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      Right-Wing Media Praises U.S.-Russia Talks as ‘Breath of Fresh Air’

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      Many of President Trump’s media allies were quick to celebrate this week’s negotiations, a contrast to the deep unease expressed by the foreign policy establishment.News that the Trump administration had agreed with Russia to try to negotiate a peace settlement for Ukraine, without including Ukraine in the talks, was a revelation that many believed reversed years of efforts to isolate Moscow.But prominent voices in the right-wing media world interpreted the development this week as cause for celebration.“Every day has kind of felt like Christmas morning, hasn’t it?” Kari Lake, the former TV news anchor who is poised to run Voice of America, said during a podcast interview on Tuesday. “President Trump wants peace for every nation.”Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA and podcast host who has more than 4.6 million followers on the social media platform X, praised the discussions as “a breath of fresh air.”And Jack Posobiec, a die-hard Trump loyalist perhaps best known for spreading the infamous “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, invoked the title of Mr. Trump’s 1987 best-selling book. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said on his podcast, “it’s the art of the peace deal.”Secretary of State Marco Rubio, seated second from left on Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was once a champion of Ukraine.Pool photo by Evelyn HocksteinWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Fox Acquires Firm Behind Conservative and True Crime Podcasts

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      Tucker Carlson, Nancy Grace, Megyn Kelly and Piers Morgan are among the clients of Red Seat Ventures, which now joins Rupert Murdoch’s empire.The Fox Corporation said on Monday that it had acquired Red Seat Ventures, a growing digital media company that has become a go-to partner for old-media stars like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan as they create their own independent online programming.Red Seat and its founding partners, the brothers Chris and Kevin Balfe, will continue to operate independently within Fox’s Tubi Media Group, an arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire focused on digital and streaming ventures. A purchase price was not disclosed.The acquisition moves the Fox Corporation into the heart of the online “creator economy,” where media personalities who once relied on old-school corporate distributors — like, say, the cable networks owned by Fox — have struck out on their own to build podcasts and streaming shows that rack up millions of subscribers on platforms like YouTube and SiriusXM.Red Seat’s lengthy client list includes Dr. Phil, Nancy Grace, Bill O’Reilly, the former “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen and the “President’s Daily Brief” podcast. Last month, The New York Post, which is also owned by Mr. Murdoch, retained Red Seat to develop a new daily podcast and audio division for the newspaper.The deal means that Mr. Carlson and Mr. O’Reilly — former Fox News stars who both lost their shows — will once again be tied to the Murdoch universe, albeit at a remove. (The same goes for Ms. Kelly, who rose to fame on Fox News before leaving for NBC in 2017.) Because Red Seat is only a service provider, none of the three will be paid by Fox or report to its executives. In addition, Tubi Media and Fox News are housed in separate divisions of the Fox Corporation.Red Seat, founded a decade ago, has about 80 full-time employees and is based out of a loft space in the NoMad district of Manhattan, a neighborhood popular with tech start-ups. Among its most popular podcasts are those of Mr. Carlson and Ms. Kelly, which routinely rank near the top of Apple’s podcast charts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump and Musk Attack Journalists by Name in Social Media Posts

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      Since his inauguration, the president has been quick to demonize what he calls “the fake news media.” On Friday, both men demanded that individuals be fired.President Trump has made clear his animus toward mainstream media organizations. Now he’s getting more personal.Mr. Trump and his key lieutenant, Elon Musk, who has been empowered to run what they call the Department of Government Efficiency as a “special government employee,” have attacked journalists by name in recent days on the social media platforms they own: Truth Social and X.On his Truth Social account on Friday, Mr. Trump called for The Washington Post to fire Eugene Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, and labeled him “incompetent.” Mr. Trump frequently posts on the account to his millions of followers and regularly condemns perceived enemies.Mr. Robinson had written in an opinion column on Thursday that top Republican senators “should be ashamed of themselves” for not standing up to Mr. Trump during the confirmation process for some of his cabinet picks and for not protesting Mr. Musk’s taking an ax to government departments like the United States Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid programs. Mr. Robinson also appeared on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC on Friday to discuss his column.“So sad to see him trying to justify the waste, fraud, and corruption at USAID with his pathetic Radical Left SPIN,” Mr. Trump wrote. “He should be fired immediately!!!”In an email, a spokeswoman for The Post said: “Eugene Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist with a 45-year record of integrity, professionalism and scrupulous reporting and commentary. The Washington Post stands behind Gene — just as it stands behind all journalists and news organizations dedicated to independent coverage and a free press.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ABC to Pay $15 Million to Settle a Defamation Suit Brought by Trump

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      The outcome of the lawsuit marks an unusual victory for President-elect Donald J. Trump in his ongoing legal campaign against national news organizations.ABC News is set to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald J. Trump.The agreement was a significant concession by a major news organization and a rare victory for a media-bashing politician whose previous litigation efforts against news outlets have often ended in defeat.Under the terms of a settlement revealed on Saturday, ABC News will donate the $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. The network and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, also published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March.ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million for his legal fees.The outcome is an unusual win for Mr. Trump, who has frequently sued news organizations for defamation and frequently lost, including in litigation against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.Several experts in media law said they believed that ABC News could have continued to fight, given the high threshold required by the courts for a public figure like Mr. Trump to prove defamation. A plaintiff must not only show that a news outlet published false information, but that it did so knowing that the information was false or with substantial doubts about its accuracy.“Major news organizations have often been very leery of settlements in defamation suits brought by public officials and public figures, both because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Murdoch Feud Explained, With Thanks to ‘Succession’

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      Shannon Lin/The New York TimesIn the final season of “Succession,” the HBO drama about a fictional media clan, the show’s grisly patriarch, Logan Roy, dishes out some characteristically choice words to his privileged children: “I love you, but you are not serious people.”The real-life media billionaire Rupert Murdoch appeared to share similar sentiments, a recent ruling revealed, as he tried to wrestle power from three of his offspring: “I love each of my children,” he said, reading from a statement during a trust meeting. “But these companies need a designated leader and Lachlan is that leader.” Lachlan Murdoch, one assumes, in his father’s mind, is the most serious.Art imitating life or life imitating art — it gets confusing when it comes to the nonfiction drama being played out by the Murdochs. In last weekend’s ruling on Mr. Murdoch’s failed attempt to change his family trust, one representative was roundly criticized for knowing so little about the Murdochs that he watched “Succession” to brush up. A separate rep, it emerged, took inspiration from the show to draw up a “‘Succession’ memo” on how to navigate the family empire when the now 93-year-old patriarch dies.Avid “Succession” viewers know how well that turned out for the Roy family. After Logan’s death on a private jet, his wishes were impossible to interpret. (Was that name underlined or crossed out?) In the ensuing power vacuum, his children failed miserably, unable to form any meaningful alliances, and ultimately lost control of the family empire.So what does the future hold for the Murdochs?Mr. Murdoch was disappointed that his “objector” children, as they were described in the court proceedings, pushed back when he attempted to change his family trust to cement his eldest son, Lachlan, in control, with the aim of bulletproofing the conservative bent of his media empire. The senior Murdoch seemed to feel that his children should simply respect his wishes for what happens to his empire, and his wealth, when he dies. That included giving up their equal control in the family trust.The Murdoch heirs are already beyond wealthy, to the tune of $2 billion each, from the sale of the family’s 21st Century Fox assets to Disney. That’s to say nothing of previous multimillion-dollar payments they have received.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gerd Heidemann, Journalist Duped by Fake Hitler Diaries, Dies at 93

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      What was supposed to be the crowning scoop of his career became his downfall when a trove of notebooks he acquired in Germany turned out to be forgeries.Gerd Heidemann, a globe-trotting, high-flying German journalist who thought he had landed the scoop of the century — the private diaries of Adolf Hitler — but who came crashing back to earth after they were exposed as crude forgeries, died on Monday at a hospital in Hamburg, Germany. He was 93.Thomas Weber, a history professor at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland who was in close contact with Mr. Heidemann, confirmed the death.Mr. Heidemann was one of the highest-paid correspondents in Germany when, at a news conference in 1983, he revealed what he said were 62 notebooks in which Hitler had written his innermost thoughts. He told reporters he had bought them from a dissident East German general who had found them in a barn near Leipzig.The notebooks, Mr. Heidemann said at the time, offered groundbreaking insights into the Nazi leader’s thinking. Among other things, they seemed to indicate that Hitler was largely unaware of the Holocaust — and also that he had bad breath, chronic flatulence and a rocky relationship with his mistress, Eva Braun.An accompanying editorial in Stern, the magazine where Mr. Heidemann worked, declared that thanks to Mr. Heidemann, “the biography of the dictator and with it the history of the Nazi regime will be largely rewritten.”But his story began to unravel almost immediately, revealing a long trail of deception, delusion and comic ineptitude.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Matea Gold Named Washington Editor of The New York Times

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      Ms. Gold, a managing editor at The Washington Post, is the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the paper.Matea Gold, a managing editor at The Washington Post who until recently was a contender for the newspaper’s top editing role, is joining The New York Times as a senior editor in its Washington bureau.Ms. Gold will be Washington editor for The Times, reporting to its newly appointed Washington bureau chief, Dick Stevenson, the company said on Monday. She starts in January.Since May 2023, Ms. Gold, 50, has been a managing editor overseeing The Post’s political, local and investigative coverage. She was previously the newspaper’s national editor, leading a staff of 150 journalists. Ms. Gold joined The Post more than a decade ago from The Los Angeles Times and has served in a variety of roles, covering politics as a reporter and shepherding ambitious political investigations.Under Ms. Gold’s supervision, The Post’s national staff contributed to Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Post’s national staff also won a Pulitzer for a feature article on the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutionally protected right to abortion.Her departure is the latest in a series of high-profile exits from The Post news and opinion departments in recent months.The newsroom has been in turmoil since Will Lewis, the company’s chief executive, abruptly forced out the paper’s top editor, Sally Buzbee, in June. Matt Murray, the former top editor of The Wall Street Journal, has led the newsroom on an interim basis since then. Several journalists from the opinion section stepped down from their positions after Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner, decided shortly before the U.S. presidential election that the paper would not endorse a candidate for president.The Post is searching for a permanent top editor for its news department. Ms. Gold had been considered a candidate for executive editor of The Post, according to two people familiar with the search process. Other candidates include Clifford Levy, a former deputy managing editor of The Times and now the deputy publisher of Wirecutter, The Times’s product recommendation site, and The Athletic, its sports site, the people said. Mr. Murray is also a candidate, the people said.One of the final hurdles is an interview with Mr. Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, who weighs in on hiring decisions for top positions.Ms. Gold joins The Times amid changes in the top ranks of its Washington bureau. The Times announced in November that Elisabeth Bumiller, who had led the bureau since 2015, would be stepping down from that role and returning to reporting. Mr. Stevenson, who has worked at The Times in various reporting and editing jobs for nearly 40 years, will be taking over for her in January. More

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      Guardian Confirms Sale of The Observer to Tortoise Media

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      The Guardian Media Group said it had struck a deal to sell The Observer to Tortoise Media, shortly after a 48-hour strike by journalists had ended.The Observer, a British Sunday newspaper that has been running for more than two centuries, will be sold to the digital media start-up Tortoise Media, the publication’s owner, the Guardian Media Group, said Friday, despite staff protests.The boards of the Guardian Media Group, which also publishes The Guardian, and the Scott Trust, the owner of the Guardian Media Group, have agreed “in principle” to the deal, which is expected to be signed in the next few days. The announcement came shortly after journalists at the two news outlets waged a 48-hour strike, calling the deal “rushed” and a risk to the journalism of both newspapers.The Guardian’s parent company, which bought The Observer in 1993, did not disclose the sale price. But it said the Scott Trust, a 1.3 billion-pound ($1.7 billion) fund, would invest in Tortoise Media and become one of its largest shareholders. The trust will also have representatives on the company and editorial boards of Tortoise Media, which said it had raised £25 million to invest in The Observer.“We knew we needed the right combination of resources and commitment to build a new platform for The Observer,” Ole Jacob Sunde, the chair of the Scott Trust, said in a statement. “It required an ally to be sufficiently funded, long-term in nature, and respect editorial independence and liberal values. I believe we have found this in Tortoise Media.”When the proposed sale came to light in September, it was a surprise to the papers’ journalists, who raised concerns about the ability of Tortoise Media, a six-year-old company that has not recorded a profit, to preserve the future of The Observer.Amid pressure from the staff to reconsider the deal, the Scott Trust pushed to have some say in the editorial direction of The Observer after the sale. Journalists at both newspapers walked off the job on Wednesday and Thursday, hoping to delay the deal. It was the first strike in the newsroom in more than 50 years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More