“Am I invited to your BBQ this weekend?” Joe Kahn and Ben Smith on stage at Semafor’s Innovating to Restore Trust in News: A National Summit, February 27, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Shannon Finney/Getty Images for Semafor)
Welcome to the latest edition of Breaker. If this email has been forwarded, you can subscribe here and send your questions and complaints here. If you have a tip contact the 24/7 Breaker Tip Hotline via text or Signal # 551 655 2343. Anonymity guaranteed!
In tonight’s bumper edition, we reveal the frontrunners for a series of top jobs at The New York Times. Meantime, The New York Post’s choice of editor to lead its new California Post has raised eyebrows with L.A.-based journalists.
Also tonight, The Wall Street Journal’s extraordinary “Epstein-bump” in traffic following its bombshell Trump story. Plus, an update to our scooplet last month about Puck writer, Bill Cohan, and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.
Finally, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie is back with ‘Hamish’s Hot Sauce’ – his weekly thoughts on the media landscape. Tonight, his take on ESPN’s decision to sign influencer Katie Feeney.
Mentioned tonight: David Zaslav, Leon Black, Robert Thomson, Emma Tucker, Khadeeja Safdar, Joe Palazzolo, Evan Gershkovich, Keith Poole, Nick Papps, Steve Hilton, Aaron Ross Sorkin, David Leonhardt, A.G. Sulzberger, Jon Kelly, Sia Michel, Stella Bugbee, Celia Dugger, Bill McDonald, Adam Bernstein, Nestor Ramos, Felice Belman, Mohammed Hadi, Nikita Stewart, David M. Halbfinger, Michael Cooper, Joe Kahn, Carolyn Ryan, Marc Lacey and more.
The Gray Lady’s Glow Up
(Exclusive.) Last week, we brought you the news about several plum editor roles up for grabs at The New York Times.
Politics, Metro, Health and Science, The Upshot, and Obituaries all have staffers jockeying for position after their current editors made the decision to either step aside from their roles or retire. (Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Dealbook is also still searching for an editor).
Executive Editor Joe Kahn and his deputies, Carolyn Ryan and Marc Lacey, are evaluating the oversupply of talent that they have been grooming.
Politics editor, David M. Halbfinger's decision to step aside didn’t come as a shock to a number of Times staffers we’ve spoken to in the last week.
It’s still unclear what Halbfinger, a former Jerusalem correspondent, will do next (we called him, but we seemed to have gotten disconnected), but the name that has emerged as a front-runner to replace him is…
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