Ben Mullin

Today's my first day as a media reporter for @nytimes! Send me scoops! My email is [email protected], and you can message me on Signal confidentially at 530-961-3223.

News: @CapehartJ, the Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion columnist, has taken a buyout at @washingtonpost after 18 years with the paper - He'll continue to co-host "The Weekend" on @MSNBC and as a political analyst at @NewsHour

scoop: @jyarow and @Colarusso42 are leaving CNBC as part of an editorial shakeup ahead of the Comcast/Versant spin. David Cho, most recently the top editor of Barron's, is joining as editor-in-chief, according to a staff memo.

Fortune CEO Anastasia Nyrkovskaya, who has been in the role since April, announced a 10% staff cut today, blaming AI, declining web traffic and the growing popularity of audio and video

Some 78 public radio organizations and 37 TV organizations are at risk of going dark as a result of the cuts Trump pushed through Congress, from major cities to far-flung towns like Unalakleet, Alaska, and Pendleton, Ore. @elenalingshao @BenMullin nytimes.com/interactive/20…

NEW: In the full defamation complaint against the Wall Street Journal that was just filed over yesterday's Epstein article, President Trump asks for damages "not to be less than $10 billion dollars"

News about TV news in tonight's @PuckNews What I'm Hearing: David Ellison is negotiating with another David to run CBS News if/when the Paramount deal closes. Details ⬇️⬇️ puck.news/was-colberts-c…

NPR's chief executive, Katherine Maher, calls tonight's vote "unwarranted dismantling of beloved local civic institutions." Her statement:

New: I teamed up with @elenalingshao and @nytgraphics to map more than 100 public TV and radio stations that are at risk of closing as a result of tonight's vote: nytimes.com/interactive/20… This is a time bomb that will go off in the fall, when the last federal grants run out.

NOW: House is voting on final passage of the $9 billion immediate spending cuts or "rescissions" bill. In this are: - $1.1 b in cuts to public broadcasting, totally eliminating planned federal funding for two years. - $7.9 b in cuts to foreign aid. If passed, goes to POTUS.

OK, this was cool. I talked to Terry Gross @nprfreshair about the legacy & future of Condé Nast. npr.org/2025/07/17/nx-… via @SimonBooks

I am so proud of my brave, brilliant colleagues @khadeeja_safdar and @joe_palazzolo, proud to live in a country where the founders put freedom of speech in the very first amendment, and proud to work at The Wall Street Journal. wsj.com/politics/trump… via @WSJ

Uri Berliner, who wrote an essay last year accusing NPR of liberal bias, says that the senate's vote to claw back funding for public media is the network's "independence day." "My hope is that this will be a wake-up call, returning NPR to its roots where a curious spirit…

Happy to report that @charlottetklein & I indulged in some Condé nostalgia and got @NYMag to pay for lunch at the old Four Seasons.

Wow. This answer to your Q re: mission as defense—> “The divisive culture that no longer values inclusion & diversity, for one. Facts & science are ignored, and topics like the warming climate are not acceptable to talk about. They think of that as having a leftist orientation.”

New: I spoke with Bill Siemering, who co-founded NPR a half-century ago, on what might be lost if public radio gets defunded nytimes.com/2025/07/16/bus…

.@nytimes CEO Meredith Kopit Levien being interviewed by @AcquiredFM at Radio City Music Hall, pushes back on a Q about newsroom bias against tech: “Many of the big tech companies that shape the information ecosystem have the power and influence to drive profound change in…