Mindgruve, a San Diego marketing and data technology agency, has announced the appointment of Spencer Lian-Thornton as VP of growth and partnerships.
A Mindgruve statement said Lian-Thornton will play a key role in accelerating Mindgruve’s growth, deepening enterprise partnerships and advancing the agency’s leadership in retail media and commerce-driven marketing.
Lian-Thornton spent the past 12 years at Amazon, where he helped build and scale strategies for several of the world’s most recognizable brands, including Wrangler, Hanes, New Balance and The Children’s Place. His experience spans apparel, footwear and consumer brands with a focus on helping brands succeed on Amazon, along with the broader commerce landscape, said Mindgruve.
“Retail media is transforming how brands grow, and Spencer brings a rare combination of platform expertise, strategic vision, and brand stewardship,” said Chad Robley, CEO of Mindgruve. “Having spent more than a decade at Amazon during the rise of retail media, Spencer has been at the forefront of this evolution. He deeply understands how marketing, media and commerce intersect and how to help brands win in today’s retail ecosystem.”
“I’ve always believed the best marketing feels like advice from a trusted friend, and to deliver, you need a trusted agency,” said Lian-Thornton. “For nearly a decade, I had Mindgruve on my radar and recommended the agency to clients because they were early leaders in retail media, delivered real results, and built trusted partnerships, not transactional engagements. That philosophy has only become more important as retail media evolves.”
NOTUS to rebrand as ‘The Star‘
NOTUS, a Washington D.C.-based political news website that provides content to Times of San Diego, will be renamed The Star and relaunched the first week of June, announced Tim Grieve, editor in chief.
Founded in 2023, NOTUS was initially funded with a $20 million grant from the Allbritton Journalism Institute, an entity of Robert Allbritton, 92, the billionaire founder and former publisher of Politico, a left-leaning, Beltway-centric news outlet.
The NOTUS name stands for News of the United States, a play on the common abbreviation for the President of the United States, or POTUS.
The renaming is designed to appeal to a broad audience, as reported by The New York Times. Also, Allbritton’s father, Joe Allbritton, once owned The Washington Star, a daily afternoon newspaper that stopped publishing in 1981.
According to news reports, The Star is hoping to fill a void it says was left by deep newsroom cuts at the Washington Post. Earlier this year, the Post laid off more than 300 of its 800 journalists, ended most of its sports coverage and reduced its local focus.
In recent months, several former Post reporters have joined The Star, including political reporters Paul Kane and Kadia Goba, columnist Dana Milbank, sports reporter Sam Fortier and economics reporter Jeff Stein.
The Star reportedly plans to increase its coverage of Congress and the White House, along with local news and sports, with a focus on both “political Washington and `normal’ Washington, as The Post retreats on that front,” said Grieve in news reports.
The Star newsroom, which began the year with about 45 employees, is expected to double its staff to 95 total journalists by the end of the year.
NPR Asks `How To Start a Nuclear War’ and Other Existential Threats
National Public Radio (NPR) has launched a new weekly podcast with an interesting question as a title: “Are We Doomed?”
An NPR statement said the podcast will investigate the threats that haunt humanity, helping listeners separate real dangers from wildly over-hyped fears. Each episode takes on a different existential threat, whether urgent, galactic or pop-culture obsession, and what we’re actually doing about it.
The show combines narrative storytelling with interviews with scientists, historians and journalists, said NPR.
Recent titles include “Let’s Design the AI That Kills Us All” and “How to Start a Nuclear War.” Upcoming titles include “Are We Going the Way of the Roman Empire?” and “Dooms that Didn’t Happen.”
Host is Ben Bradford, a former consultant for Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization that investigates human rights abuses.
Bradford also is a former press secretary for retired Democratic Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, who spent 30 years representing Silicon Valley. He also previously covered state politics for NPR stations across California as a reporter for Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, but he did not work at KPBS in San Diego, a KPBS spokesperson said
“There are real threats facing our species,” said Bradford. “I’m fascinated by how we as individuals, a nation, and as a species prioritize them and how we’ve made it this far.”
Bradford is known his award-winning “Landslide” podcast series produced in partnership with WFAE, public radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Despite the dark subject matter, the show is lively, curious and unexpectedly hopeful,” said Daniel McCoy, NPR’s senior director of network growth. “Narrative, sound-rich podcasting has become increasingly rare. ‘Are We Doomed?’ leans into that tradition with highly produced storytelling and immersive sound design.”
Rick Griffin is a San Diego-based public relations and marketing consultant. His MarketInk column appears weekly in Times of San Diego.
