The boss at The New York Times appears to have made a subtle dig at the paper’s outgoing media columnist Ben Smith in a press release about its major acquisition of the sports media giant The Athletic.
On Thursday, the New York Times Company announced that it was buying the popular sports subscription website for $550 million, obtaining the outlet’s over 1 million subscribers. The deal is set to close in March.
However, NYT CEO Meredith Kopit Levien issued a peculiarly-worded statement when announcing the company’s takeover of The Athletic.
The New York Times Company CEO Meredith Kopit Levien.(Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images for MAKERS) ( Rachel Murray/Getty Images )
“Acquiring The Athletic puts us in a position to be a global leader in sports journalism and offer English speakers around the world another reason to turn to the Times Company to meet their daily news and life needs,” Levien stated. “The Times already provides distinctive sports coverage for a general interest audience as part of our core report. As a stand-alone product, The Athletic will enable us to offer much more — extensive coverage for fans who seek a deep connection to and understanding of their favorite teams, leagues and players.”
The dossier had reportedly been floated to other news outlets towards the end of the 2016 election, but it wasn’t until it was reported that then-President-elect Trump was briefed by then-FBI Director James Comey about the existence of the dossier that it became widely known to the public. It also played a crucial role in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.
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