Swiftly coming apart

The Muck Rack Weekly newsletter includes some of the most talked about stories in the journalism and public relations communities over the past week, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial opinion of Muck Rack.

Media statistic of the week

“The Feb. 11 Super Bowl game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers brought in an average of 123.4 million viewers — the highest number of people watching the same broadcast in the history of television,” as Selome Hailu reports at Variety.

Of the total, 112 million were tuned into the CBS broadcast, which was the largest audience ever for a single network. “The rest were measured across Paramount+, Nickelodeon, Univision, CBS Sports and NFL digital properties including NFL+. Per Paramount Global, Paramount+ saw record-breaking viewership that made Sunday the most-streamed Super Bowl ever,” Hailu writes.

The day after announcing those record-breaking ratings: Paramount Global lays off about 800 employees, roughly 3% of its workforce. Alex Sherman has more on that at CNBC.

This past week in the media industry?

It’s bad out there

“Hi. It's me. The Grim Reaper of the NFL Internet.” Mike Tanier links to his piece for Defector, with a headline that says a lot about this moment in media: Three Newsrooms Imploded Around Me In Under A Year.?

The three newsrooms he’s referring to were Football Outsiders, The Messenger and The New York Times sports section, but as Eric Van Allen says, this is an “extremely relatable blog for anyone in media these days,” and, specifically, “A depressing and accurate read,” notes Rob Tornoe. Bottom line, says Troy Farah, “yikes it's bad out there and getting worse.”

Speaking of the Messenger implosion, Brian Stelter spoke with 32 “ex-Messengers” for his AIR MAIL piece, Where "The Messenger" Went Wrong, and many seemed to have sensed what was coming. He says around half of them told him some version of “None of us thought this was going to work.”

“Great @brianstelter piece that explains how ‘the Fyre Festival of media’ came together — before swiftly coming apart,” Dan Diamond says.?

And here’s Erik Wemple in The Washington Post on The Messenger and bad media owners in general. “With his intrusive behavior, Finkelstein finds himself in good company in American media these days,” Wemple writes.

Incredibly sobering

For a special edition of The Fine Print Newsletter, Andrew Fedorov has compiled A Master List of This Year’s Media Massacre Victims. On X, they’ve shared, “We’ve lifted the paywall on this list and will be updating the web version as a service to the media community. Please let us know if we left anyone off: [email protected].”

“At @thefineprintnyc, we (mostly @andrewfed) put together this incredibly sobering list of the more than 500 journalists who have lost jobs since the start of 2024. It's a bleak time for the industry and all of them, all of us, deserve better,” says David Klion. In the meantime, “The damage being done to our society and democracy is incalculable,” adds Bill Grueskin.

And now, “A VERY sobering read about the future of media,” says Adrian Dater, who links to Clare Malone’s piece in The New Yorker, Is the Media Prepared for an Extinction-Level Event??

“I appreciated the bits of hope at the end of this piece, but yeesh, it's grim,” Nicholas Pasion warns.

“A thoughtful essay from @ClareMalone about the past, present and future of journalism,” says NCPR reporter Emily Russell. “It can feel, sometimes, that rural, public radio stations like @ncpr are uniquely resilient, but at other times it can feel just as perilous.”?

Meanwhile, Sam Dean says it’s a “Good read on the apocalyptic media vibes, but the idea that ‘NYT is a cooking/games app with news on the side’ is wrong. Look at the latest NYT revenue numbers: Subs w/news made ~$80 million per month Subs for games/cooking/etc only made $9.5 million.”

At any rate, as Devon Haynie says, “Maybe give the journos in your life a little extra chocolate this Valentine's Day. ??Great read via @thenewyorker.”

The plight of small news nonprofits

In a two-part series for Nieman Lab, Sophie Culpepper reports on “Haves and have-nots’ in nonprofit news.” Part one explores how The Alliance of Nonprofit News Outlets, which launched in August 2023, is helping small news nonprofits reach large funders: Many small news nonprofits feel overlooked by funders. A new coalition is giving them a voice.?

“Oh, my God, just give me the money,” Nieman Lab’s Sarah Scire highlights, noting, “@s_peppered spent months talking to journalism orgs, funders, and small, mostly local newsrooms for this two-part story. it's got everything — resentment, crunched numbers, local stories, and legitimate debate.”

Part two looks at how Patterns in philanthropy leave small newsrooms behind. Can that change? Scire explains that this part “puts the concerns of small nonprofit newsrooms into the broader context of patterns in philanthropy and what thoughtful people at journalism orgs like INN, LION, etc. are seeing.”

A case of the Mondays

With Jon Stewart back at “The Daily Show” desk starting this week, David Bauder of The Associated Press takes a look at the state of play: Jon Stewart changed late-night comedy once. Can he have a second act in different times?

Stewart appeared on “CBS Mornings” ahead of his return talking about why he’s going back to “The Daily Show” anchor desk. The Hollywood Reporter’s Hilary Lewis recapped his interview, noting that Stewart said the decision was prompted by a desire to have a “place to unload thoughts” ahead of the 2024 election.

Bauder notes that “Comebacks are hard enough in an industry that doesn’t always reward second acts,” and Stewart is coming back to a vastly different media environment. But in an analysis for CNN, Brian Lowry makes the argument for Why Jon Stewart’s return to ‘The Daily Show’ makes sense all around.?

“Jon Stewart's ‘The Daily Show’ return sparked mixed reactions, with some characterizing it as ‘regressive,’” Lowry notes. “Here's why the move makes sense for both the comic and Comedy Central, beginning with his proven knack for finding/nurturing talent.”

Stewart isn’t the only one hitting the airwaves on Mondays, and Variety’s Brian Steinberg wonders, “Can Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow and Jen Psaki solve a case of the Mondays? All three are hosting bespoke Monday programs that shake up TV's news/talk formula. It's not clear the concept is scalable in the longer term…” Check out Steinberg’s story, Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow Test Monday Media Model to Boost Talk TV.

More notable media stories

• At least one legacy digital media outlet is bucking the trend: 2023 was the most profitable year in Slate’s 27-year history. Per Semafor’s Max Tani, “Slate’s revenue grew 28% year-over-year through a series of investments and growth in its core businesses, which revolve around its podcasts and website.”
• “Meta announced on Friday it would stop proactively recommending political content on Instagram or its upstart text-based app Threads, alarming news and politics-focused creators and journalists gearing up for a crucial election year.” The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz and Naomi Nix have more in their story, Meta turns its back on politics again, angering some news creators.
• Bloomberg Businessweek has published an excerpt from Kurt Wagner’s upcoming book, “Battle for the Bird,” focused on How Jack Dorsey’s Plan to Get Elon Musk to Save Twitter Went South. Wagner says, “This story is about two people - Twitter’s old boss Jack Dorsey & its new boss Elon Musk - and a handoff that was fumbled from the get-go.”
• David Gilbert of WIRED Magazine reports on how an all-encompassing Russian disinformation campaign is sowing division in the United States: Russia Is Boosting Calls for 'Civil War' Over Texas Border Crisis.
• For the Financial Times’ “The Big Read,” Daniel Thomas takes a look at How AI is transforming the business of advertising.
• Ashley Fetters Maloy of The Washington Post spoke in a roundtable conversation with five of the millennial women leading a new era of fashion journalism: editors Sarah Ball of WSJ. Magazine, Willa Bennett of Highsnobiety, Sally Holmes of InStyle, Nikki Ogunnaike of Marie Claire and Lindsay Peoples of The Cut.
• Ben Mullin of The New York Times reported on Friday that Noah Shachtman, Rolling Stone’s editor in chief since 2021, is stepping down because of editorial differences with chief executive Gus Wenner. He won’t be gone from the pages completely, though. Shachtman shared, “I’ll be a contributing writer for Rolling Stone. I’ll also be writing for other outlets while I work on a start-up. More on that to come.”

From the Muck Rack Team

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