It became official on Friday. Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s advertising chief, will be Twitter’s next CEO. Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted, “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter! @LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology. Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app.”
Does this mean Musk will take a major step back from the social media company? Don’t bet on it.
CNN’s Chris Isidore wrote, “Even as Musk steps back from the CEO role, he will likely still maintain significant control over the future direction of the company. Musk previously said he would serve as the company’s executive chairman and CTO, as well as being the owner of the platform.”
However, Isidore added, “The choice of Yaccarino may hint at Musk recognizing the limitations of his efforts to make Twitter less dependent on advertising. Ad sales represented more than 90% of the company’s revenue before Musk purchased it in October. But many advertisers have fled the site since then.”
The New York Times’ Tiffany Hsu, Sapna Maheshwari, Benjamin Mullin and Ryan Mac echoed that point, writing, “In choosing Ms. Yaccarino, Mr. Musk is signaling what his priority is at Twitter: its advertising business, rather than social media know-how. Ms. Yaccarino has been one of Madison Avenue’s power brokers for decades. And Twitter, which makes the bulk of its revenue from ads, has struggled to expand that business, especially after Mr. Musk spooked advertisers last year.”
So who is Yaccarino and how might she impact Twitter?
The Times’ wrote, “… she and Mr. Musk appear aligned on political issues — such as a more permissive approach toward speech on Twitter — that are central to his vision for the platform, two people familiar with her views said. She is a conservative and a critic of so-called woke discourse, a term used by conservatives to describe elements of left-wing social progressivism they view as censorious, they said.”
Her first order of business, the Times wrote, is “repairing the company’s relationship with Madison Avenue and wooing media companies back to the platform, potentially with partnership deals.”
So it seems like a wait-and-see situation before we learn Yaccarino’s impact — if, that is, she has a lasting impact. With Musk in charge, you never know.
Wired’s Paresh Dave wrote, “(Musk) relies on hardcore lieutenants to get things done while he’s focused elsewhere. But his demanding style and his habit of parachuting in and out of his ventures have led him to churn through advisers, friends, and girlfriends at a clip. Yaccarino has worked under exacting media barons such as Ted Turner, and she and Musk may have a good business relationship for now. But how long that will last is anyone’s guess. Musk in February laid off a product leader at Twitter thought to be loyal to him who was helping carry out changes the entrepreneur desired. Musk’s habit of conducting business or announcing changes of heart through tweets can catch subordinates and allies alike off guard.”
A strong stance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution took a major stand against gun violence on Sunday, devoting three full pages to a collection of editorials on gun violence from 13 cities around the country. It came under the headline: “A Relentless Pace of Shootings: A Nation on Edge.”
The paper wrote, “Over the last year, dozens of newspapers in every corner of the country – from Atlanta to California, to big cities, small towns and college campuses and high schools in between – have taken strong stances of their own. They’ve done that because, like us, they, too, live in the communities in which they cover. And like us, they can no longer remain silent as our friends, our neighbors and our children lose their lives to senseless shootings. This isn’t a conservative or a liberal issue, as (publisher Andrew) Morse wrote last Sunday. It is an American issue. It is a human issue.”
The AJC ran editorials from The Dallas Morning News; The Harvard Crimson; The Los Angeles Times; The (Louisville) Courier-Journal; The (Lawrence, Kansas) Free Press; Free State High School; The (New York) Daily News; The Suffolk Journal from Suffolk University in Massachusetts; The Washington Post; the Chicago Tribune; The Denver Post; The San Jose Mercury-News; The Philadelphia Inquirer; and, of course, the AJC.
This came a week after the AJC took the rare step of printing an editorial on the front page of the print version of paper. That piece — “We don’t have to live this way” — was penned by Morse.
Morse wrote, “We don’t have to live this way. We don’t have to live in fear of visiting the doctor, or taking a trip to the supermarket, or sending our children to school. We don’t have to duck and cover. Our children don’t have to participate in lockdown drills. We don’t have to sit and watch our streets turn into a combat zone on live television. We don’t have to mourn a 38-year-old mother who devoted her career to public health. We don’t have to pray all night that four other women fighting for their lives will survive. We don’t have to debate whether guns kill people or people kill people. (They both do.) We don’t have to argue about whether mental health is a crisis in this country. But we do live this way.”
Morse then gives a very thoughtful proposal of what citizens can do to make our country safer.
Powerful comments
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, right, is interviewed by MSNBC’s Jen Psaki. (Courtesy of MSNBC)
Republican New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu was a guest on Sunday’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” on MSNBC. Psaki asked Sununu about something that happened at the CNN town hall with Donald Trump last week. The town hall, you might recall, was held in New Hampshire.
Psaki asked Sununu what he thought about some in the audience laughing when Trump was talking about E. Jean Carroll, the woman who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her. Last week, a jury in a civil case said Trump was liable for sexual assault and defamation and ordered Trump to pay her $5 million.
Sununu said, “It was embarrassing! I can understand, as the camera panned through that audience, I knew pretty much everybody in that audience — they’re all Trump supporters. So the audience was absolutely filled with Trump supporters. So I wasn’t surprised to hear the support. But when you’re talking about a serious issue like that, and laughter and mocking and all that, … it’s completely inappropriate, without a doubt. And it doesn’t shine a positive light on New Hampshire. But again, I understand what the audience’s makeup was.”
Media tidbits
- The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Anthony R. Wood with “Inquirer and forensics team investigating computer disruptions to publishing.”
- The New York Times’ Remy Tumin with “How MTV Broke News for a Generation.”
- Also from The New York Times, Sam Roberts with “Mike Pride, Who Proved a Regional Newspaper Could Work, Dies at 76.”
- The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz with “An influencer’s AI clone will be your girlfriend for $1 a minute.”
Hot type
Top-notch work here from The Washington Post’s Kent Babb: “Football bonded them. Its violence tore them apart.”
Catching up on this story that came out last week. Texas Monthly’s Skip Hollandsworth with “‘My Daughter’s Murder Wasn’t Enough’: In Uvalde, a Grieving Mother Fights Back.”
If you missed it, I highly recommend the last from PBS’s “Frontline,” which you can now watch online: “Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court.”
And one more: CBS’s “60 Minutes” and correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi with “Mormon who left Wall St to work for charity blows whistle on what he says is his church’s ‘clandestine hedge fund’.”
More resources for journalists
- Time for a new job? Your future employer is looking for you on The Media Job Board — Powered by Poynter, Editor & Publisher and America’s Newspapers. Search now!
- Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative — (Sept. – April, 2024) (Hybrid) — Apply by May 15.
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