Ozy COO Samir Rao Takes Leave of Absence After Impersonating Google Exec

On Sunday, New York Times’ media writer Ben Smith published a report looking into sexual harassment charges leveled against Bild, a center-right German tabloid owned by Axel Springer. In recent years, Springer has invested in and acquired various multiple American sites including Insider, Thrillist Media Group, the struggling Ozy Media, and as of this past August, Politico, which it purchased for $1 billion.

Extra," "Being alive… When I lost my dog I was so grateful that I could be with her the last several month of her life… She died in my arms… I felt guilty and grateful at the same time… People suffered actual human loss from COVID or because they couldn't get care… and how many people died alone."In summer 2020, an inferno broke out at the upstate New York home she shared with her husband, John Cusimano. The blaze was started by accident in a chimney.

apartment was wiped out by Hurricane Ida last month while her Lake Luzerne abode was burned down in a chimney fire last summer.

Rachael Ray revealed that she’s grateful just to be alive after suffering two tragedies at her New York properties roughly one year apart from one another.  In August of 2020, the celebrity TV chef, 53, revealed that her house in Lake Luzerne, New York burned down in a fire.The cause was determined to be an issue that started in her fireplace chimney that allowed flames to spread on the roof. Ray, her husband John Cusimano and their dog Bella were luckily not harmed in the fire.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSmash Mouth’s lead singer Steve Harwell is apparently retiring after a controversial concert in Upstate New York on Saturday that found him slurring his words and making vaguely threatening comments toward the audience.

New York Times wrote that Rao changed the video call to a voice conversation, and sent a new address for Google executive Alex Piper, and then altered his voice to impersonate Piper in order to vouch for Ozy’s strong YouTube presence.Robinson said that numerous people who have reached out to him to say they believed the digitally altered voice actually belonged to Watson himself.

Mónica Marie Zorrilla “The Crown” alum Claire Foy will play Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in a scripted series adaptation based on Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s New York Times bestselling book “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination.”The drama, entitled “Doomsday Machine,” hails from Anonymous Content (“Spotlight,” “Mr. Robot”) and wiip (“Mare of Easttown”), who recently closed a deal with Foy.

A New York judge is giving a Dec. 23 deadline for former President Donald Trump to be deposed in the lawsuit brought by Summer Zervos, the former contestant on The Apprentice.

NEW YORK -- The CEO of Ozy Media on Monday called the company's announcement last week that it was shutting down “premature” and that after meeting with advertisers and other partners that it would continue to operate.“We have something special here,” Carlos Watson told CNBC on Monday morning.The board of directors of Ozy emailed a statement Friday saying the company was ceasing operations less than a week after a New York Times column raised questions about the media organization’s claims of

less than a week since The New York Times piece, the digital media company that raised a reported $83 million since 2012 is being abandoned by employees, senior executives and investors, including respected TV journalist and producer Katty Kay, investors Laurene Powell Jobs, Ron Conway and Marc Lasry, who resigned this week as chairman of the board just weeks after joining.Ozy billed itself as a modern media venture that was “ahead of the curve.” This week it has faced a daily onslaught of

Embattled digital media company Ozy Media said it will shut down, just days after a New York Times column exposed a range of dubious and even potentially criminal behavior by its executives.

The heat on Ozy Media has been turned up a notch after its chairman, Marc Lasry, decided to step down from the digital company.

One Day Immersion, a student career development program focused on the media and entertainment business, said its fall event will emphasize diversity, equity and inclusion as its central theme.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeFormer BBC News anchor and correspondent Katty Kay, who had just joined Ozy Media in late June, has announced her exit following the recent controversy swirling around revelations of the digital company’s practices.“Yesterday morning I handed in my resignation to Ozy Media,” Kay wrote on Twitter.

said in a statement posted to Twitter just after appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier in the day to talk about former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham’s forthcoming tell-all. “I had recently joined the company after my long career at the BBC, excited to explore opportunities in the digital space.

After three years as the Executive Director and Co-Head of the Toronto International Film Festival, Joana Vicente is heading to the Sundance Institute as their new CEO. She will start her new job at the beginning of November, splitting her time between Sundance’s office in New York, Los Angeles and Park City, UT.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeA day after a New York Times article revealed that Ozy Media chief operating officer Samir Rao impersonated a YouTube executive on a call with potential Goldman Sachs investors, the company has announced that the exec will take a leave of absence.Also as part of the news, Ozy’s board of directors has hired a law firm to review the company’s practices.