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Rumors that the Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan was in rehab. A lawsuit by Hulk Hogan, the former pro wrestler, against the gossip website Gawker for publishing a tape of him having sex. Testimony on Thursday at former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan dove deeply into the celebrity-obsessed digital media environment of the past fifteen years or so that helped fuel Mr. Trump’s rise to political prominence. In his testimony, particularly as he was cross-examined, Mr. Davidson and a defense lawyer, Emil Bove, together led the jurors on a whirlwind tour of several gossipy and tawdry deals he had a hand in. Prosecutors say that the former president’s efforts to continue to keep the story hidden were criminal.

Persons: Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Hulk Hogan, Donald J, Keith Davidson, Davidson, Emil Bove, Karen McDougal, Stormy Daniels, Trump, Michael D, Cohen Organizations: Hollywood, Prosecutors Locations: Manhattan, Los Angeles

☆ Enhanced Games Are Olympics With Steroids, Pay; Meet the Founder
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-31 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Several countries pay bonuses to medal winners, and high-profile athletes may get brand deals and sponsorships, but many Olympic athletes live quiet lives. AdvertisementD'Souza suggested he received funding for the Enhanced Games in the "single-digit millions" but declined to specify the amount. So far, it's unclear what kind of talent Enhanced Games will attract. He said that at the Enhanced Games, athletes would get comprehensive health checkups to monitor the effects of "whatever enhancement protocols" they're on and ensure they're fit to compete. D'Souza said he planned to announce more details about the Enhanced Games this summer — right around the Paris Olympics.

Persons: Aron D'Souza, gymgoers, D'Souza, Thomas Bach, Bach, Uber, Christian, Christian Angermayer, Balaji Srinivasan, Coinbase's, Peter Thiel, Angermayer, Srinivasan, Thiel, Hulk, Charles Harder, Harder, didn't, Sargon, Peter, VCs, Thiel hasn't, he's, James Magnussen, James, he'd, Marta Nawrocka, BI's Gabby Landsverk, Jim Walden, Grigory Rodchenkov, it's, who'd Organizations: International, Olympic, IOC, West Germany's Olympic, The New York Times, Business, Apeiron Investment, University of Melbourne, Gawker Media, BuzzFeed, Gawker, Abrams, Australian Financial, US, Doping Agency, UFC, Drug Free, NFL, NBA, MLB, Testing Agency, ITA, CNN, FBI, Sports, Gaming Initiative, Paris Locations: Miami, Lausanne, Switzerland, Oxford, Australian, Russia

☆ The Labor Movement Hasn’t Taken Off. A New Book Explains Why.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-13 | by ( Willa Glickman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

As Nolan writes in “The Hammer,” his lively account of the current landscape of American labor organizing, “It was reminiscent of Dr. Evil in ‘Austin Powers’ demanding as his ransom request for the entire world, ‘One million dollars!’”Nolan’s book joins the ranks of Steven Greenhouse’s “Beaten Down, Worked Up” and Jane McAlevey’s “A Collective Bargain” in making a rousing case for a robust labor movement. “The Hammer” aims to show that unions are the best way to combat economic inequality, give disenfranchised people genuine political power and counter the allure of the far right among the working class. What would such an announcement look like? “Perhaps every worker will emerge from the office and fire guns in the air,” Nolan muses, “until the smoke wafts over A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Persons: Hamilton Nolan, Liz Shuler, Nolan, “, Dr, ‘ Austin Powers, Steven Greenhouse’s “, Jane McAlevey’s “, Rich Yeselson, ” Nolan, ” Organizations: Labor, Gawker Locations: United States, Philadelphia, “, A.F.L

☆ Opinion | I Am Going to Miss Pitchfork, but That’s Only Half the Problem
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-21 | by ( Ezra Klein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I’m gutted to see Condé Nast folding the online music magazine Pitchfork into GQ. I won’t try to improve on the eulogies written for the site already (Casey Newton and Eric Harvey have good ones). It’s one of the few corners of the internet I still love, no matter how often I find myself in disagreement. I’ve seen some thoughtful writing already on why Pitchfork couldn’t make it. In this case, they’re specific to Pitchfork’s editorial choices and market position.

Persons: Condé Nast, Casey Newton, Eric Harvey, HuffPost, FiveThirtyEight Organizations: Pitchfork, GQ, New York Times, Sports, BuzzFeed, Popular, U.S . News, Gawker, ABC News, Grid, ”, Vox Media, McClatchy, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Dallas Morning News Locations: U.S

NEW YORK (AP) — The irreverent feminist website Jezebel is making a comeback less than a month after it was shut down. Paste Magazine, a digital pop culture publication based in Atlanta, announced Wednesday that it was buying Jezebel.com from G/O Media, which closed it and laid off its staff earlier this month. Like many other digital publications, however, Jezebel struggled in recent years to find a sustainable business model as digital advertising plummeted. Paste said Jezebel's “acquisition is poised to bring together the strengths of Paste Magazine’s established presence in the media landscape with Jezebel’s influential position in addressing contemporary issues.”Paste did not immediately return an e-mail seeking further details. The New York Times reported that Paste is searching for a new editor-in-chief for Jezebel before hiring writers.

Persons: Jezebel, Paste, “, Josh Jackson, Jezebel’s, ”, ” Jackson, Jim Spanfeller, ” Spanfeller Organizations: Paste Magazine, New York Times, Paste, Gawker Media Locations: Atlanta

☆ Jezebel to Be Resurrected by Paste Magazine
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Katie Robertson | More About Katie Robertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jezebel, the famed feminist website, is set to return less than a month after it was shuttered. Paste Magazine, a music and culture outlet, acquired Jezebel on Tuesday and planned to start publishing on the site again as soon as Wednesday, said Josh Jackson, a co-founder and the editor in chief of Paste. “The idea of there not being a Jezebel right now just didn’t seem to make sense,” Mr. Jackson said. Jezebel, once part of the Gawker universe of websites, brought a brash new kind of internet writing to feminist issues when it was introduced in 2007, paving the way for a generation of like-minded outlets. In 2019, the private equity firm Great Hill Partners bought Jezebel as part of what is now called G/O Media, a portfolio of digital news outlets that includes Gizmodo, Deadspin and The Root.

Persons: Josh Jackson, Mr, Jackson, O, Jim Spanfeller, ” Organizations: Paste Magazine, Gawker, Great Hill Partners

NEW YORK (AP) — Jezebel, the sharp-edged feminist website founded at the height of blogosphere era, is shutting down after 16 years, its parent company announced Thursday. G/O Media said 23 staffers would be laid off, including Jezebel's team, as part of a restructuring to cope with economic headwinds and a difficult digital advertising environment. The New York-based company also announced the departure of G/O Media editorial director Merrill Brown. In a memo to the company, G/0 Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said he made the “very, very difficult decision to suspend publication of Jezebel” after an unsuccessful search for a buyer for the website. In 2019, Jezebel became part of the G/0 Media portfolio, which also includes Gizmodo, Quartz, the Onion and the Root.

Persons: Merrill Brown, Jim Spanfeller, Jezebel ”, Spanfeller, Anna Holmes, Jezebel, Jim Spanfeller’s, Laura Bassett, ”, Lauren Tousignant Organizations: O Media, Gawker Media, WGA, Media Locations: New York

The company owns and operates several digital media outlets, including Gizmodo, Quartz and Deadspin. News of the site’s closure bookended a revolution of feminist writing on the internet that Jezebel helped kick off when it launched in 2007. A wave of sites, including DoubleX, from Slate, and Reductress, followed, many of them adopting Jezebel’s incisive focus on gender politics and racism. Anna Holmes, who founded Jezebel and left the publication in 2010, woke up to the announcement of the site shuttering on Thursday and said she was still processing the news. Ms. Holmes, 50, said that she was hired by Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, to launch the publication in 2007.

Persons: Spanfeller, “, Jezebel, Anna Holmes, ”, Holmes, Nick Denton Organizations: O Media, Slate, Gawker Media

While Woody Allen's film may be a reference point to “American Fiction,” direct comparisons are harder to come by for such a breezy but biting commentary. Directing a film, Jefferson says, wasn't necessarily a lifelong ambition. That “American Fiction” is hard to categorize, he says, might mean he's on the right track. “This being my first movie, I’m eager to find what my voice is,” Jefferson says. ___Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Persons: Percival Everett's, Cord Jefferson, Jeffrey Wright, “ Monk ” Ellison, Cord Jefferson —, ”, ” —, Jefferson, Monk, Wright, John Ortiz, Aeschylus ’ “, —, ” Monk, Stagg R, Leigh, ” Jefferson, Black, Jack City, Annie Hall, Woody, Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K, Brown, Erika Alexander, Issa Rae, “ There’s, Larry Wilmore ”, Damon Lindelof, hadn't, “, Jake Coyle Organizations: TORONTO, Toronto, Gawker, MGM, Twitter Locations: Jack, ”, Tucson , Arizona, Tulsa

☆ Court tosses defamation lawsuit against the Daily Beast over an article that destroyed Gawker 2.0
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A defamation lawsuit against The Daily Beast was dismissed by a New York appeals court. A New York appeals court this week dismissed a defamation lawsuit against The Daily Beast over an article that led to the implosion of Gawker's short-lived second iteration. The Daily Beast article in question, written by Maxwell Tani, detailed Bustle Digital Group's failed attempt to revive Gawker, a gossipy media site. According to The Daily Beast report, the site's only two writers quit in frustration with Griffith's comments about diversity in the workplace. The litigation bounced around in court for years before landing in front of a New York state appeals court.

☆ Opinion | Dooce and Other ‘Mommy Blogs’ Deserve Credit for Shaping the Internet
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Jessica Grose | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In the past few months, several internet giants have fallen. BuzzFeed News folded. Vice is headed for bankruptcy. And with the recent publication of Ben Smith’s “Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral,” there’s been a resurgence of chatter about Gawker Media, which went kaput in 2016. (I worked at Jezebel, which was under the Gawker Media umbrella, from 2007 to 2008.)

☆ Opinion | We’re Watching the End of a Digital Media Age. It All Started With Jezebel.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Ben Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Ten years ago, a group of digital media companies thought the future belonged to us. On television, still America’s dominant medium, social media also helped boost a new kind of confrontational, hyperpolitical style, but that seems to be fading, too. Media commentators from CNN to The Financial Times are using the same phrase for this moment: “The end of an era.”But when did this era in media begin? But to understand the period we all lived through, we need to give it a beginning and an end. And when I went back to find the origins of this media moment while researching a book on our recent history, the earliest, brightest sparks I saw came from a particular place.

☆ How ‘Going Viral’ Became a Thing
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Virginia Heffernan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Select a party anthem (“YMCA”), a quality in a dream partner (“ravenous”) and presto: your spiritual home. Too many people got Wyoming — more than actually lived in Wyoming — and this turn of events was so exciting that people stomped over to Facebook to protest. Then, according to Ben Smith in his engrossing and suspenseful book, “Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral,” the team at BuzzFeed noticed something that changed media forev —Well, not forever. This is Ben Smith, after all. Co-founder of Semafor, former New York Times media columnist, onetime editor in chief of BuzzFeed News.

☆ 2023 layoff tracker: The latest on which companies have announced job cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +20 min

New York CNN —BuzzFeed, Lyft, Whole Foods and Deloitte all recently announced layoffs affecting thousands of US workers. With 11,000 job cuts announced in November and the 10,000 announced in March, Meta’s headcount will fall to around 66,000 — a total reduction of about 25%. The company announced in January that it was eliminating some 18,000 positions as part of a major cost-cutting bid at the e-commerce giant. IndeedJob listing website Indeed.com announced cuts of approximately 2,200 employees, representing almost 15% of its total workforce, the company said in March. The cuts come after the company announced several rounds of job cuts throughout the pandemic due to falling demand, followed by rapid hiring last year.

☆ BDG shuts down Gawker and lays off 8% of staff, CEO announces
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: 1 min

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Newsletter publisher and digital media company TheSkimm laid off nearly 10% of staffers in January. Bustle Digital Group, The Washington Post, and Buzzfeed are among other media companies that cut workers in recent months. TheSkimm, the popular newsletter publisher and digital media company, laid off nearly 10% of its workforce — or about 17 staffers — in mid-January, according to a source familiar with the matter. TheSkimm is far from the only media company that has enacted wide-ranging personnel cuts in recent months. Entertainment media companies have also been heavily impacted, with AMC, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, Roku, and Spotify paring back headcount.

☆ Fact Check-Bill Gates did not claim he visited Epstein’s Caribbean island
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Allegations that Bill Gates visited late American financier Jeffrey Epstein’s Caribbean island, Little Saint James, have been debunked in the past. Reuters reporting about litigation regarding Epstein's island is viewable (here )When asked about Gates having visited the island or admitting he did so, a spokesperson for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation told Reuters that neither claim is true. Reuters found no evidence of Gates claiming, “he doesn’t know why he visited” Little Saint James. Reuters found no public record of Bill Gates saying he “doesn’t know why” he visited Epstein’s island multiple times. A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation said he made no such claim and that he did not visit Epstein’s island.

☆ Did Putin really poop himself? How an influential Telegram account is spreading wild, unproven claims about the Kremlin's inner workings
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The Russian Telegram account General SVR is a source of many juicy tabloid stories about Putin. Experts on Russian media strongly doubt the account, and say it does more harm than good. They attributed them to a single, anonymous source: the mysterious Telegram account known as General SVR. Among those used to more rigorous documenting of Russia's secrets, General SVR prompts open derision. Soon after his questioning, the General SVR channel made a post denying any connection to Solovey.

☆ I'm the guy behind 'Pizza Rat.' The 7-year-old viral video still makes me money, got me my current job, and may even pay for my future home.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Andrew Ward | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Matt Little is a creative director from New York whose "Pizza Rat" video went viral in 2015. He says going viral didn't change his financial situation completely, but it makes him money today. A clip of "Pizza Rat" on the move, from Little's 2015 YouTube video. If you've seen Pizza Rat on late-night TV, ads, or events, it's likely been legally signed off by a licensing firm and me. Jukin helps find requests I get for the Pizza Rat video and brand, handles unlicensed usage, and helps ensure essential negotiation specifics are in deals.

☆ House Republican who attended his gay son's wedding voted against the same-sex marriage protection bill for a 2nd time
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rep. Glenn Thompson voted against a same-sex marriage protection bill for the second time on Thursday. He first voted against it in July, days before attending and speaking at his gay son's wedding. "Everybody is entitled to an opinion," Thompson told Insider ahead of casting his vote. Thompson spoke at his son's wedding, according to audio leaked to BuzzFeed News. Despite Republican senators amending the bill to add religious liberty protections, many conservative House members said they were unsatisfied with the result.

☆ Fact Check-Food products do not contain human fetal cells
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

There is no evidence that food products contain cells from aborted human fetuses as flavor enhancers, contrary to a social media claim that revives a related, previously-debunked charge about cells used in biomedical research. Research by Senomyx into the use of ‘HEK-293’ aborted human fetal cells as a flavor enhancer was published in Pubmed in 2002, after which several patents were filed by them. Reuters previously factchecked false claims that PepsiCo drinks contained aborted fetal cells. AN OLD CELL LINEThe controversial cell line is derived from fetal cells dating to the 1970s. There is no evidence that any food or beverage products contain cells from human fetuses or derived from fetuses.

☆ Ex-'socialite heiressblogger' Emily Brill is back — and she's terrorizing the pet industry
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Kate Taylor | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Emily Brill might be the most hated woman in the pet industry. Now, Brill — the preppy blond daughter of the media magnate Steven Brill — is reinventing herself as the founder of the dog-centric publication The Canine Review. Courtesy of Emily Brill Show less One reader even threatened to cancel their subscription because of the so-called bird-massacre photo shoot. Courtesy of Emily Brill Show less Brill says the photos reassure readers that "I'm not a stereotypical sort of Manhattan, head-up-my-ass, agenda, PETA person." It isn't a bad start, but "she's got a long way to go to make it really thrive," Steven Brill told Insider.

☆ How Recurrent Ventures went from media darling to another publisher hit by layoffs and struggles
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Steven Perlberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Recurrent Ventures made a digital-media splash with acquisitions like The Drive and Popular Science. In May of last year, Recurrent Ventures announced its flashiest deal yet: a $300 million fundraising round led by the private-equity giant Blackstone. To make a more appealing parent brand to house a growing fleet of media properties, they eventually created a new entity called Recurrent Ventures. Recurrent Ventures expanded as it acquired well-known publishers like the 150-year-old Popular Science. Recurrent Ventures shut down MEL Magazine, the men's lifestyle publication it once planned to make the centerpiece of a new lifestyle vertical of sites.

☆ Jesse Watters' rise at Fox, from Bill O'Reilly's ambush man to Tucker Carlson wannabe
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Noah Hurowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +23 min

At the time, Watters was best known for pulling off elaborately planned ambush interviews on "The O'Reilly Factor," then Fox News' top-rated show. When Grim picked his phone up and trained it again on Watters, the smile was gone from Watters' face. Watters on the set of his show "Jesse Watters Primetime." In early 2022, "Jesse Watters Primetime" debuted, airing right before "Hannity." Watters, whose entire career has been at Fox News, might be a safer bet, according to Muto, the former O'Reilly producer.

Persons: Jesse Watters, MSNBC's swank, Watters, O'Reilly, Ryan Grim, Amanda Terkel, Terkel, he'd, Grim, Drudge, Roger Ailes, Tucker Carlson's, Erik Wemple, Tucker Carlson, Carlson's, Carlson, who's, Donald Trump's, Don Jr, Eric, Julio Cortez, David Hockney, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Limbaugh, Mueller, Jon Stewart, Tucker, it's, Wemple, Andrew Lawrence, Lawrence, " Watters, Joe Muto, Jesse, Muto, Clowning, irked O'Reilly, stoke —, Obama, Lefties, Al Qaeda's, Breitbart, Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Bill O'Reilly, Spencer Platt, O'Reilly's, cohosts, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Greg Gutfeld, Juan Williams, Ivanka Trump, Emma DiGiovine, DiGiovine, John Lamparski, Hannity, Sean Hannity, Biden, doesn't, You've, we'll, Newt Gingrich, Watters nodded, Neil Cavuto, Chris Wallace, Mike Pence, Tom Brenner, Wallace, gunning, There's, Bill, Jack Newsham, Katherine Long Organizations: Fox News, DC, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Fox, MSNBC, The Washington Post, Better Homes, Gardens, America, East Coast, Quaker, Trinity, Trump National Golf Club, Republican, CNN, Media, Gawker, Ivy League, Fox Nation, stoke, CIA, Corp's, The New York Times, Democrat, Dominion Voting Systems, Daily, Trump, Reuters, OG Locations: O'Reilly's crosshairs, Washington ,, Virginia, Watters, Terkel's, East, St, Middletown , Rhode Island, Philadelphia, Long, Hartford , Connecticut, Bedminster , NJ, San Diego, An Alabama, Chinatown, Telluride, New York's Chinatown, York, New York, Los Angeles

William Barr said in his confirmation hearings to become Trump's attorney general, that he might recuse himself on overseeing matters related to Epstein. A photo from 2000 shows Trump, Melania Trump (then Melania Knauss), Epstein, and Maxwell at the resort together. The photo at the top of the page is of the two together in Palm Beach in 1997. The entry for Donald Trump as it appears in Jeffrey Epstein's "black book" that was published by Gawker in 2015. The complaint, brought against Trump and Epstein, alleged that the victim attended multiple parties at Epstein's residence in the summer of 1994, that Trump also attended.

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