A friend of Gabby Petito says Brian Laundrie has wilderness survival skills that could help him if he hopes to evade law enforcement officials currently searching for him as they investigate the 22-year-old YouTuber’s disappearance and apparent murder. “He is out in the wilderness, I promise you,” Rose Davis told the celebrity tabloid People. “…If he’s alive, he’s out there, camping out … He lived in the Appalachians by himself for months.” Earlier this week, FBI officials said that Petito’s remains were found in a Wyoming National Park, and the agency has deemed her death a homicide. The saga has garnered […]
Maxwell Tani
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Staffers at the popular business publication Fortune planned to strike outside the magazine’s first in-person conference in years, ultimately forcing its postponement. Their plans allegedly had the support of a Biden Cabinet member. The Daily Beast has learned that on Tuesday afternoon, unionized Fortune staffers were set to announce that because of a lack of progress in contract negotiations with magazine management, they plan to picket the Fortune CEO Initiative conference set for Sept. 13-14 at the Park Hyatt in Washington, D.C. “The CEOI conference is all about moral leadership and progress and how business can be vehicles for the good,” […]
Several days before Breitbart News ran a story alleging a sexual affair between Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and a Chinese spy, the congressman’s top aide received an unusual email from a fellow Hill staffer. It was Buckley Carlson, a communications director for up-and-coming Republican Rep. Jim Banks and son of Tucker Carlson, arguably the most powerful person in right-wing media and one of Swalwell’s biggest antagonists. According to Swalwell communications director Jessica Gail, Buckley was reeling from the fact that the congressman had just days earlier referenced him in a tweet bashing his Fox News host father. As a consequence, Gail […]
Vice wants to know what its employees think of Saudi Arabia’s image. In a message posted Wednesday to one of Vice’s internal Slack channels, Frederik Lauridsen—whose LinkedIn lists him as Director of Operations for Vice Media Group in Asia, the Middle East and Africa—wrote that he hoped staff at the youth-focused news organization would help in “gathering some information on associations and perceptions people around the world have about Saudi Arabia.” “Please help us out and take our survey,” he said, punctuating the message with a heart emoji. The survey, titled “Image of Saudi Arabia,” queried how staffers view the kingdom, […]
Top climate scientists aren’t so hot about the idea of the parent company of Fox News launching a new weather channel. After all, Fox News’ most popular hosts keep referring to climate change as a “con” and a “fiction.” “I am extremely skeptical about Fox’s ability to present the climate change issue in the context of weather in a balanced way,” Michael G. Oppenheimer, the director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and Environment at Princeton University, told The Daily Beast. Source link
Just one day after staff at the network announced plans to form a union, MSNBC higher-ups are already pushing back against the organizing efforts. On Thursday, employees at the left-leaning cable news network went public with a plan to form a union with the Writers Guild of America East that would include over 300 of the network’s producers, fact-checkers, writers, and talent bookers. As The New York Times pointed out, some high-profile network stars, including hosts Chris Hayes and Joy Reid, immediately expressed support for the union. But the unionization effort was met somewhat less favorably by some of the network’s […]
The Department of Justice is backing down from a battle with Google and The New York Times over leaks, and will no longer attempt to seize phone and email records of journalists reporting on the department. In a statement on Saturday, a DOJ spokesperson announced that the nation’s top law enforcement agency would reverse its policy of aggressively pursuing some journalists’ phone and email history in order to uncover their sources. “Consistent with the President’s direction, this Department of Justice—in a change to its longstanding practice—will not seek compulsory legal process in leak investigations to obtain source information from members of […]
Well-known Republican pollster Frank Luntz’s work is causing headaches for the Los Angeles Times’ newsroom. Recent revelations that he conducted undisclosed, behind-the-scenes partisan consulting while also doing unpaid work for the paper came as little surprise to staffers, who have previously raised concerns about conflicts-of-interest in his work. Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that Luntz, a veteran political strategist who has worked in Republican politics for decades and conducted focus groups on behalf of television networks and other media organizations, had been paid by a political action committee controlled by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to conduct surveys last […]
CNN boss Jeff Zucker on Tuesday addressed network staffers’ concerns over the revelations that primetime star host Chris Cuomo advised his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on how to respond to the multiple sexual-harassment allegations against him. During a Tuesday afternoon town-hall meeting with staff, Zucker claimed he understood the “unease” over Cuomo’s conduct, saying “in no uncertain terms” that it was a “mistake” for the primetime star to participate in strategy calls advising his politically powerful brother. “He did cross a line,” Zucker said. Last week, The Washington Post reported that Cuomo joined strategy calls helping plan his powerful […]
Belittling women. Unfairly targeting nonwhite staffers. Blurring the lines between journalism and advocacy. Those are just a few of the many accusations that have been percolating at nonprofit newsroom The Appeal, where internal infighting and employee discontent has been simmering under the surface for years—before it all burst into public on Monday. The publication’s editorial staff announced on Monday morning that they were forming an editorial union, partially as a response to what they said was “demeaning” treatment by managers and high turnover, particularly among nonwhite staff. “The entire workforce is often subjected to new policies, priorities, and performance metrics we […]
The CEO of Washingtonian on Friday morning apologized to the magazine’s staffers for a Washington Post op-ed in which she appeared to threaten her employees’ job status should they not return full-time to the office upon reopening. In a Thursday afternoon Post op-ed, originally headlined “As a CEO, I want my employees to understand the risks of not returning to work in the office,” Washingtonian CEO Cathy Merrill argued that in-person workers are likely to be treated more favorably than those who chose to continue to work remotely. “If the employee is rarely around… management has a strong incentive to change […]
Although Andrew Cuomo is finally opening up events to the media again, he’s making it exceedingly difficult for reporters to make it in time. Some gubernatorial reporters even proposed a boycott in response to such “mind games.” Last week, the New York governor announced that he would begin to allow reporters to attend events and ask questions, breaking a four-month-long absence during which Cuomo’s office held virtual events due to what it said were safety measures intended to slow the spread of COVID-19. Cuomo fulfilled his promise, holding a press availability in Syracuse on Monday. But there was a catch: the […]
The New York Post reporter whose byline was attached to a false story that kicked off a days-long right-wing media outrage cycle has quit. “Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post,” reporter Laura Italiano posted to Twitter on Tuesday afternoon. “The Kamala Harris story—an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against—was my breaking point. It’s been a privilege to cover the City of New York for its liveliest, wittiest tabloid—a paper filled with reporters and editors I admire deeply and hold as friends. I’m […]
More than a hundred employees across three Condé Nast publications are prepared to go on strike—if necessary—over disputes with the company over issues including pay, company culture, and overtime compensation. Employee members of staff unions at The New Yorker, music and arts site Pitchfork, and technology and culture outlet Ars Technica voted this week overwhelmingly in favor of moving ahead with a strike if Condé continues to rebuff demands about key issues, primarily around proposed wage increases. Staffers at the three publications also announced on Friday that they will hold a rally Saturday at the company’s offices at One World Trade […]
HuffPost is set to announce its new editor in chief, ending a months-long search that has left the top job at the liberal online publication empty for a year. Sources with knowledge confirmed to The Daily Beast that the site is tapping Danielle Belton, the current editor-in-chief at The Root—G/O Media’s Black-focused news and culture outlet—for the top job. A spokesperson for HuffPost and its new owner BuzzFeed declined to comment, but an internal memo obtained by The Daily Beast confirmed Belton’s appointment. “I wanted to share some exciting news with you. To be totally transparent – we were going to […]
Staffers at Teen Vogue on Monday publicly blasted their newly hired editor in chief Alexi McCammond, particularly taking aim at parent company Condé Nast’s hiring process along with some of the new editor’s past tweets that deployed harmful Asian stereotypes. In a statement shared on Twitter, the digital publication’s staff voiced concern over the hiring of McCammond, a former Axios political reporter who last month was at the center of the Biden administration’s first media-related scandal. “As more than 20 members of the staff of Teen Vogue, we’ve built our outlet’s reputation as a voice for justice and change—we take immense […]
America’s most prominent newspaper has acknowledged its newsroom is a “difficult environment” for employees of color, many of whom face more challenges in the workplace than their white peers. On Wednesday, The New York Times released the results of an internal review of its newsroom diversity, the product of months worth of staff interviews. In the lengthy report, the paper’s top leaders relayed how many nonwhite staff described “unsettling and sometimes painful day-to-day workplace experiences.” “We have arrived at a stark conclusion: The Times is a difficult environment for many of our colleagues, from a wide range of backgrounds. Our current […]
If you’re a reporter with a tough question for the White House press secretary, Joe Biden’s staff wouldn’t mind knowing about it in advance. According to three sources with knowledge of the matter, as well as written communications reviewed by The Daily Beast, the new president’s communications staff have already on occasion probed reporters to see what questions they plan on asking new White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki when called upon during briefings. The requests prompted concerns among the White House press corps, whose members, like many reporters, are sensitive to the perception that they are coordinating with political communications […]
A right-wing video blogger who once filmed a music video dedicated to law enforcement was arrested on Saturday by the FBI after he livestreamed himself lounging in the Capitol amid the Jan. 6 insurrection. In a criminal complaint released on Saturday, the Department of Justice said that it had arrested Anthime Joseph Gionet, the far-right activist better known as “Baked Alaska,” on charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Gionet, who tested positive for COVID-19 just days before the riot and is currently facing unrelated charges for allegedly pepper spraying a bouncer last year, traveled to D.C. this […]
Politico is facing backlash on Thursday—both internally and externally—for handing over the keys to its signature news product for the day to Ben Shapiro, an oft-incendiary right-wing commentator. “We published a piece by a very prominent writer, provocateur, and podcaster. We stand by every word in there, it was very closely edited,” the outlet’s top editor Matt Kaminski said as part of his response to staffers during a Thursday meeting. Over the past several weeks, Politico has filled the temporary editorial vacancy atop the Playbook by inviting high-profile political reporters and commentators to author Playbook, the highly influential morning political newsletter […]
Conservative website RedState on Monday published and then retracted an article that angrily and falsely declared “Enough! There Was No Riot, Insurrection or ‘Storming!’” at the U.S. Capitol last week. “Let me be real clear. There was no riot in DC. There was no insurrection. There was no ‘storming’ of the Capitol Building,” wrote the piece’s author Mike Ford, a retired infantry office. “There was a peaceful rally. There was a largely peaceful protest that was marred by some bad acts by a very few people. There was and is, absolutely nothing to be traumatized or intimidated by. It’s time to […]
MSNBC is shedding more contributors as numerous on-air figures join President-elect Joe Biden’s transition efforts. On Tuesday, an MSNBC spokesperson confirmed that Barbara McQuade and Richard Stengel will no longer be paid contributors after both were announced as part of Biden’s agency review teams, which will help prepare the incoming administration to work with existing agencies. McQuade, a legal analyst for MSNBC/NBC News and University of Michigan Law School professor (and occasional Daily Beast contributor), was listed as a member of the president-elect’s Department of Justice Review team; Stengel, an MSNBC political analyst, was listed on the Biden review team for […]
Glenn Greenwald officially left The Intercept on Thursday, complaining of censorship and heavy-handed editing. It was an eye-rolling moment for many at The Intercept. Multiple staffers at the outlet pointed out that, despite his objections to editing from above, Greenwald was ultimately one of the least-edited writers at the site. While the editing processes around his work varied—his lengthier, often-reported pieces tended to get editorial scrutiny, while his columns did not—Greenwald would often announce in internal company channels that he was planning to publish columns, causing copy editors to scramble at the last minute to, as one editor put it, “fix […]
The subject of a recent Joe Biden campaign ad says he and his family have faced vicious and disturbing harassment since the one-minute television spot debuted and sparked backlash from President Donald Trump’s campaign and his conservative media allies. “All I did was speak up for my employees and community, and yet this is the price my family and I have to pay?” Joe Malcoun said in an email shared with The Daily Beast. Earlier this week, Biden’s campaign released the national TV ad featuring Malcoun, a businessman who owns an Ann Arbor, Michigan live music venue The Blind Pig. In […]
A pro-Trump writer at the Wall Street Journal’s opinion section published a convoluted column Thursday evening asserting that newly released text messages proved that former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was involved in an alleged pay-for-play scheme with his dad and a Chinese energy company. But just hours later, Wall Street Journal reporters published their own story that seemed to emphatically dismiss the opinion piece’s conclusions, saying a review of documents by the paper revealed “no role for Joe Biden.” Both the Journal’s opinion section and straight news operation published their dueling stories based on text messages shared with the […]
A local strip club could doom a business curfew in Miami implemented to curb the coronavirus pandemic in Florida’s largest county. Over the past several months, local regulations in Miami-Dade have required businesses close early in the evening, a measure county officials took with hopes of slowing the spread of coronavirus. But on Friday, a Miami-Dade judge ruled in favor of Tootsie’s strip club in Miami Gardens, which sued the city, arguing that the club should be allowed to stay open past the midnight curfew. In her Friday ruling, Judge Beatrice Butchko wrote that the county’s regulations conflict directly with Florida […]
Fox News host Greg Gutfled on Friday afternoon spun the news of Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis as the result of the president’s bravery, patriotism, and the risks he took on behalf of the country. The president and his wife revealed early Friday morning that they tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Later in the day, the president was flown to the Walter Reed Medical Center, “out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts.” As Fox News cameras awaited the president’s departure from the White House to the hospital, Gutfeld, a co-host of early […]
The teenaged kids of some of the biggest names in New York’s media elite—Chris Cuomo, George Stephanopoulos, and others—have teamed up to start an online publication bridging the traditional style of their parents’ generation and the Gen-Z focus on fighting racism and inequality at all levels of society. In July, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Lily Wolfson and Ryan Pelosky, two New York City high-school students, decided they wanted to launch an online newspaper for teens. They emailed a network of friends they knew through school, extracurricular activities, and social occasions, and enlisted a few dozen peers from across the city to […]
The most powerful live TV moment during an NBA broadcast this week didn’t come when 21-year-old phenom Luka Dončić made history with a buzzer-beating deep three-point shot to become the youngest player to score a 40-point triple-double in the playoffs. It actually happened about 30 minutes into NBA TV’s broadcast of a first-round game five between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Orlando Magic that was no longer going to happen due to a players strike. Former NBA player Jim Jackson, the on-air analyst who was supposed to offer in-game commentary, instead reacted in real time to news of the Bucks’ protest […]
Despite multiple employee deaths from the coronavirus and dozens of positive test results, telecom giant Dish Network Corporation, and one of its prominent subsidiaries Sling TV, have charged ahead with office reopenings with no potential end to the pandemic in sight. As a result, employees are terrified and disillusioned. “If I get the coronavirus because I had to be in the office during the pandemic and someone in my family dies as a result, will Sling cover the burial or cremation expenses?” one exasperated employee asked the company during a recent meeting with company brass. In a virtual meeting last week […]
Amid a larger cultural reckoning with race following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, employees at the historic American Kennel Club were hoping to join a number of other companies and organizations in making Juneteenth a company holiday. Instead, while the nonprofit’s staff were hard at work that day, they received a brief email: Even as the coronavirus pandemic rages on, they would have to return to the AKC’s Midtown Manhattan office within a week. “As you have heard, the good news is that New York City will move to Phase 2 on Monday, June 22, […]
Their state and local leaders gloated over low coronavirus cases numbers, and heralded aggressive reopening plans. Supporters demanded the media apologize to them for saying reopening orders would put residents at risk for COVID-19. But now, a handful of lockdown-averse states that have seen explosive growth in coronavirus cases have begun ordering businesses to shut down again, closing beaches and bars, mandating masks, and implementing stay-at-home policies. Over the past several days, a number of states in the Sunbelt, including Florida, Texas, Arizona, and South Carolina, have seen an exponential rise in coronavirus cases. At least two governors who celebrated reopening […]
New York Times employees are at odds over another sensitive editorial decision, marking the latest flare-up within the paper of record that has been roiled by internal strife over the past several months. Late on Monday, the science and philosophy writer who founded the blog Slate Star Codex announced that he was shutting down his widely read site over what he said was a forthcoming story in the Times that would share his real identity. Scott Alexander, the psychiatrist who helms the blog and writes under his first and middle name, said that he did not want to reveal his full […]
Employees at the music and culture site Pitchfork are staging a work stoppage in protest of what they say are anti-union initiatives taken by the publication and its parent company, magazine publisher Condé Nast. For four hours on Thursday morning, beginning at 9 a.m., Pitchfork editorial staffers will not publish new content on the website and will go dark on social media in order to draw attention to the publication’s decision to lay off senior editor Stacey Anderson, the leader of the music outlet’s editorial union. “We’re protesting clear, demonstrable union-busting by Condé Nast and Pitchfork management,” Anderson, who chairs the […]
Executives at South Carolina’s largest newspaper asked staff to return to work in the office full-time despite concerns about the coronavirus. Now, there’s a COVID-19 case in the paper’s building. Multiple sources told The Daily Beast that Post and Courier higher-ups have informed staff in recent days of one confirmed case in the paper’s Charleston office. Upon learning the news, employees were horrified. “Disgusted, distraught, angry,” one staffer said, describing the mood. After The Daily Beast reached out for comment, the newspaper’s bosses confirmed the coronavirus case to worried staffers in a regularly scheduled meeting. Some employees would be allowed to […]
After the editor of Bon Appétit resigned on Monday over diversity pay practices and an old photo of him in brownface, Condé Nast staffers have begun raising questions about another executive’s old social-media posts. During an all-staff meeting on Tuesday, one anonymous employee posted a question asking about Condé Nast Entertainment chief Oren Katzeff’s old tweet about sexual consent. “Wonder why CNE has a company culture that allows leadership to have posts like this on their timelines,” the person wrote, linking to a since-deleted 2010 tweet in which Katzeff wrote: “Earlier today, I saw a girl wearing a shirt that said […]
Two Buffalo cops were arraigned on Saturday on one count each of assault in the second degree, after they allegedly shoved a 75-year-old demonstrator during anti-police brutality protests. Martin Gugino, a longtime peace activist in the upstate New York city, hit his head on the pavement and was left on the ground as blood pooled around his head on Thursday evening. He remained in hospital in a serious but stable condition on Saturday. Initially, city officials claimed Gugino had tripped and fell. However, a video then surfaced showing riot police, who were clearing Niagara Square at the time, clearly pushed Gugino […]
Employees at Maven Media Brands, the U.S. digital-media publisher that owns outlets like Sports Illustrated and Maxim, are calling upon the company to cut ties with a Blue Lives Matter website in its portfolio. In an all-staff meeting on Friday, Maven announced that it will institute a 15-percent salary reduction across the organization as part of cost-saving measures as a result of the collapse of the digital advertising market following the spread of the coronavirus. While staffers were upset about the latest round of cuts, many raised another concern: The company’s continued affiliation with Defense Maven, a website also known as […]
LinkedIn prides itself on being the highly professional, troll-free antithesis to all other social-media platforms. But on Wednesday, the company’s own internal meetings looked more like a “dumpster fire” Facebook comments section than anything on the company’s famously civil website. Earlier this week, the career networking website announced that it would hold a virtual global town hall to address the nationwide social unrest sparked by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. The meeting was billed as an event to discuss racial inequality by “reflecting on our own biases, practicing allyship, and intentionally driving equitable actions.” “We’ll spend most of our […]
BuzzFeed News staff are taking a paycut and agreeing to share the workload in a deal to offset most of the potential employee furloughs the company planned for its editorial employees. Following the massive downturn of the advertising market in the coronavirus pandemic’s wake, numerous news media companies including BuzzFeed have cut costs with some layoffs and the cutting of employee salaries and furloughing of staff through the summer. In order to stave off further cuts, BuzzFeed News staff struck a deal with management to share duties across the company’s editorial union, which is organized through the New York chapter of […]
When Attorney General William Barr wanted to defend a decision that thousands of the Department of Justice alumni called indefensible, he knew just the reporter to turn to. Catherine Herridge has a long history on the justice beat. She also possesses one of the rarer attributes in TV journalism: a massive mainstream platform, serving now as CBS’s senior investigative correspondent. And she has reporting roots at the nation’s leading conservative media outlet, having made the jump late last year from Fox News, where she served for 20 years. So when Barr announced he would drop charges against former National Security Adviser […]
A Democratic group has accused the Department of Homeland Security of violating federal regulations by revealing private information about immigrants to reporters at conservative news outlets. On Monday, Democracy Forward, a left-leaning anti-corruption advocacy group, sent a letter to the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties requesting that the agency open an investigation into the department’s press office. The organization said that according to emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, DHS communications staff had on at least ten occasions provided or confirmed to reporters details about the citizenship and immigration status of people accused of crimes in […]