People 5/7

Former NYT opinion columnist Pamela Paul will join the Wall Street Journal as a “senior special writer” reporting to editor Mike Miller, the NYT’s Ben Mullin reports.

Owner of music retailer HMV UK Doug Putman will launch a publishing company with managing director Pete Selby. The first imprint, New Modern, will publish music and pop culture books starting in August 2025. It plans to publish six titles in 2025 and 12-15 per year after that. Sales and distribution will be handled by Simon & Schuster.

In a social media post, MWA apologized for using AI-generated animations of Humphrey Bogart and Edgar Allan Poe in a video shown at the Edgar awards ceremony on May 1. “Such use is inconsistent with our otherwise staunch support of members’ fight against unauthorized use and potential for piracy of their work through AI,” they write. “We apologize and have taken steps to assure this won’t occur in the future.”

Further to our reporting on Monday, n+1 posted the full letter from NEA literary arts employees who will leave the agency at the end of the month.