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Stories of interest
Wordle was already a phenomenon. The New York Times is turning it into TV.
By: Tom Jones
Poynter
Back in 2021, a Welsh software engineer named Josh Wardle released a web-based game called Wordle. The game was simple enough. Sort of like hangman, players had six chances to guess a five-letter word, using clues from each attempt to narrow down the answer.
It started out for friends and family.
It became a phenomenon.
In January 2022, The New York Times — looking to add subscribers through alternative avenues such as cooking and games — purchased Wordle for “an undisclosed price in the low seven figures.”
Since then, the game, which releases just one word a day, has only grown more popular. Millions of people play daily, perhaps 3 or 4 million. Like coffee, it’s how many must start their day. Or, like a warm glass of milk, it’s how many end their day.
Every regular player has their own system. Some start with the same word every day. Some mix it up. Users post their results online and become downright giddy, as if they hit the lottery, whenever they nail the answer on their first or even second try.
Now in 2026, the game shows no signs of fading like a fad. And it could get even bigger in 2027.
On Monday, it was announced that Wordle will become a prime-time TV gameshow on NBC, and it will be hosted by “Today” show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie. The show will be produced by Universal Television Alternative Studio in partnership with the Times and the production company run by “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon.
Read more here.
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René Cárdenas, pioneer in Spanish-language broadcasts of MLB games, dies at 96
By The Associated Press
René Cárdenas, the first Spanish-language broadcaster for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers during a 60-year career, has died. He was 96.
The Astros said Monday that Cárdenas died Sunday at his home in Houston.
Cárdenas joined the Dodgers when they moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn in 1958. He was part of the first Spanish broadcast of the World Series in 1959 and the All-Star Game two years later.
“We mourn the passing of René Cárdenas, who in 1958 with the Dodgers became the first full-time Spanish-language broadcaster in MLB history and would ultimately spend 21 years behind the mic for Los Angeles,” the Dodgers said Sunday in a social media post.
The expansion Houston Colt .45s hired Cárdenas in 1961 for their inaugural season of 1962. He spent 14 seasons with a franchise that was renamed the Astros in 1965, when they moved into the Astrodome.
Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac.
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Man charged in White House correspondents’ dinner attack pleads not guilty
By The Associated Press
Watch video here. Shared by Doug Pizac.
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An FCC Commissioner Tells Disney the Agency Is on a Campaign to Censor It
By Joe Flint
The Wall Street Journal
ABC has been a victim of a “sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control” by the Trump administration, Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez told Josh D’Amaro, chief executive of Disney, the network’s parent company.
The FCC under Republican Chairman Brendan Carr has been weaponized to pressure “a free and independent press and all media into submission,” Gomez wrote in a letter sent to D’Amaro on Monday and viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The lone Democratic commissioner, Gomez has been an outspoken critic of many of Carr’s actions, which she has alleged are aimed at pressuring broadcasters for political purposes.
The letter to D’Amaro comes in the wake of several investigations into Disney and ABC initiated by Carr’s FCC, including whether the talk show “The View” should continue to be granted certain exemptions as a news program.
Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac.
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Byron Allen to Buy a Controlling Stake in BuzzFeed
By Benjamin Mullin
The New York Times
Byron Allen, the comedian turned entrepreneur, is buying a controlling stake in BuzzFeed, the digital media company that pioneered virality on the internet.
Allen Family Digital, a company associated with Mr. Allen, will pay $120 million for a 52 percent stake in BuzzFeed, the companies said on Monday. Mr. Allen will become chief executive and chairman of BuzzFeed, replacing Jonah Peretti, the company’s founder, who will become president of artificial intelligence.
Mr. Allen, 65, will remain chief executive of Allen Media Group, a news and entertainment company that owns local TV stations, the Weather Channel and a TV production arm. Allen Media Group produces “Comics Unleashed,” which will replace Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” on CBS at the end of the month.
Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac.
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Trump taps embattled media czar Kari Lake as ambassador to Jamaica
By Scott Nover
The Washington Post
Kari Lake, the embattled Trump administration official tasked with dismantling the government’s global media outlets, has been nominated as the next U.S. ambassador to Jamaica, according to a list of nominations the White House sent to the U.S. Senate on Monday.
Lake, the Arizona Republican who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate and governor in that state, joined President Donald Trump’s second administration as the top official in charge of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The little-known government agency oversees Voice of America, founded in 1942 to produce independent news to combat Nazi propaganda.
But Lake never was able to run the agency: Instead, she was instructed to tear it down.
Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac.
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Trump’s Complaints About Iran War Leaks Prompt Aggressive DOJ Investigations
By Sadie Gurman, Josh Dawsey and Aruna Viswanatha
The Wall Street Journal
President Trump privately complained to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about media leaks in the wake of the Iran war last month, according to administration officials familiar with the matter, prompting an aggressive push at the Justice Department to pursue those investigations.
Blanche vowed to secure subpoenas specifically targeting the records of reporters who have worked on sensitive national security stories, one official said. In one meeting, Trump passed a stack of news articles he and other senior officials thought threatened national security to Blanche with a sticky note on it that said “treason,” another administration official said. Senior Justice Department officials have met with counterparts from the Pentagon to discuss the investigations, according to officials familiar with the meetings.
In particular, Trump has focused his ire on articles that provided details on how he arrived at his decision to launch the war, and what his advisers had told him as he deliberated, officials said. Launched 10 weeks ago, the conflict is now stuck in a shaky cease-fire.
Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac.
The Final Word
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