Public Broadcasting Faces Trump Budget Cuts:
Reports on President Trump’s budget proposal cite his plan to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting. In two years, the $465 million allocated to organizations such as PBS and NPR would move to $30 million, and then to zero.
WaPo's "Big Three" Standing:
Although The Wall Street Journal announced that it "topped 2 million digital subscriptions for the first time" Friday, Joshua Benton of NiemanLab has reported that data for The Washington Post remains opaque because of its private ownership. "To be crystal clear, the Post is still by all appearances doing perfectly well," he said. "Maybe really well! But it’s very much still Avis or National, not Hertz."
Retiree Saves Oldest California Weekly:
After finding inspiration in a recent cable screening of "Citizen Kane," Downieville, Calif. retiree Carl Butz decided to buy California's oldest weekly newspaper, the embattled Mountain Messenger, for a modest sum. "Thank God for Carl, he stepped in," said Liz Fisher, a former editor of the paper. "It was devastating for everybody that we were going to lose The Mountain Messenger."
Tech-Based Protocol Launches:
Politico Publisher Robert Allbritton's Protocol launched last Wednesday. According to Sarah Scire and Joshua Benton of NiemanLab, the tech-oriented news organization will "lean on Politico staples like a sponsored daily newsletter, events, and insider-focused journalism to separate itself in the crowded field of tech reporting," with Executive Editor Tim Grieve characterizing the industry as a "global power center akin to any nation's capital." Roughly half of the staff will be based in San Francisco, with the remainder divided between New York, London and Washington, D.C.
MuckRack Launches Data Tool:
According to Ren LaForme of Poynter, journalism/PR software platform MuckRack has launched Trends, a new tool patterned after Google Trends that allows readers to view data on most news articles published in the last year. The company intends to extend the amount of available data in the near future. "There's a real hole in the market right now to just be able to get this data really easy to journalists," said co-founder and CEO Gregory Galant. "We want to make it really easy to see what's being written about one topic at a time."
Miller Bound for Europe:
Longtime Washington Post reporter Greg Miller will become a Europe-based investigative correspondent effective this summer, the newspaper announced Thursday. Miller, who joined The Post in 2010, contributed to its Pulitzer-winning staff coverage of the Edward Snowden disclosures and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. "Greg's broad background will be an asset as he moves on to Europe," said Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl and Deputy Foreign Editor Eva Rodriguez. "He will work closely with correspondents from across Europe, the Middle East and beyond, as well as colleagues in Washington."
Capital Gazette Staffers Take Buyouts:
Tribune Publishing, parent to the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., offered employee buyouts two months after hedge fund Alden Capital took a 32% stake in the company. Two Capital Gazette journalists who covered the June 2018 shooting in their newsroom, Joshua McKerrow and Pat Furgurson, have taken buyouts. The paper was awarded a Special Citation and $100,000 in 2019 by the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Jackson, Marx Continue Tribune Owner Search:
According to Joe Pompeo of Vanity Fair, 1999 Public Service contributor David Jackson and three-time Pulitzer finalist Gary Marx have failed to secure a potential buyer for the Chicago Tribune after publishing an op-ed in The New York Times and reaching out to "at least 50" prospects, including Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong (who maintains a 25% stake in parent company Tribune Publishing), Citadel CEO Ken Griffin and members of Chicago's Pritzker family. "We're very aware of the potential for failure," Jackson said. "So we're not doing this with any optimism, nor with any pessimism, frankly."
Epoch Times Initiates YouTube Blitz:
According to Kevin Roose of The New York Times, The Epoch Times has shifted its advertising strategy to YouTube after the publication was banned by Facebook for flouting its advertising transparency rules last year. Although the newspaper (whose precise ownership remains opaque) has served as an organ for China's dissident Falun Gong religious movement from its inception, it "has made inroads into top Republican circles" in recent years by disseminating content on the Spygate and QAnon conspiracy theories. While Publisher Stephen Green maintains that the publication is "independent and focus[ed] on truthful reporting," University of California, Merced political scientist Haifeng Huang believes that the tilt may be tied to the Trump administration's equivocation toward China.
