🔷 National Public Radio (NPR)

◾ NPR is a membership organization. Member stations are required to be non-commercial or non-commercial educational radio stations; have at least five full-time professional employees; operate for at least 18 hours per day; and not be designed solely to further a religious broadcasting philosophy or be used for classroom distance learning programming. Each member station receives one vote at the annual NPR board meetings—exercised by its designated Authorized Station Representative (“A-Rep”).

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◾ CEO is Katherine Maher

Prior to joining NPR, Maher was CEO of Web Summit and served on its Board of Directors. She also worked for seven years as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, responsible for the success of Wikipedia, one of the world’s most popular digital platforms. She led Wikipedia to its highest brand trust since its founding, navigating the misinformation crisis and global trust decline in media, while doubling the Foundation’s fundraising and raising Wikimedia’s first endowment. Before Wikimedia, Maher worked on rights, democracy, and innovation at Access Now, the World Bank, the National Democratic Institute and UNICEF.

◾ Board of Directors

• Chairperson is Jennifer Ferro- serves as a Senior Fellow for the Luskin School of Public Policy at UCLA. She is on the board of Marfa Public Radio, one of the most innovative public stations in the country that serves rural west Texas. She is also a board member of the prestigious Trusteeship/International Women’s Forum for Southern California and Chair of the NPR Board. Ferro was awarded the UCLA Award for public service and selected as one of the 500 Most Influential People in LA according to the LA Business Journal.
• John McGinn -Was the head of Citigroup’s Global Consumer Risk Aggregation unit, Chief Risk Officer for Citi’s Student Loan Corporation and chief of staff for the Chief Risk Officers of both the Global Consumer Group and the Latin American Consumer Bank. Prior to his time at Citigroup, McGinn worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
• Milena Alberti-Perez-Alberti-Perez spent most of her career at Penguin Random House and currently serves on 2 non-profit boards and 3 corporate boards. She was most recently the Chief Financial Officer of Getty Images, Inc.
• Matthew Barzun-Matthew Barzun is a media entrepreneur, author, and former diplomat. He currently serves as chair and publisher of Tortoise Media, the London-based online news service he co-founded with the former Director of BBC News.Earlier in his career, he was closely involved in the pioneer stage of the internet publishing business, serving in executive roles at CNET.
• Scott Donaton-He most recently served as Hulu’s Head of Marketing, overseeing a team of 250 marketers responsible for marketing strategy, subscriber acquisition, engagement & retention, brand marketing, creative, social, paid media, partnerships and consumer insights & analytics.
• *LeRoy Kim-He is a Managing Director of Allen & Company LLC. He started his career at Lehman Brothers. Kim has served as a financial advisor to many well-known corporations in the fields of technology, media, sports, healthcare services and consumer products. Kim was formerly the President of the Board of The Door, which serves up to 11,000 youth annually across New York City and operates Broome Street Academy, a NYC charter high school, and was a founding Board member of Venture for America. He was a Board member of The Sleepy Hollow Country Club, and is currently on the Finance Committee of Board of The MidOcean Club.
• Joanna Lambert-Most recently, Lambert was President and General Manager of Yahoo Consumer. Prior to PayPal, Lambert was the Senior Vice President of Product Development and Operations at American Express.
• Catherine Levene-She was President of the Russian owned National Media Group at Meredith Corporation, where she oversaw the company’s 40+ iconic brands including PEOPLE, Allrecipes, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, TRAVEL&LEISURE, REAL SIMPLE and Magnolia Journal.
• Judith Segura-She is a lead thermal architect and expert in thermodynamics at Apple, Inc. Prior to Apple, Segura also helped build innovative products at Cisco Systems and Spray Cool, Inc. A winner of the Ford Foundation doctoral fellowship, Segura has been awarded three patents across various disciplines with several more pending.
• Howard Wollner-For two years, Wollner served as Senior Vice President Strategic Business Systems for Starbucks Coffee International.
• Neal Zuckerman-He is a Senior Partner and Managing Director in the New York office of the global management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group. He is also the head of the firm’s Media Practice globally.

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🔺 538:

◾ Owned by ESPN & ABC(?) which is owned by Disney

When ESPN started in 1979 we were the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (thus, ESPN). However, that name took too long to paint across our chests on game day, so we dropped it in 1985 and adopted a new corporate name – ESPN, Inc.-- and a new logo. And by the way, we’re a subsidiary of ABC, Inc., which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Co. Also, the Hearst Corporation has a 20% interest in ESPN.

Founder Nate Silver left in 2023, taking the rights to his forecasting model with him to his website Silver Bulletin.

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Nate Silver joins prediction market Polymarket as advisor

Polymarket Raises $70m From Thiel’s Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Vitalik Buterin to Scale Global Prediction Market

◾ CEO is G. Elliott Morris

American data journalist who is best known for his work on election polling and predictive analytics. From 2018 to 2023, Morris was a data journalist for The Economist. In 2023, he became the editorial director of data analytics at ABC News including FiveThirtyEight.

Ed note: It is unclear as to who the board is or if ESPN or ABC actually run it. Maybe both?

🔺 CNN:

◾ Owned by Warner Brothers Discovery

Discovery’s merger with WarnerMedia took effect on Friday afternoon, creating a streaming media giant led by CEO David Zaslav. The newly formed company, Warner Bros. Discovery, will begin publicly trading on Monday. Zaslav

The deal, first announced last May, is a climactic moment for Zaslav and his longtime deputies at Discovery, best known for brands like Animal Planet, TLC and HGTV. The merger adds HBO, CNN, TNT, Turner Sports, the Warner Bros. movie studio, and a huge raft of other media assets to the company.

Setting the stage to compete with the likes of Disney and Netflix, Zaslav said in Friday’s memo that “we are well positioned to become a top-tier streaming competitor.”

Source April 11, 2022

◾ CEO is Mark Thompson

Sir Mark John Thompson (born 31 July 1957 is a British and American media executive who is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ancestry now owned by Blackstone, Inc., the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, and Chief Executive Officer of the Cable News Network (CNN). He is the former president and chief executive officer of The New York Times Company. From 2004 to 2012, he was Director-General of the BBC, and before that was the Chief Executive of Channel 4. In 2009 Thompson was ranked as the 65th most powerful person in the world by Forbes magazine. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2017.

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Mark Thompson, the former chief executive of The New York Times and director-general of the BBC, will be the next leader of CNN, the network announced Wednesday. Source

💲 Washington Post:

◾ Owned by Jeff Bezos:

Jeff Bezos era (2013–present)

In late September 2013, Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Post and other local publications, websites, and real estate for US$250 million, transferring ownership to Nash Holdings LLC, Bezos’s private investment company. The paper’s former parent company, which retained some other assets such as Kaplan and a group of TV stations, was renamed Graham Holdings shortly after the sale.

Nash Holdings, which includes the Post, is operated separately from technology company Amazon, which Bezos founded and where he is as of 2022 executive chairman and the largest single shareholder, with 12.7% of voting rights.

◾ CEO and publisher is William ‘Will’ Lewis:

NPR did a great story about him.

‘Washington Post’ CEO tried to kill a story about himself. It wasn’t the first time

In December, I wrote the first comprehensive piece based on new documents cited in a London courtroom alleging that Lewis had helped cover up a scandal involving widespread criminal practices at media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids. (Lewis has previously denied the allegations.)

At that time, Lewis had just been named publisher and CEO by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, but had not yet started. In several conversations, Lewis repeatedly — and heatedly —offered to give me an exclusive interview about the Post’s future, as long as I dropped the story about the allegations.

At that time, the same spokesperson, who works directly for Lewis from the U.K. and has advised him since his days at the Wall Street Journal, confirmed to me that an explicit offer was on the table: drop the story, get the interview.

Will Lewis Wikipedia (Note, they list him as a journalist, not the CEO he is)

💲 The Atlantic

◾ Owned by Laurene Powell Jobs through the Emerson Collective

On July 28, 2017, The Atlantic announced that billionaire investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs (the widow of former Apple Inc. chairman and CEO Steve Jobs) had acquired majority ownership through her Emerson Collective organization

NOTE: I’m having a hard time getting info on The Emerson Collective, its Wikipedia page is their corporate speak description. I’ll update if I come across something since The Atlantic is so bad that I skip it most days to even look at the headline.

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◾ Nicholas Thompson is CEO

For Thompson, the role moves him from editorial leader to business figurehead. His experience as a top editor at both Wired and The New Yorker — another magazine owned by Conde Nast — undoubtedly helped prepare him for the latest shift.

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🔷 Associated Press

◾ The Associated Press is governed by an elected board of directors. It is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major U.S. daily newspapers and radio and television broadcasters.

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◾ CEO is Daisy Veerasingham

Daisy Veerasingham is a British businesswoman who has been the president and CEO of the Associated Press since 2021, succeeding Gary Pruitt.

She worked for LexisNexis and the Financial Times. In 2004, she was a sales director for the AP. By 2019, she was senior vice president and chief revenue officer for the company. She was later executive vice president and chief operating officer.

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◾ Board of Directors

• Chairperson is Gracia Martore-Gracia C. Martore is the former president and CEO of Tegna, Inc. and was CEO of the predecessor Gannett Company before its split. She serves on the board of directors of FM Global, MeadWestvaco Corporation, and Omnicom Group, and as chair of the Associated Press.
• William Lewis - CEO, The Washington Post (see NPR article on Will Lewis in Washington Post comment).
• Maha Abouelenein - CEO and Founder, Digital and Savvy
• Mark Adams-President and CEO, Adams Publishing Group
• Emily L. Barr - formerly CEO of Graham Media Group
• Kirk Davis -CEO, Harte Hanks Inc.
• Lisa M. DeSisto - CEO, Maine Trust for Local News
• Kevin D. Mowbray - President and CEO, Lee Enterprises
• Michael Newhouse - Director and Senior Executive Officer, Advance/Newhouse Companies (Note: Conde Nast is on that list and owns a chunk of Reddit)
• Mi-Ai Parrish-Professor Arizona State University, President and CEO, Map Strategies Group
• Maribel Perez Wadsworth -President and CEO, The Knight Foundation

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🔷 The Guardian

◾ The Scott Trust Limited is the British company that owns Guardian Media Group and thus The Guardian and The Observer as well as various other media businesses in the UK. In 2008, it replaced the Scott Trust, which had owned The Guardian since 1936.

The company is responsible for appointing the editor of The Guardian (and those of the group’s other main newspapers) but, apart from enjoining them to continue the paper’s editorial policy on “the same lines and in the same spirit as heretofore”, it has a policy of not interfering in their decisions.

The Scott Trust Limited, with the intention being that the original trust would be wound up. Dame Liz Forgan, chair of the Scott Trust, reassured staff that the purposes of the new company remained the same as under the previous arrangements.

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◾ Chief Editor Katharine Sophie Viner

(born January 1971) is a British journalist and playwright. Viner previously headed The Guardian’s web operations in Australia and the United States, before being selected for the editor-in-chief’s position.

For work experience, Viner joined Cosmopolitan, a women’s monthly magazine. After three years at The Sunday Times, working as a commissioning editor and writer for its magazine. Viner joined The Guardian in 1997. Following a period on the staff of the women’s page, she became editor of the Saturday Weekend supplement in 1998. She became features editor in 2006 and deputy editor in 2008 at the same time as Ian Katz. Viner edited the Saturday edition of The Guardian from 2008 to 2012.

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◾ The Scott Trust Board of Directors

• Chair of Trust-Ole Jacob Sunde-He has been associated with the Schibsted Media Group ASA for 30 years, being elected to the Board in 2000 and serving as Chair since 2002. He is also the Chair of the Tinius Trust, and a member of the Board of Visitors at Columbia University, School of Journalism. He is the founder and chair of Formuesforvaltning AS private bank (Formue)
• Tracy Corrigan-She was previously chief strategy officer of Dow Jones and has held a range of senior editorial positions including editor in chief of the** Wall Street Journal Europe**, editor of the Financial Times’ Lex column and editor of FT.com. Tracy is currently a non-executive director of Barclays Bank UK PLC, Direct Line Insurance Group PLC, and Domino’s Pizza Group PLC.
• David Olusoga-Journalist and documentary maker.
• Stuart Proffitt-He has been a publishing director at Penguin Books since 1998, and before that he was the publisher of the trade division at HarperCollins for six years.
• Matthew Ryder-He is a barrister and founder member of Matrix chambers in London, specialising in human rights, media, data and information, crime and regulatory law. He was deputy mayor of London for social integration between 2016 and 2018 overseeing the mayor’s community engagement, diversity and equality work, and use of data.
• Vivian Schiller-Previously she has held multiple high-profile media roles including head of news at Twitter, general manager of NYTimes dot com and president and CEO of National Public Radio.
• Russell Scott-Previously he held multiple senior roles in publishing, digital and broadcast sectors including content director of The Football League, commercial director of Northcliffe media and managing director of fish4, a digital classified joint venture between 5 major UK regional press groups.
• Haroon Siddique-He has worked at the Guardian for over 15 years and is currently its legal affairs correspondent, previously serving as a reporter and senior reporter in the Guardian’s newsroom.
• Margaret Simons-She is an award-winning journalist, author, and journalism academic.
• Nabiha Syed-Nabiha is chief executive officer of The Markup, an award-winning journalism non-profit. Prior to launching The Markup, Nabiha spent a decade as an acclaimed media lawyer working at the frontier of technology and newsgathering, including at the New York Times and more recently at BuzzFeed where she was associate general counsel.
• Stephen Godsell-He was group general counsel and company secretary at PA Group (formerly Press Association and check out who they are), and has held senior positions at The Economist Group and Clifford Chance. Stephen is a board director and trustee of The Economist Educational Foundation, a member of the Joint Committee on Legal Deposit and a freeman of the City of London.

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💲 Reuters

◾ Owned by the Thomson family, the wealthiest family in Canada.

Canadian multinational information conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and maintains its headquarters at 19 Duncan Street there.

Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corporation’s purchase of the British company Reuters Group on 17 April 2008. It is majority-owned by The Woodbridge Company (no info found), a holding company for the Thomson family of Canada.

◾ CEO is Steve Hasker

Steve assumed his role of President and Chief Executive Officer and a director of Thomson Reuters effective March 15, 2020. Previously, Steve served as Senior Adviser to TPG Capital, a private equity firm, Chief Executive Officer of CAA Global (which includes entities like CAA China, merchant bank Evolution Media and the incubator CAA Ventures), a TPG Capital portfolio company, and global president and chief operating officer of Nielsen, an information, data and measurement firm. Steve spent more than a decade with McKinsey as a partner in the global media, information and technology practice. Before joining McKinsey, Steve spent five years in several financial roles in the United States, Russia and Australia.

Steve started his career with PwC, where he qualified as a chartered accountant. He then received an MBA and master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University. He grew up in Australia and during his career he has lived and worked across North America, Europe and Asia. Steve is also a non-executive director of Appen Limited and a member of the Australia and New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants.

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💲 FOX News

(not a real news source but the most watched news on cable so it should be here)

◾ Owned by The Murdoch Family

it was formed on March 19, 2019 as the portion of 21st Century Fox not acquired by The Walt Disney Company on March 20, 2019. The company is controlled by the Murdoch family via a family trust with 39.6% ownership share, and by Rupert Murdoch himself to the effect of almost 40%.

McKnight (2010) identifies four characteristics of his media operations: free market ideology; unified positions on matters of public policy; global editorial meetings; and opposition to liberal bias in other public media.

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◾ Rupert Murdoch is chair, while his son Lachlan Murdoch is executive chair and CEO.

Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio Express-News. In 1974, Murdoch moved to New York City, to expand into the US market; however, he retained interests in Australia and Britain. Soon afterwards, he founded Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976, he purchased the New York Post. On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations.

According to The New York Times, Ronald Reagan’s campaign team credited Murdoch and the Post for his victory in New York in the 1980 United States presidential election. Reagan later “waived a prohibition against owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market,” allowing Murdoch to continue to control The New York Post and The Boston Herald while expanding into television. In September 2021, Fox Corporation acquired TMZ from WarnerMedia in a deal worth about $50 million with TMZ being operated under the Fox Entertainment division

In March 2014, Murdoch was appointed as non-executive co-chairman of News Corp. and 21st Century Fox Inc. in a move that was seen as succession planning for the media empire.[41][42][43][44][45][46] Murdoch stood aside as chairman and a Director of Ten Network Holdings.[47] In June 2015 he was named as Executive Chairman of 21st Century Fox.

In 2021, Lachlan Murdoch and his father Rupert were the defendants in a $1.6 billion lawsuit, filed by voting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems, for knowingly and maliciously spreading false accusations that Dominion committed election fraud. Dominion claimed, in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s loss of the 2020 presidential election, that Fox News began to lose viewership, and was negatively impacted, as President Trump criticised Fox News and bolstered competitors that would spread his accusations of fraud. Dominion continued that, under the direction of Lachlan Murdoch, Fox News then made unsubstantiated accusations of fraud against Dominion, and intentionally invited guests that Fox News’ hosts knew were making false and defamatory statements, while the hosts endorsed, repeated, and amplified statements they knew to be defamatory and false.

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