For the Record

Vox Acquires Cocktail Website, Mulls SPAC Offering:

Vox Media announced Monday that it is acquiring Punch, "a cocktail website founded by Bertelsmann SE’s Penguin Random House," as "part of a bid to deepen its coverage of food and drinks," according to Benjamin Mullin of The Wall Street Journal. The deal is closing as the media company "[considers] several options that would allow the company to finance further expansion," including "going public through a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC," mounting a traditional IPO or soliciting additional funding, Talia Baiocchi, the founder and editor in chief of Punch, "will join Vox Media and report to Amanda Kludt, editor in chief of the Vox Media food site Eater," Mullin added. Several media companies (including Group Nine Media and Vice Media Group) have considered going public via the SPAC mechanism over the past year, while BuzzFeed " has reached a SPAC deal that is slated to close later this year" under the aegis of founder and CEO Jonah Peretti. SPAC mergers "rovide a quicker path to the public markets but can come with risks and trade-offs for investors, as companies try to determine their valuation and line up financing," with shares of companies that merged with SPACs declining in value in recent weeks. Vox "expects to generate about $400 million of revenue this year and turn a profit," with Punch generating significant advertising revenue from such "liquor-industry heavyweights" as Bacardi Ltd. and Campari Group SpA. "Everyone in the cocktail industry reads Punch," said Kludt. "They have a large consumer audience, and they're a must-read for everyone in the trades."
 

The Hill Sold to Nexstar:

Political news site The Hill has been sold to Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group for $130 million, Sara Fischer of Axios reported Friday. "We have done this with mixed feelings," said Jimmy Finkelstein, the site's current owner and the brother of former Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein. "First, I realize with a heavy heart that it is time for me to move on to new ventures. Those will be known in the next several months. Yet at the same time I recognize with great pride all we have accomplished together and are about to produce." Co-founded by Finkelstein's father Jerry (a fellow New York political insider who also owned the New York Law Review) in 1994, the publication launched as a newspaper before emerging as a competitor to Politico and similar digital publications in the 2010s. "Despite increased competition, The Hill often receives more monthly unique visitors to its site than most of its Beltway peers, per Comscore," said Fischer. It is unclear if the ownership change will affect the print publication, which retains limited circulation in the Washington metropolitan area. Nexstar owns nearly 200 local affiliates throughout the United States, a 31% stake in Food Network parent company Television Food Network, G.P. and the Sony Pictures Television library-sourced digital subchannel Antenna TV. In addition to his unspecified new ventures, Finkelstein intends to remain in the media, telling Fischer that he he is "looking for the right next [...] property" to buy.

Komunyakaa Receives Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award:

1994 Poetry winner Yusef Komunyakaa has received the 2021 Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, Culture.pl reported Thursday. Established in honor of Polish poet, essayist, and moralist Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998) by his eponymous foundation in Warsaw in 2013, the award "recognizes outstanding artistic and intellectual literary achievements on the world stage which have a bearing on the world of values towards which [...] Herbert's work gravitated." Past laureates include 1971 and 2009 Poetry winner W. S. Merwin, 1990 Poetry winner Charles Simic and Irish poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. "Yusef Komunyakaa is one of the most original, most expressive of contemporary poets," commented Tomasz Różycki, the chair of the jury. "His voice brings together the experiences of a Black American born in the American South, a veteran of the Vietnam War, brought up in the jazz and blues tradition, writing about the most painful experiences of modern life in the USA, all at once universal in how he invokes the traditions of many cultures. Despite the painful themes he takes on, his poetry is never dry; on the contrary – it has great sensual energy, a poetry of dance and love; a song in honor of life and existence." In a statement, Komunyakaa acknowledged the award: "I am honored to receive this year’s Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award. Especially since the award bears the name of a poet whom I truly admire. I remember when I first read Zbigniew Herbert’s poetry in an issue of 'Field' magazine published at Oberlin College in Ohio. Indeed, literature travels; I am thankful to be initiated into the tradition, one that crosses both geographical and cultural borders, as well as borders of time and space. One’s work [...] grows when it comes in contact with others. […] I often trust a persona to render a deeper truth of our world, and, in this sense […] I envy the poet whose name this award bears, who conjured the great persona, Mr. Cogito. I am blessed to know that no topic is taboo, when language reveals truth. I believe poetry is an action, and I believe the great poet, Zbigniew Herbert, would have agreed with me."

NewsGuild of New York Enacts First Dues Increase:

A majority of NewsGuild of New York members "voted 1246-559 in support of a #GuildStrong campaign" that encompasses the "first dues increase in the NYGuild’s 88-year history," the union announced Monday. “This referendum was about more than just our finances. It was about our vision for building a fighting, member-led union,” said Susan DeCarava, the organization's president. "The referendum prompted many welcome discussions about how we can work together to make our union more transparent, responsive, effective and sustainable, and in the coming months, we will work on turning those discussions into action. Our power is rooted in our unity and we can now move forward together on building a stronger union." New York Times Critic at Large Amanda Hess, the second vice president of the union and a member of its New York Times Unit Council, added: "I'm so inspired by the work my fellow members are doing to improve their workplaces and our industry, and I'm excited for all of us to keep working together to build our collective power with the resources we all need and deserve." The referendum "sought approval for a temporary working dues increase for three years and a permanent elimination of the dues cap, which was set at $140,140." The dues increase will go into effect on September 15. In addition to recently organizing workers at Insider, The Atlantic, Forbes and Gannett, the NewsGuild has "[eliminated] NDAs at The Daily Beast" and secured "a three-year contract at Scholastic with retroactive pay raises."

Newspapers Evacuate Afghan Employees:

The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal "have asked President Biden for help in facilitating the departure of their Afghan staffers in the wake of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan," Sarah Ellison and Elahe Izadi of The Post reported Monday. The publishers of the news organizations "issued a joint plea for help" in a co-signed letter. "For the past 20 years, brave Afghan colleagues have worked tirelessly to help The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal share news and information from the region with the global public," said The Post's Fred Ryan, The Journal's Almar Latour and The Times' A. G. Sulzberger. "Now those colleagues and their families are trapped in Kabul, their lives in peril." The publishers requested "support for our colleagues and [...] an unequivocal signal that the government will stand behind the free press," including “facilitated and protected access” to a U.S.-managed airport (likely Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport), “safe passage through a protected access gate” to the airport and “facilitated air movement out of the country.” Previously, Ryan "sent an email to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on behalf of all three news organizations making an 'urgent request' for help in securing passage for the group from the civilian side to the military side of the Kabul airport so they could safely await evacuation flights." Latour reflected on the situation in a separate email. "Right now we are focused on seeking safe passage for our Afghan colleagues and their families who even now are bearing witness to events on the ground," he said. "We need the immediate support of the US government in bringing them to safety.”

Country Life Owner Buys Dennis Properties:

Future, the owner of such venerable British publications as Country Life and Metal Hammer, has acquired Dennis Publishing in a £300m deal that will "hand a significant profit to private equity owners Exponent," Mark Sweney of The Guardian reported Monday. Founded in 1973 by former OZ magazine impresario and spoken word performer Felix Dennis, the media company's portfolio "[includes] the adult and junior versions of current affairs title The Week in the US and UK, MoneyWeek, Coach, Computer Active, PC Pro and IT Pro" alongside such niche publications as Minecraft World. Exponent, which acquired the company for £166m in 2018, will retain several erstwhile Dennis publications, most notably the paranormal-oriented Fortean Times and adult comic magazine Viz. Dennis' wide array of automotive magazines also were spun off into Autovia, currently chaired by former MoneySuperMarket chief executive Peter Plumb. “In the three years that the business has been owned by Exponent, Dennis has been on an incredible growth journey, delivering double-digit increases in subscription revenues, a greatly increased US footprint and significant bottom line increases,” said Dennis CEO James Tye. Future "cemented its place as Britain’s biggest magazine publisher last year after completing a £140m deal to buy TI Media, formerly Time Inc UK, which publishes 40 titles including Horse & Hound, Woman & Home and Wallpaper."

Leon Litwack (1929-2021):

1980 History winner and two-time jury chair Leon Litwack died on August 5 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. from complications of bladder cancer. He was 91. Throughout his sprawling research oeuvre and innovative syllabi, Litwack "brought an ethos of patriotic dissent [...], insisting that the historian's job is to give voice to the marginalized and to make the well-off uncomfortable," according to Clay Risen of The New York Times. Born to first-generation Russian American parents in Santa Barbara, Litwack was castigated by a teacher after delivering a W. E. B. Du Bois-inspired rebuttal to his history textbook's account of Reconstruction and campaigned for former Vice President Henry Wallace, the 1948 Progressive Party nominee for president, as an undergraduate at Cal, also immersing himself in the labor movement as a member of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union. In 1953, he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee when he refused to remit the University of California loyalty oath imposed amid the Second Red Scare. Following Army service, he received a Ph.D. in history from his alma mater in 1958 and briefly joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, then associated with the heterodox Wisconsin School of American diplomatic history. Concluding a peripatetic series of appointments at Southern and Western universities, he returned to Berkeley in 1964. As the discourse of a range of New Left initiatives inspired by the Civil Rights Movement reached a collective denouement alongside their wellspring in the popular consciousness, Litwack continued his pathbreaking research in Black history while also pioneering the explication of multimedia texts (most notably blues recordings) in undergraduate surveys and otherwise "[drinking] deep" from the era's counterculture. His Prize-winning book "dispensed with telling a linear history about the years following emancipation and instead, drawing on years of research in obscure archives, presented thematic stories" of the postbellum era. "'Been in the Storm So Long' was pivotal in giving a detailed Black voice during Reconstruction," said 2011 History winner Eric Foner, a fellow period specialist. "He turned around the literature to make Blacks the key actors in that transformation." While some of Litwack's later work (such as 1998's "Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow") elicited criticism from a swath of his peers, he remained a totemic presence at Berkeley, drawing thousands of attendees at his final lecture before taking emeritus status in 2007. "Though he had suffered a stroke a few years before," said Risen, "he walked onto the stage bedecked in his leather jacket, the Isley Brothers' 'Fight the Power' playing on the sound system."

Google Considers Topic-Based, Post-Cookie Approach Amid Privacy Concerns:

In a July 26 Internet Engineering Task Force meeting, Chrome Privacy Sandbox engineer Josh Karlin "revealed signs of what may be next for the firm’s most advanced cookieless ad targeting method," Kate Kaye of Digiday reported Wednesday. The "potential update of the Federated Learning of Cohorts targeting technique" detailed at the event "would involve assigning topic categories to websites and people rather than assigning opaque numerical cohort IDs to them," signifying newfound recognition inside Google that the original iteration of FLoC (which would have assigned an "opaque numerical cohort ID" to users) "was not only opaque to the ad industry but also presented new privacy infringements for users." Although Karlin "did not go into extensive detail on how the browser-based FloC process would change," he indicated that the company "might assign a site topic based on a variety of interests reflected by the sites people visit in a given week," while "topics would be derived from a much-shorter list of publicly-available, standardized" subjects in a manner analogous to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's content taxonomy. Users also "may be able to opt themselves into or out of topics" assigned to them. "Google might be switching to a more topic-based ID, because I think the demand is there from advertisers to understand interest behavior, and it might deter companies from trying to enrich the cohort IDs themselves," said John Goulding, U.S. head of strategy at programmatic ad campaign firm MiQ. "This is a good thing because if publishers or ad tech companies had tried to ascribe interest behaviors to the old cohort IDs, that could have risked undermining the privacy protections of the whole framework." In a statement, a Google spokesperson said that the firm is "always exploring options for how to make the Privacy Sandbox proposals more private while still supporting the free and open web."

Bainum Nonprofit Moves Forward:

Several job postings for "mid-level executives to plan a multimedia and comprehensive news startup" for Baltimore went live on the Jooble site this week, indicating that Choice Hotels International Chairman Stewart W. Bainum Jr.'s "stalled plan for a nonprofit news launch in Baltimore is moving forward again," Rick Edmonds of Poynter reported Tuesday. "A source familiar with Bainum's thinking said plans are still preliminary, and the project might yet be found not to be feasible," added Edmonds. "But the source conceded this is a strong signal that Bainum wants to go ahead with an alternative after his attempt to put together a deal this spring to buy all of Tribune Publishing failed." The open positions include chief product officer; vice president of technology strategy and operations; vice president of analytics; head of audience development; head of brand marketing; and head of social media. Bainum, who gradually transformed his father's "low-key" nursing home company into a billion-dollar hospitality franchisor throughout the 1970s and 1980s, "envisions taking on The Baltimore Sun, one of the nine Tribune Publishing papers that hedge fund Alden Global Capital acquired for $630 million." The project has drawn attention from Michael Bloomberg (who does not wish to invest but would "provide access to Bloomberg publishing staff for tech and product design") and the nonprofit Lenfest Institute, which has been advising the businessman since late last year. 

Twin Cities Venture Joins Journalist-Owned Media Startups:

Less than a year after Star Tribune Media closed City Pages when the alt-weekly "became 'economically unviable' amid the pandemic's upheaval," a new site founded by four former editors "plans to publish “the same fun and fearless journalism" popularized by the publication, including "news, politics, food/drink, music, arts, culture, theater, plus general civic oddities and debate,” Sarah Scire of NiemanLab reported Monday. The online-only Racket will be member-supported and encompass "a diverse cast of freelance writers" in an effort to "shape the editorial voice and spirit" of the publication. "No bosses, some biases," the editors said in a statement on the site. "The Star Tribune is owned by a billionaire. The Pioneer Press is owned by a hedge fund. Racket is owned by four ex-City Pages editors who live in Minneapolis." Racket's journalist-owned model has been exemplified by other publications in recent years, including the digital-first Colorado Sun, Block Club Chicago and the avowedly collectivist Discourse. "In an age of layoffs, pivots, and a losing battle for advertising dollars, turning to subscribers and a different ownership model has a certain appeal for founders," said Scire. Added co-founder Jessica Armbruster: “It's a risk, just because it’s different from what we’ve done previously. But we've done our research and we’ve met with people who moved from online ads to subscriptions. It has been very encouraging to hear and read that other places around the country are switching to that model. As for content, the four of us have worked together for five plus years, and we were all in different beats. There's a natural workload. We already know how to run the website at City Pages. We're hoping a lot of that magic will transfer to our new site." The publication "thinks it needs to convince about 4,000 readers to become paying subscribers" to become sustainable and plans to add a paywall. “I think that some stuff — like even calendar stuff — will be free and some of the larger features, like what would have been a cover story at City Pages, may end up behind the paywall," said Armbruster.