France saw the launch of a new Sunday paper last weekend. La Tribune Dimanche is the first major print newspaper launched in the country in the last decade. As The Guardian reports, the paper is a “reinvention” of La Tribune, a popular financial newspaper that went fully digital three years ago.

As The Guardian’s Angelique Chrisafis writes, “the launch of the paper, a mix of news, regional reporting, culture and lifestyle content, flies in the face of declining print sales across Europe and France’s shrinking press distribution network”.

The new outlet could attract readers of Journal du Dimanche, the other major Sunday newspaper that was upended in recent months after it had been purchased by conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré (though La Tribune Dimanche’s president noted in an interview with The Guardian that the launch has been a long-term project and hasn’t aimed to chip away from any other paper’s readership).

The Washington Post will cut about 240 jobs across the organisation in the wake of “overly optimistic” projections of traffic and revenue growth. The publisher’s interim CEO Patty Stonesifer noted in an email update to employees that the company hopes to avoid layoffs and achieve the cuts with voluntary buyouts.

Overall the publisher has 2,600 employees, including 1,000 workers in the newsroom, The New York Times writes, noting that it’s yet unclear how many newsroom jobs will be cut. Stonesifer is leading the organisation, which is owned by billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, while the search for a permanent CEO is underway.

The Washington Post has struggled financially in the past few years – after a peak during the Trump administration, when the outlet was an essential source of political reporting, the number of paid subscribers declined from 3 million to 2.5 million, while some of its major peers like The New York Times have seen steady growth.

Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal detained in Russia, lost his appeal against the decision to extend his pre-trial detention. He remains in jail in Moscow, marking over half a year since the time he was detained under bogus espionage charges while reporting in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Gershkovich, who is a US citizen and was designated as “wrongfully detained” by the American government, has been the first American journalist detained in Russia under spying allegations since the Cold War.

While there’s a healthy chance that he will eventually be released as part of a prisoner exchange between the US and Russia, his immediate fate remains unclear. As AP notes, Russian authorities said they would consider a prisoner swap only after a verdict in his trial, and “in Russia, espionage trials can last for more than a year”.

Source of the cover photo: https://www.flickr.com

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Newspaper launch in France, The Washington Post’s job cuts – weekly news digest