Penske Media files first major US lawsuit against Google over AI Overviews Accuses Google of diverting web traffic and reducing publisher revenues Growing regulatory scrutiny delays Google’s move to default ‘AI Mode’ in search engines Penske Media Corporation, publisher of Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety, has become the first major US media company to take Google to court over its AI-powered search feature, AI Overviews. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that Google is unlawfully using Penske’s journalism to generate AI summaries that keep users on its search page, diverting traffic and cutting into advertising and…

Puck, founded by Jon Kelly, is nearing acquisition of Air Mail, established by Graydon Carter The merger aims to combine Puck’s scoop-driven newsletters with Air Mail’s culture-focused weekly Industry trend towards consolidation signals evolving strategies in niche subscription media Puck and Air Mail, two digital newsletter companies with roots in Vanity Fair and overlapping backers, are close to finalising a merger, according to multiple reports. The deal would bring together Puck, launched in 2021 by former Vanity Fair editor Jon Kelly, and Air Mail, founded in 2019 by Graydon Carter after his storied tenure as Vanity Fair’s editor-in-chief. Both outlets…

AI enhances newsroom efficiency, quality, and speed, with notable operational benefits Global case studies highlight success in personalisation, ad optimisation, and investigative research Growing legal and ethical concerns around AI training data and impact on subscription models Artificial intelligence is moving from pilots to practical use in newsrooms, improving efficiency, quality and speed, but revenue impacts remain limited, according to WAN-IFRA’s new report Where publishers are seeing AI’s real value – so far. From a Q2 2025 survey of more than 100 media leaders and ten case studies, WAN-IFRA found just 9% of publishers could tie AI directly to revenue…

Axios to launch a five-episode series The Axios Show this month The series marks Axios’s return to video after its Emmy-winning HBO collaboration ended in 2021 Focuses on concise, on-demand conversations across politics, business, and culture Axios will relaunch its video ambitions in September with The Axios Show, a five-episode interview series distributed across its website, YouTube and X. The move marks the outlet’s return to video four years after the end of Axios on HBO, the Emmy-winning program that ran for 57 episodes. The original HBO collaboration helped put Axios on the map, with half-hour documentaries and insider interviews…

AI could change how audiences find and define news, shifting away from traditional stories Publishers may need new standards and business models for AI-centric content distribution Risks include filter bubbles and the erosion of shared realities, but opportunities remain in reporting uniqueness The rise of generative AI could reshape not just how journalism is produced, but how audiences consume and define news itself, according to Gina Chua, executive editor of Semafor. Writing in the publication, Chua argues that while much of the industry debate has focused on whether AI threatens jobs or ethics in reporting, the bigger question is how…

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to cease its print edition in new year The move aims to prioritise digital subscriptions and innovation The industry-wide shift reflects changing audience habits and technological advances The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will publish its last print edition on December 31, closing a chapter that began in 1868 as it moves all resources into digital publishing. Publisher Andrew Morse, who joined in 2023, told The New York Times, which broke the story, that the decision was overdue. “Printing newspapers and putting them in trucks and delivering them on people’s front stoops has not been the most effective way to…

ChatGPT-5’s increased token usage raises costs for publishers Different models needed for various publishing tasks Speed and efficiency now key to successful AI integration in media When ChatGPT-5 launched, I was ready to double down on my loyalty to OpenAI. Tokens looked cheaper on paper, and, as a publisher-facing tech business, NoahWire consumes AI at scale to create, curate and distribute content. Every improvement in the models means an improvement in what we can deliver. But within weeks that optimism turned into hard questions about cost, speed and reliability. On launch day, Sam Altman, OpenAI’s ceo, proudly said API…

Google’s AI Overviews have slashed click‑throughs, accelerating a summer collapse in referral traffic Publishers’ blanket bot blocks (often via Cloudflare) have severed backend discovery, sometimes wiping out sites overnight Pay per crawl offers pennies back — the real solution is nuanced: protect against abuse but keep routes open and build direct audiences This summer’s plunge in news traffic was not just about Google’s AI Overviews redefining how people find information. It was a perfect storm: Google cutting clicks at the front end, and publishers, through Cloudflare’s default bot blocking, cutting off the back-end pathways that help stories “grow legs”.…

WAN-IFRA appoints JP/Politiken CEO Stig Ørskov as chief executive from early 2026 Vincent Peyrègne, CEO since 2012, will stay on as senior strategic advisor New leadership expected to push innovation, collaboration and press freedom advocacy WAN-IFRA has appointed Stig Ørskov as its next chief executive, succeeding Vincent Peyrègne, who is stepping down after more than a decade leading the global association of news publishers. Ørskov, currently CEO of JP/Politiken Media Group in Denmark and vice-president of WAN-IFRA, will take over in early 2026. Peyrègne, who became CEO in 2012, is credited with stabilising WAN-IFRA’s finances, expanding its membership base and…

The adult and gambling sectors treat retention as an immediate, data-driven priority Apply rapid personalisation, habit-forming onboarding and agile pricing to convert early engagement into long-term loyalty Use moment-based offers, constant novelty and community features to make leaving feel like losing more than just content Back in the 1990s, when working with The Economist, I deployed an online order rescue system from a software provider based in Amsterdam. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, but the technology had interesting origins: it had originally been developed for adult sites. The software opened a new web window with a final…