Media

1. DC’s next paper?
2. Mixed Signals
3. AP vs. AI
4. Ads for bots

Warner Bros.′ David Zaslav recently remarked in private that it had probably been a business mistake to hang on to CNN, an obviously declining media asset. He hadn’t spun the cable channel out for sentimental reasons, he told someone who relayed the conversation to Semafor.

But that “mistake” — in a world where politics, business, and media power mix — wound up paying off, driving up the price of what will be one of the biggest media deals of all time, Zaslav now believes.

CNN actually drove up Paramount’s bid for Warner Bros. because of the network’s importance to President Donald Trump — and, by extension, its centrality to David Ellison’s pitch to the president for why the government should favor his bid.

News is a funny business. It’s hated by the markets and the public alike, yet it’s the obsession of the powerful. Hollywood’s tech giants have tried to avoid it: Netflix has stayed away (Ted Sarandos told Bloomberg Trump lost interest in Netflix’s bid when it became clear the company wouldn’t buy the cable assets), Amazon hasn’t tried TV news since election night 2024, and Apple is currently trying to keep anyone from noticing that it runs one of the biggest news apps in American media.

But in the end, it was an aging cable news network and one very important man’s obsession with it that helped tip the scales in favor of Paramount. Now the question is: What will Trump actually get out of the deal?

Also: Robert Allbritton’s plans for The Washington Sun, an AI battle at the AP, and Bloomberg’s travel advisory.

Allbritton’s new Washington newspaper war

One of Washington, DC’s biggest media investors wants to use The Washington Post’s moment of weakness to create a rival to the longtime dominant newspaper in DC. Robert Allbritton — who founded Politico and whose father owned The Washington Star, a Post rival — has discussed taking advantage of the Post’s large-scale layoffs and damaged brand by significantly expanding NOTUS, his public-spirited, education-oriented source of government coverage, into a full-scale news operation, potentially even under a different name. Late last month, the publication trademarked the name “The Washington Sun,” and purchased several Washington Sun-related URLs.

In recent days, Allbritton and NOTUS editor-in-chief Tim Grieve have also aggressively privately pursued many of the top remaining names at the Post, hoping to peel off a significant number of journalists to help the publication become an immediate player in DC. The publication hoped to incentivize staff to join by only giving them 24 hours to decide, and is aiming to make a hiring splash in the coming weeks. One person close to the situation said the publication’s plans are still fluid, including the name. Reached by phone on Friday, Allbritton declined to comment.

Hasan Piker on ‘Mixed Signals’

Since 2018, Hasan Piker has gone from streaming alone in his bedroom to becoming one of North America’s most influential leftist creators. This week on Mixed Signals, he sits down with Ben and Max to talk about getting older with his audience, the grind of broadcasting all day seven days a week, and whether constant livestreaming changes the way he thinks. Piker also talks about his relationship with Democratic politicians like Zohran Mamdani, antisemitism and dialing back his rhetoric as he accrues real political power.

Resistance is futile?

The Associated Press was the center of media debate last week after a senior tech employee warned staff that resistance to bot-written journalism is “futile,” according to internal Slack messages Semafor published earlier this week. Senior product manager for AI Aimee Rinehart’s two other observations drove just as much of the conversation: “There are many — and I mean MANY — editors who would prefer an AI-written article to a human-written one,” she wrote. “Reporting and writing are two different skill sets and rare — RARE — is the occasion when it’s wrapped into one person.” Rinehart had many critics and at least a few defenders, particularly on the second count. And among top names in news, she is hardly alone; Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner told Semafor recently that AI is a reason why he’s bullish on journalism writ large. For our part, Semafor isn’t prudish when it comes to AI. Executive editor at large Gina Chua recently sat down with Media Copilot to talk through the bot-vs.-human dichotomy, and how to incorporate AI into news production.

AI is the latest gatekeeper between brands and buyers

Companies are now writing ad copy for bots, not people, and those bots are telling consumers what products to buy. Google’s AI Overviews and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are starting to portray the same brands differently: Google is 44% more likely to skew negative about a given brand than ChatGPT, serving up criticism around lawsuits, product recalls, and news, according to a report by SEO platform BrightEdge. When ChatGPT goes negative, it does so around product evaluation and costs.

With fewer humans in the process and AI that can sum up an entire brand’s history into one recommendation, some companies have taken to generating a slew of positive content in an attempt to rank better in AI results. That may help advertisers, but it floods the internet with a kind of product slop that could also dissuade consumers. The rules of advertising are changing, with SEO becoming a thing of the past. It’s likely the new standards will remain in flux as AI gets better and shoppers change their habits.

— Rachyl Jones

WSJ: Gayle King, unlike some of her CBS colleagues, has no intention of departing the network, Isabella Simonetti and Joe Flint scoop.

Axios: Some two dozen unions have formed annually per year in the media industry since 2020, nearly triple the rate of the decade prior, Kerry Flynn and Sara Fischer write.

WaPo: It’s “unclear” whether Kari Lake, Trump’s choice to lead the agency that oversees Voice of America, will get to stick around after a court voided her biggest decisions there, Scott Nover writes.

Substack: Former FT editor Lionel Barber offers a five-point plan for fixing the BBC.

Status: Former ESPN anchor and Trump backer Sage Steele was at one point in the running for a seat on CBS Mornings, Oliver Darcy scoops.

• First the soup, now this: Bloomberg News told staff that it is sadly limiting business-class travel in the US, returning to a policy the organization had before the pandemic prohibiting business-class travel for trips shorter than four hours. At this point, I was surprised to learn that any news organization was permitting rank-and-file employees to travel in business class (media management, of course, can still be found in business [editor’s note: not at Semafor!]).
• The Wall Street Journal is exploring a multi-user subscription, Semafor has learned. The paper is considering letting four users use one account, allowing each to set up their own login and password.
• Jake Swearingen, Business Insider’s executive editor for enterprise, is leaving to help launch a business-focused desk at ProPublica, Semafor has learned. The departure comes as Business Insider doubles down on original reporting: CEO Barbara Peng told staff in an email last week that the publication is benefiting from its move away from content aggregation, showing year-over-year traffic increases in January and February. She noted that 80% of the publication’s reporting is now scoops, exclusives, or other original content.
• Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell is releasing a book based on recent focus groups about how Democrats can regain power, Semafor first reported.
• The sports culture startup Offball, co-founded by LeBron James’ longtime PR guru Adam Mendelsohn, is partnering with Togethxr, the women’s sports media outfit led by former Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc. The two companies plan to share internal resources and sell to ad partners together. As part of the deal, Togethxr received a minority stake in Offball.
• Democratic groups are pressuring state attorneys general to take aggressive action to stop the Paramount/WBD merger. Experts think it’s unlikely to succeed, but it portends a greater party-wide animosity towards the Ellisons that could become important if, and when, Democrats retake power.
• Grok is undermining human fact-checkers like BBC’s Shayan Sardarizadeh on X, “debunking” videos of Iran war footage that he and others on the platform have managed to confirm.
• Congrats to Semafor editor Emily Ruth Ford, who inked a deal for her debut novel with Chatto & Windus in the UK and Doubleday in the US, to be released in spring 2028.