff from "voting in industry events such as player awards and Hall of Fame entries." Athletic reporter Shams Charania also appears as a broadcast commentator for FanDuel, a digital gambling company that offers a sportsbook and casino games. However, a Times spokesperson confirmed that both organizations maintain "somewhat similar restrictions [...] preventing sports reporters from betting on sports or leagues that they cover." Founded amid the metastization of the local news crisis in 2016, The Athletic "made a name for itself in sports media for its hyperlocal coverage of major sports teams," often hiring "established reporters and columnists in local markets" as competing publications withered away. It has since stepped away from this approach in certain instances following the acquisition; for example, local beat reporters were not assigned to the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat basketball teams, which advanced to the National Basketball Association Finals last month. Accordingly, while 20 roles were recently eliminated at The Athletic as part of this restructuring, it "plans to increase head count as well as invest more in coverage areas with broad appeal," including the National Football League and association football's English Premier League. "The acquisition of The Athletic is part of a broader effort by the Times to offer a range of products that are all available within an 'All Access' bundle subscription, which the company has been promoting aggressively in recent quarters," Bruell wrote. "The Times's bundling approach is bringing in subscribers. The company added around one million digital subscribers last year. It had 9.7 million total subscribers, including print, as of the first quarter, with a goal of reaching 15 million by 2027. The company is drawing a lot of those people in with steep discounts off the bundle’s list price of $25 per four weeks. Average revenue per digital customer was $9 in the first quarter, a decrease compared with a year earlier." Several Pulitzer recipients worked on the sports desk throughout the 20th century, including 1956 Local Reporting winner Arthur Daley, 1976 Commentary winner Red Smith and 1981 Commentary winner Dave Anderson.