Post by journalist.net | The News Professionals

Three rooms changed hands or shrank in a week, and the decisions came from outside the rooms. On Thursday, Bari Weiss named Nick Bilton as the fifth executive producer in 60 Minutes' 58-year history. Bilton, a Vanity Fair correspondent and Netflix documentary maker, has no broadcast-news background. Tanya Simon, a 25-year veteran, was out the same day. Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi followed across the weekend. Bilton told staff he was there "to lead this show, not preserve it under glass." In Milan the same Thursday, the Angelucci family removed Mario Sechi from the direction of Libero Quotidiano. Sechi was, at the moment of dismissal, under armed police protection over death threats tied to his editorials. Alessandro Sallusti was named director the same day. Open's sources framed the move as a commercial decision on print sales. Sechi framed it as political. And in Offenburg this morning, Hubert Burda Media told staff that around 300 print-side jobs will go in a single cut. Burda Studios closes entirely. Focus magazine, once Der Spiegel's main weekly rival, is now selling 16,000 single copies a quarter. Three countries, three proprietors, three different reasons offered. The connecting thread is the locus of decision. At none of these three institutions did the editorial floor have meaningful say in what the room would become.