Vogue
Anna Wintour
Anna Wintour announced that she would step down as editor-in-chief of “Vogue” after 37 years of fierce, and some would say fearsome, leadership of the fashion bible’s US flagship. She will, however, stay on as chief content officer for all Condé Nast titles worldwide save The New Yorker. The move aligns with broad restructuring at Condé as the publisher, well past its ‘90s heyday, consolidates and aims to boost digital offerings.
X
NPR
It’s been an exceptionally bad few weeks for X. Grok, its AI chatbot, generated love letters to Hitler in otherwise benign comment sections. Shortly afterward, CEO Linda Yaccarino announced her departure from the platform in a statement that evaded the Grok controversy but whose timing raised eyebrows.
Meanwhile, an internal NPR memo made its way online and heartened journalists and news organizations that fled the platform formerly known as Twitter in response to Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover and subsequent chaotic leadership of the social network. It turns out that traffic to NPR web content has declined by just 1% since the broadcaster ditched X. And that despite having had 8.7 million followers on X, the platform’s algorithms, and users’ reluctance to click on links, had made it a paltry traffic booster even when NPR devoted significant resources to it—just 2% of NPR website visitors came from the beleaguered platform.
Hollywood
California legislators voted to double existing incentives for in-state film and TV production to $750 million a year. This came amid acute worry that the historic epicenter of the movie industry was haemorrhaging production to places like Georgia, Canada and Hungary with bountiful tax breaks—one study found that on-location production in the state dropped 22.4% during Q1 2025.
BBC
The UK public service broadcaster is mulling charging overseas website visitors for access to its news and a BBC 1 livestream. It would be the first time the venerable organization has instituted a subscription plan, which would run American subscribers $49.99 a year or $8.99 a month. The BBC is under pressure to be more profitable in regions beyond the UK where it does not rely on public licensing fees.
The New York Times
The Times outraged many readers and media commentators when it published a piece critical of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for stating on a Columbia college application that he was both “Asian” and “Black or African-American.” Many questioned the relevance of the alleged dishonesty since Mamdani, who highlights his Southeast Asian background, was born in Uganda.
More anger was focused on the sourcing of the story. While the Times briefly mentioned in the original piece that the news came from Columbia data systems hack, it quickly came to light that the hacker was Jordan Lasker, a right-wing agitator notorious for espousing white supremacist viewpoints.
CNN
Donald Trump
President Trump threatened to sue CNN and the New York Times for reporting that US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites had set back the country’s weapons production by just a few months. The Times refused to back down, saying it had confirmed the existence of a report stating just that with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Apple
Disney
Netflix
Apple is planning to race Disney for US broadcasting rights for Formula 1 programming, which currently airs on the Mouse House’s ESPN. The move comes on the heels of Apple having its first certified box office smash with F1. The Brad Pitt-starrer about the racing league has so far grossed over $300 million worldwide.
The move is also the latest push by a major streamer to ramp up its live sports coverage, where Netflix has had big success with WWE and boxing. Now, the dominant streamer is plotting to grow its live music content. Netflix is in talks with Spotify to collaborate on music awards shows and concerts, as well as fast-turnaround interviews with pop stars in the headlines.
