Washington Post publisher Will Lewis and other Post executives met with staff on Wednesday and laid out a strategy for the future. That’s because the recent past has been bleak for one of America’s best newspapers, at least financially.
Lewis, who was named publisher just late last year, pointed out in the meeting that the Post had lost $77 million over the past year, and had a 50% drop off in audience since 2020.
Those are stunningly large numbers.
According to Semafor’s Max Tani, Lewis told staff, “To be direct, we are in a hole, and we have been for some time.”
Axios’ Sara Fischer tweeted the Post has had a 14% decline in digital revenue and 12% total revenue decline since 2021.
However, Washington Post media reporter Jeremy Barr wrote that Lewis expressed optimism, saying “This is all repairable, all doable, particularly if we do it together.”
Do what, exactly?
Build it. That’s what the Post is calling it.
Lewis introduced an overall plan with three pillars: great journalism, happy customers and making money.
To that end, the Post will create new tiers of subscription offerings. Barr wrote, “While few details were provided about pricing and timing, the new offerings will include a membership program and new subscription tiers called Post Pro and Post Plus. While some tiers will be primarily marketed to the current base of individual subscribers, others will be focused on generating new revenue from companies.”
In his Puck newsletter, media reporter Dylan Byers added this key point: “For non-core audiences, such as younger news consumers who engage with Post content on social media, the Post will also introduce a pay-as-you-go option to access single articles or work from a specific author. This offering isn’t about netting a few quarters and dimes from passersby, of course; it’s about getting their email addresses and credit cards and putting them in the marketing funnel, with the hope that they’ll subscribe down the line.”
The subscription tiers are just part of the plan.
The Post also has plenty of other ideas in the works, including the use of artificial intelligence, a renewed emphasis on print and targeting untapped audiences with new focus. In addition, Byers wrote, “A new team helmed by Kathy Baird, the chief communications officer, will focus on marketing the talent and getting more Post journalists onto the conference circuit.”
The Post will try to turn the ship around with a staff that underwent cuts at the end of last year.
According to CNN’s Oliver Darcy, Lewis told the staff in Wednesday’s meeting, “I really hope at some point in the future, when you look back on this day, it’s actually quite a significant day in the history of our company.”
News Corp. — the media company owned by the Murdoch family and publisher of such U.S. newspapers as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post — has agreed to a deal with OpenAI to allow its content to be shared.
The Wall Street Journal’s Alexandra Bruell, Sam Schechner and Deepa Seetharaman wrote, “The deal could be worth more than $250 million over five years, including compensation in the form of cash and credits for use of OpenAI technology, according to people familiar with the situation. OpenAI would use content from News Corp’s consumer-facing news publications, including archives, to answer users’ queries and train its technology.”
In a memo to staff, News Corp. chief executive officer Robert Thomson said, “The pact acknowledges that there is a premium for premium journalism. The digital age has been characterized by the dominance of distributors, often at the expense of creators, and many media companies have been swept away by a remorseless technological tide. The onus is now on us to make the most of this providential opportunity.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement, “We greatly value News Corp’s history as a leader in reporting breaking news around the world, and are excited to enhance our users’ access to its high-quality reporting.”
This is all quite the development as news outlets try to figure out what kind of relationship to have with AI.
The New York Times’ Katie Robertson wrote, “Many publishers have worried about the threat to their business posed by generative A.I., which uses copyrighted content to train its models and service its chatbots. The use of A.I. to answer online search queries in particular has raised concerns that publishers are not being compensated for the use of their content to train chatbots that compete with them as a source of information.”
Some media companies, such as The New York Times and several outlets owned by Alden Global Capital, have lodged lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. Meanwhile, other media companies, including The Associated Press, have reached limited partnership deals with OpenAI. And then there is The Washington Post, which has not struck a deal yet, but is in the market for AI partnerships.
The Journal wrote, “Publishers are seeking to ensure that they extract a hefty payment for the use of their intellectual property, setting up complex and sometimes tense negotiations across the industry. Many journalists, meanwhile, are concerned about the impact of AI on jobs in newsrooms whose ranks have already been thinned by years of cuts.”
Be sure to check out the Journal story, which has all the details on the News Corp.-OpenAI deal.
Vivek Ramaswamy, shown here in February. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Not that long ago, Vivek Ramaswamy was running for president. Now the entrepreneur has purchased a minority stake in BuzzFeed — about 7.7%. And he wants to “shift” the media firm’s strategy, according to the regulatory filings. He said in the filing that he would “seek to engage in a dialogue” with BuzzFeed’s board of directors and management.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Weprin wrote, “It is not immediately clear what a shift in BuzzFeed’s strategy would mean. The digital media company, founded and led by CEO Jonah Peretti, has undergone a dramatic shift since going public two and a half years ago, effectively shutting down BuzzFeed News (it still has a newsroom through The Huffington Post), and moving to a model that focuses on creators and AI-driven games, quizzes, and other content.”
CNBC’s Rohan Goswami wrote, “Ramaswamy’s involvement raises questions about BuzzFeed’s direction. His Strive Asset Management has pushed companies to stay out of ‘woke’ politics and opposed the widespread adoption of environmental, social and governance, or ESG, principles.”
Goswami noted that in an interview just last year, Ramaswamy told CNBC that companies should “do whatever allows them to be most successful over the long run without regard to political, social, cultural or environmental agendas.”
HuffPost’s Matt Shuham wrote, “Ramaswamy’s political career has featured both an oppositional stance toward mainstream media and an embrace of far-right talking points.”
The New York Times has another troublesome story involving Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and a flag.
Just last week, Times reporter Jodi Kantor had a story about how an upside-down American flag was flown at Alito’s house in Alexandria, Virginia, in the days after the Jan. 6 insurrection and just before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The upside-down flag was a symbol used by Donald Trump supporters to falsely argue that the 2020 election had been rigged. Alito told the Times that the flag was his wife’s doing — that she was bothered by yard signs in their neighborhood that she objected to.
Now Kantor, along with reporters Aric Toler and Julie Tate, dropped another story Wednesday about a flag flown at Alito’s beach house in New Jersey last summer.
The Times wrote, “This time, it was the ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.”
This story also includes photographs.
The last time, Alito blamed his wife. But the Times writes this time, “Justice Alito declined to respond to questions about the beach house flag, including what it was intended to convey and how it comported with his obligations as a justice. The court also declined to respond.”
Just another example of really strong work from the Times.
GBH, Boston’s public media organization, announced Wednesday the layoff of 31 employees — about 4% of its workforce.
CEO Susan Goldberg told employees, “GBH, like many other media companies, is facing financial headwinds. Although our business is complex and our industry is rapidly changing, the basic reason for these reductions is simple: revenues are flat and the cost of doing business has gone up.”
Goldberg also wrote, “This is painful because those individuals are our friends and colleagues, people who have dedicated themselves to our mission and the work we do,”
The Boston Globe’s Aidan Ryan has more.
So now it appears as if the NBA TV rights deal is in the final stages with ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime and NBC getting the rights starting in 2025. That means Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT), which has been televised games since 1989 and features the respected “Inside the NBA” studio show, will be shut out.
This has been the strong rumor for a week or more, but now Sports Business Journal’s Tom Friend writes, “The NBA is formalizing written contracts with Disney, NBC and Amazon this week, with sources calling it the final stage of media rights negotiations that may inevitably lead incumbent Warner Bros. Discovery to take legal action.”
Warner Bros. Discovery has a right to match NBC’s offer, but Friend writes, “Considering WBD is $40B in debt and does not have the over-the-air infrastructure of NBC, sources believe WBD would need to pay more than $2.6B to match the deal and that NBC’s overall bid could be structured in a way (for example, multiple weekly over-the-air games) that makes it virtually impossible for WBD to equal. Sources said (WBD CEO David) Zaslav would then essentially have three choices: pass on the NBA, drastically overpay for the ‘B’ package or take the NBA to court over the definition of a match.”
The cast of TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” shown here in 2018. From left to right: Shaquille O’Neal, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
If TNT’s “Inside the NBA” is winding down over the next year, it is going out a winner. The show — which features the unparalleled cast of host Ernie Johnson and analysts Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith and is generally regarded as one of the best sports studio shows of all time — won another three more Sports Emmys this week. It won for Outstanding Studio Show, Limited Run. Johnson won for Outstanding Studio Host, and Barkley won for Outstanding Studio Analyst.
In his acceptance speech, Johnson said, “I’m very grateful for this. We can all be grateful for what we do. Who in this room doesn’t consider what they have a ‘get to’ job? We get to do this. … I get to work with Kenny and Chuck and Shaq. … I’m grateful for this family at TNT. Thirty-five years, I’ve been with this company. I get to go to work with you guys. And I will forever be grateful for that.”
There has been talk that Barkley, O’Neal and Smith could move on to another network to reboot the “Inside the NBA” show, but it’s believed Johnson wants to remain at TNT. To clarify, TNT’s NBA rights do last through the 2024-25 season.
Other Sports Emmy winners in some of the major categories included ESPN’s “College GameDay” (outstanding weekly studio show); “MLB Tonight” (outstanding daily studio show); NBA announcer for ABC/ESPN Mike Breen (outstanding play by play); and Greg Olsen (outstanding game analyst).
What’s interesting about Olsen is that he was the analyst on Fox Sports’ No. 1 NFL announcing team. But he now shifts to the No. 2 team with Tom Brady joining Fox for the upcoming season.
Here is the full list of Sports Emmy winners.
- For the 13th consecutive year, the most watched TV show in prime time was NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.” For the 2023-24 television season, “SNF” had a Total Audience Delivery of 21.4 million viewers — the show’s best viewership since 2015 and up 8% from last season (19.9 million).
- For Nieman Lab, Andrew Deck with “Indian journalists are on the frontline in the fight against election deepfakes.”
- Tremendous work here from The New York Times in an investigation more than a year in the making. Azam Ahmed and Matthieu Aikins with photographs by Bryan Denton: “America’s Monster. How the U.S. Backed Kidnapping, Torture and Murder in Afghanistan.”
- And here’s a different, yet also impressive, story from The Washington Post’s Brady Dennis, Kevin Crowe and John Muyskens with photos and videos by Jahi Chikwendiu: “A Hidden Threat. Fast-rising seas could swamp septic systems in parts of the South.”
- Finally, one more from The New York Times. A very interesting profile that you just have to read from Kirsten Grind: “‘Silicon Valley Princess’: Inside the Life of Nicole Shanahan, R.F.K. Jr.’s Running Mate.”
- Reporting on the Rise of AI: A RAND-Poynter Masterclass
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Clarification: This story has been updated to say that several news outlets owned by Alden Global Capital have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft. Alden, itself, did not file the suits as originally stated.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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