Now this is a story…

Media statistic of the week

Nearly 20,000 jobs have been eliminated across the media industry this year as of October, according to The Challenger Report.?

That's more than six times the number of job cuts compared to 2022 so far this year, report Axios’ Kerry Flynn and Sara Fischer who share what it all means and where cuts have been made this year.?

Here’s a snippet from their reporting: In the past month alone, Vice Media Group laid off just under 100 employees, Condé Nast laid off 5% of its staff and The Washington Post announced a plan to offer voluntary buyouts.?

This past week in the media industry

The actor’s strike is officially over

The SAG-AFTRA strike is officially over, report Gene Maddaus and Cynthia Littleton for Variety.

“The SAG-AFTRA national board approved its new contract with the major studios with an 86% approval vote, sending it to membership for ratification,” the duo write.

Maddaus and Littleton explain: the ratification process will get underway next week, and will include member meetings to go over the terms of the deal. The ratification vote will conclude on Dec. 5.

While the strike ended last Wednesday, not everyone is happy with the terms.

“Two members of the SAG-AFTRA board said they voted against the new contract because it does not do enough to protect actors against artificial intelligence,” reports Variety’s Gene Maddaus.

Here’s what board member Anne-Marie Johnson had to say: “There should be no AI. Only human beings should be used in what we create for public consumption. Without staving off AI, everything we achieved is for naught. It’s a waste of time.”

The end of the strike signals the return of new content, and CBS is the first network to announce when that will happen.

The New York Times’ John Koblin reports that CBS says new episodes of scripted series will return in mid-February.?

“The network will use its broadcast of the Super Bowl on Feb. 11 to launch its new lineup, with a new series, ‘Tracker,’ starring the ‘This Is Us’ actor Justin Hartley, immediately following the conclusion of the game’s trophy celebration,” Koblin writes.

So how exactly will Hollywood get productions back up and running now that the strike is over?

It won’t be easy, and it won’t be cheap, explains The New York Times’ Nicole Sperling.

Sperling outlines what the return to work will look like, and the challenges the industry faces.

The British are coming!

“In the past 12 months, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and most recently, the Washington Post, have all appointed British bosses,” reports Adam Gabbatt for The Guardian.

Meanwhile, Gabbatt writes that The Times is growing their U.S. office and BBC is hiring more journalists to cover the U.S. market.?

“If the latter efforts are about British organizations seeking the readers – and the money – available in a country that has five times the population of the UK, the apparent trend for American news companies to hire Britons seems to suggest an enduring admiration in the US for UK news sensibilities,” says Gabbatt.?

“Interesting take. Brits do scrappy, scrum journalism. Yanks on loan from God? British are coming! US media sees influx of Britons in top roles,” tweets David Phinney.

Israel-Hamas updates

“As of Nov. 15, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) preliminary investigations showed at least 42 journalists and media workers were among the more than 12,000 killed since the war began on Oct. 7—with over 11,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank and 1,200 deaths in Israel,” writes the CPJ.

Here’s more from the organization, including updated figures on the number of journalists and media workers confirmed dead, reported injured, missing and arrested.?

Other important headlines:

• Israel signaled on Monday it would hold off on a threatened closure of the local bureau of Al Jazeera, reports Dan Williams for Reuters.
• Palestinian journalists working in Israel say they have faced increased intimidation and harassment since Hamas’ attacks, NBC News’ Mo Abbas reports.
• Antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate speech surges across the internet, reports the New York Times’ Sheera Frenkel and Steven Lee Myers.

A few more

• “Now this is a story…” tweets Josh Dawsey about the New York Times’ piece detailing the internal turmoil at CNN. The piece written by James B. Stewart and Benjamin Mullin detail the “series of shattered friendships” between David Zaslav, chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery and many of CNN’s biggest names.
• Former president of Gannett Media, Maribel Perez Wadsworth, will become the president and CEO of The Knight Foundation in January, according to Nieman Lab’s Sarah Scire. She’ll be the first woman to hold the position.?
• The Wall Street Journal’s Salvador Rodriguez reports on a major change quietly made by Meta in 2022 that will impact the 2024 election season: “Meta Platforms will let political ads on Facebook and Instagram question the legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.”
• Here’s why the internet is turning into one big ad and “deinfluencing” is on the way out, according to Rebecca Jennings for Vox.

• Get to know Marques Brownlee, one of YouTube’s most prominent tech reviewers in this Fast Company profile by Harry McCracken. “His polished, quietly authoritative product evaluations carry a surprising degree of gravitas—a rare commodity on YouTube,” writes McCracken.?
• Black-owned publishers say they still suffer from discriminatory keyword blocklists and miscategorized content, reports Digiday’s Sara Guaglione. “The execs told Digiday anywhere from 15% to 37% of their traffic can get blocked at times, which can lead to underperforming campaigns,” writes Guaglione.
• USA Today has hired journalist Caché McClay as the first full-time Beyoncé reporter, reports Larisha Paul for Rolling Stone. The publication also recently hired Bryan West as a full-time Taylor Swift reporter.??
• “I wrote about the closing of Jezebel, and the institutional unraveling of American feminism,” tweets Moira Donegan about her opinion piece for The Guardian.?
• What does Tumblr’s future hold? “WordPress.com owner Matt Mullenweg confirmed his company would be shifting the majority of Tumblr’s workforce to other areas at parent company Automattic in light of the social blogging site’s continued financial woes,” reports Sarah Perez for TechCrunch.?

From the Muck Rack team

Muck Rack is thrilled to announce its partnership with the social media analytics tool Keyhole, which allows customers to integrate Keyhole’s social listening capabilities into their subscriptions.?

This feature will monitor direct and indirect brand mentions, hashtags, influencers, and keywords across various platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, blogs and forums, including Reddit.

Learn more about the partnership between Muck Rack and Keyhole.