On Tuesday, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was supposed to appear on Fox News.

Noem was coming off two days of disastrous interviews on CBS, NewsNation, Newsmax and Fox Business about her just-released book. Interviewers pressed her on something she edited out of her book (whether or not she had ever met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a question she still hasn’t answered) and something she left in her book (that she once killed her own dog because it was mean and couldn’t be trained).

So when it was time to appear on Fox News on Tuesday night, you figured she was finally landing in a safe spot where she would answer a few softballs and once again move to the top of Donald Trump’s list of running mates.

Then again, maybe not. Perhaps that’s why she bailed.

She canceled that Fox News appearance. The reason given was bad weather. The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona reported that “the governor’s team specifically cited a snowstorm in her home state of South Dakota.”

Yes, there was a winter advisory in the Black Hills of South Dakota, but here’s the deal: Noem was already in New York City and there was nothing so dire about the weather in South Dakota that it required the governor’s immediate attention. Though a spokesman for Noem told RealClearPolitics that the governor “has sold a lot of books on this tour and is back in South Dakota to be prepared for some potential emerging bad weather systems.”

Meanwhile, on CNN, anchor Dana Bash said Noem “abruptly canceled” a scheduled appearance on Wednesday’s “Inside Politics.”

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld seemed especially annoyed that Noem was a no-show on his program, and he ripped off several jokes about it. He said on air, “Who knows why she canceled? When we asked how her week was going, she replied ‘ruff.’ Maybe it wasn’t bad weather, I heard it was raining cats and dogs. I tried to convince Noem to stay and do our show. I even told her my dog Gus had all his shots. She said not yet he hasn’t.”

Gutfeld even brought on a colleague, Dana Perino, for a fake interview. He asked Perino, “So, Dana, aka Gov. Noem, did you write the book yourself?”

Perino said, “You know, that’s a great question for someone who wrote the book, and I don’t think I will dignify your question with a response. There are so many other important issues in the world, like animal cruelty.”

They carried out the bit for even more wisecracks.

I wrote in Wednesday’s Poynter Report that Noem should stop giving interviews for a while, given that she keeps throwing gas on her dumpster fire. I don’t think she’s a subscriber to my newsletter, but she apparently thought it was a good idea to lay low.

Maybe that’s because even conservative media isn’t giving her a pass. At one point during her interview with Fox Business’ Stuart Varney, Noem grew tired of his continued follow-ups to the dog story that she snapped, “Enough, Stuart. This interview is ridiculous — what you are doing right now. So you need to stop.”

It’s one thing for Noem to get pushback from the likes of CBS’s Margaret Brennan or NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas. It’s another when hosts from conservative networks such as Varney and Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty relentlessly ask tough questions.

So why has conservative media turned on a conservative politician? The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake wrote, “It’s pretty evident, and it’s the same reason conservative media and the GOP often turn on their own after putting up with plenty: She’s become a perceived liability for the brand.”

Once seen as a popular choice to run alongside Trump and help him return to the White House, Noem now might be a political problem.

Blake wrote, “It’s all quite an un-conservative media thing to do in the Trump era. Fox and Newsmax hosts have become studied at trying to explain away Republican controversy as the work of nefarious and censorious political opponents — as they initially tried to do with Noem. Why would they suddenly take issue with Noem telling an apparent falsehood about meeting with Kim, after years of ignoring Trump’s own penchant for saying oodles of bizarre and false things? (Trump has uttered several false statements specifically about Kim, in fact.) The answer is that conservative media and the GOP can ignore and try to cover for plenty — until they decide you’ve become a problem for the red team.”

Blake noted other conservatives who have been given the cold shoulder when their problems outweigh their one-time popularity. Think George Santos, Madison Cawthorn and, just a bit of late if you’re paying attention, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Noem could not have handled the past few days any worse. It’s so bad that she’s canceling on the conservative media. The conservative media might soon be canceling on her.

New York Times adds 210,000 digital subscribers, ends quarter in the black

For this item, I turn it over to my Poynter colleague Angela Fu.

The New York Times added 210,000 digital-only subscribers to end the last quarter with an adjusted operating profit of $76.1 million, the company announced Wednesday.

That profit, which represents an increase of 40.9% compared to the same period last year, was largely driven by higher digital subscription revenue. The Times now has 10.55 million subscribers across print and digital and aims to hit 15 million by the end of 2027.

Roughly 43% of those 10.55 million people subscribe to multiple products at the Times. The company has found success pushing its “bundle” — which includes journalism from the Times, Wirecutter and The Athletic, as well as the Cooking and Games verticals — and expects multiproduct subscribers to make up more than half of its subscriber base by the end of 2025.

“Our portfolio of products creates many paths for the Times to reach big audiences and drive the type of deep engagement that grows subscribers and revenue,” president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said on an earnings call Wednesday. “That makes our business more resilient and positions us well to take advantage of new opportunities even in a rapidly changing media landscape.”

The Times has seen increased engagement from its subscribers, Kopit Levien said. The share of subscribers spending time on the company’s website and app each week is at its highest point since the “surge” the Times experienced during the pandemic. The Times has also worked to build awareness for sports site The Athletic, which saw its audience grow last quarter.

“We’re continuously expanding our report, making it more accessible and evolving how our journalism comes to life,” Kopit Levien said. “That includes producing more personally relevant reporting into science-backed health and wellness, and it includes experimenting more ambitiously with audio by introducing the ability to listen to much of our report by an AI-powered, automated voice and also by introducing a new listen tab in our core news app.”

Growth in subscribers in turn fueled subscription revenue, which totaled $429 million last quarter, up 7.9% year-over-year. Advertising revenue fell 2.4% from the same period last year to $103.7 million due to declines in print. In total, the Times grew its revenue 5.9% year-over-year to $594 million.

The Times noted in its earnings release that it had spent $1 million last quarter on its lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI. The Times sued both companies for copyright infringement in December, alleging that they had used the Times’ work to train AI tools. Both Microsoft and OpenAI have since sought to dismiss parts of the lawsuit.

The Athletic, which The Times has operated at a loss since it acquired the site in January 2022 for $550 million, reported continued improvement last quarter. Both subscription and advertising revenue grew year-over-year, and The Athletic ended the quarter with an adjusted operating loss of $8.7 million, down from $11.3 million last year. It is on track to become profitable by next year, Kopit Levien said.

Times stock was trading at $47.74 a share Wednesday afternoon, up 3.22% from Tuesday’s close.

One more thought

Thanks to Angela Fu for the above item. I just wanted to chime in on the news about The Athletic to repeat that Kopit Levien said The Athletic is on track to become profitable by next year.

When the Times bought The Athletic at the beginning of 2022 for $550 million, The Athletic had operating losses the previous year of roughly $55 million. The Times admitted at that time that The Athletic would eat into the Times’ profitability for about three years. But, after that, the Times expected The Athletic to be out of the hole.

That seemed overly optimistic given the size of the operating losses, but it does appear as if that timeline might work out. Operating losses, as predicted by the Times, keep going down each quarter and each year and it does appear to have been a smart business decision by the Times to buy The Athletic.

However, one can’t ignore that the Times disbanded its own sports department, full of elite sportswriters, in September 2023. That remains a real shame.

Another earnings call

Fox also had its earnings call on Wednesday. CEO Lachlan Murdoch admitted that the deal for the news sports streaming partnership with Fox, ESPN and Warner Bros Discovery still hasn’t actually been signed.

Murdoch, however, said, “I wouldn’t read anything into the final deal terms being signed. It’s just a matter of everyone running on all cylinders to get this finished.”

He said the new service has a name, but it’s not ready to be revealed. He joked that he hoped he didn’t inadvertently say it during the call. Murdoch called the service “groundbreaking,” adding, “It’s very innovative. It’s designed to be entirely focused on the cord nevers, cord cutters, people who are not in the cable bundle.”

Awful Announcing’s Joe Lucia has more on the sports streaming service. And Variety’s Brian Steinberg has more on what else came out of the Fox call.

Big hire

New CNN reporter Isobel Yeung. (Courtesy: CNN)

CNN has made a splashy hire. Isobel Yeung, known for her long-form investigative pieces from conflict zones across the globe while working for Vice, is joining CNN as an international correspondent based in London.

Yeung has won a ton of awards, including 10 Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and a duPont-Columbia Award. While at Vice, she reported on stories from, among other places, Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Libya, the Philippines, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.

Yeung said in a statement, “I’m thrilled to be joining CNN, at a time when impactful journalism has never felt more important. I’m incredibly excited to continue my reporting from around the world, and to reach new audiences — this time with the formidable force that is CNN.”

Newspaper office

Remember the TV show “The Office?” Of course you do. It’s one of the best shows in recent memory. Well, there’s a new “Office”-type show on the way. This show, however, won’t be set at a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This mockumentary will be set at a “dying historic Midwestern newspaper” with a “publisher trying to revive it with volunteer reporters.”

Variety’s Joe Otterson reports this new iteration of “The Office” has been picked up by the streaming service Peacock. Production will begin this summer, but no premiere date has been announced. In a statement, Lisa Katz, president of NBCUniversal Entertainment, said, “It’s been more than ten years since the final episode of ‘The Office’ aired on NBC, and the acclaimed comedy series continues to gain popularity and build new generations of fans on Peacock. In partnership with Universal Television and led by the creative team of Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, this new series set in the universe of Dunder Mifflin introduces a new cast of characters in a fresh setting ripe for comedic storytelling: a daily newspaper.”

Hmm, are we sure a daily newspaper, one that’s officially described as “dying,” is ripe for comedic storytelling? Sigh.

The NFL on Netflix?

Boomer Esiason, the former NFL quarterback who has a long career in broadcasting, had this interesting nugget on his radio show on WFAN in New York on Wednesday.

He said on air, “Do not be surprised if the NFL and Netflix get in bed for a nice little Christmas Day football games.”

Esiason had plenty of caveats, saying things like, “I might be wrong,” but what he says doesn’t sound outlandish. The NFL already has games exclusively on streaming. The “Thursday Night Football” package is on Amazon Prime and Peacock was the exclusive home to a playoff game last year.

Meanwhile, Netflix has gotten into the sports world. It has several sports-themed shows, including shows on Formula 1 racing, NFL players, tennis players and golfers, and will air the July boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. It also will be the home to WWE’s “Raw” starting in 2025.

The NBA has traditionally owned Christmas Day, airing a bunch of marquee games. But now the NFL is interested in treating Christmas Day like it does Thanksgiving. Look, let’s face it, the NFL could air games at 2 in the morning on weekdays and get an audience. And streaming a game on Christmas Day makes a ton of sense if someone such as Netflix is willing to pay big bucks for the rights. NBCUniversal reportedly paid more than $100 million to air the wildcard playoff game last season.

Esiason was recently let go from CBS’s “The NFL Today” pregame show after 22 years at CBS. However, he still has plenty of NFL connections and my guess is he wouldn’t say such a thing unless he had a little intel.

Media tidbits

• The Washington Post’s Sarah Ellison and Clara Ence Morse with “How Trump’s allies amplify his Truth Social messages to the wider world.”
• The San Francisco Chronicle’s Chase DiFeliciantonio with “AI-generated news is here from S.F.-based Hoodline. What does that mean for conventional publishers?”
• Nieman Lab’s Laura Hazard Owen with “Screenshots are one big winner of Meta’s news ban in Canada.”

Hot type

• The New York Times’ Talya Minsberg with “Close Friends, Competing for Coveted Olympic Spots. Who Would Make It?”
• Outside’s Peter Frick-Wright with “The Man Who Raced to Tell the World That Mount Everest Had Been Climbed.”

More resources for journalists

• Reporting on the Rise of AI: A RAND-Poynter Masterclass
• Understand U.S. Immigration From the Border to the Heartland — Start any time.
• Get an AI ethics framework for your newsroom. Start here.
• Hiring? Post jobs on The Media Job Board — Powered by Poynter, Editor & Publisher and America’s Newspapers.

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