Mediagazer: Spotify expands its video offerings, unveils slate of 12 original series which will be available to both free and paid users in US, UK, Germany, and Sweden (Lucas Shaw/Bloomberg)

8:00 PM ET, May 9, 2016

Top News:

Michael Nunez / Gizmodo:

Ex-Facebook news curators describe suppressing conservative news, being instructed to include non-trending stories, removing news about Facebook itself — Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network's influential “trending” …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Washington Post, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, @ggreenwald, Business Insider, @zeynep, The Hill, @fmanjoo, @americanmcgee, @king_kaufman, @wikigrimoire, Guardian, @fmanjoo, @joshconstine, The Daily Caller, TIME, Fortune, Pressthink, BGR, Variety, The Mary Sue, Scripting News, @gizmodo, Newser, @lpolgreen, @cameronmillz, USA Today, Quartz, Fox News, @troywolv, @niemanlab, AOL, @sarahcuda, RedState, The Next Web, @hadas_gold, @tminsberg, @aurosan, @laurahazardowen, Vanity Fair, Hit & Run, Forbes, @maura, @kevinmdraper, @rubinreport, Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine, Media Nation, @byronyork, @cernovich, The Wrap, The Resurgent, Boing Boing, @alecmacgillis, Re/code, @dabearsk, @rasmus_kleis, @_jordan, @kerpen, @ryanchittum, @jason_pontin, @michaelbd, @oliverdarcy, Mediaite, @brindelle, @juliacarriew, @rudepundit, FishbowlNY, @adrianchen, @samsteinhp, @seanmdav, @attackerman, The Week, @mckaycoppins, @timkmak, @dkthomp, @bubbaprog, @jasonabbruzzese, @pkafka, @agolis, @buzzfeedben, @sethamandel and @felixsalmon

Nick Statt / The Verge:

Facebook says it has “rigorous guidelines” in place to protect neutrality and consistency of its Trending Topics section, in response to Gizmodo report — Facebook has responded to allegations in a Gizmodo report that its contract news curators actively censored stories …

Discussion: Mediaite, @o_ema, @mathewi, @holmesdm, @ellenhuet, @gaberivera, Business Insider, Social Media Collective, The Hill and The Daily Caller

Leon H. Wolf / RedState:
Right-leaning advocacy site RedState, named as a site avoided by Facebook's human curators, says it has not seen instances of its content being suppressed

Discussion: Mediaite, Mashable, The Daily Caller and Fortune

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

Sources: To combat ad-blockers, Google said to be exploring an ‘acceptable’ ads policy — Google is reportedly jumping deeper into the ad blocking issue by exploring an acceptable ads policy, publisher and industry sources say. — Google, together with Facebook, controlled 64 percent of the digital ad market last year.

Discussion: MinOnline, Techdirt, The Wrap and @digiday

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Till Faida, CEO of Eyeo, maker of AdBlock Plus, says it's close to 1B downloads and is installed on over 100M active devices — Ad blocking software's usage on the web, and now mobile, has forced the media and publishing industry to look to new revenue models.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Adblock Plus and …, ZDNet and Fast Company

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:

Spotify expands its video offerings, unveils slate of 12 original series which will be available to both free and paid users in US, UK, Germany, and Sweden — Russell Simmons, Tim Robbins to produce programs for Spotify — Videos will help Spotify compete with YouTube, Apple

Discussion: TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, Fast Company, Variety, Reuters, The Next Web, Fortune, Polygon, AppleInsider, GeekWire, Tubefilter, Quartz, MacRumors, RAIN News, The Verge, AOL, iMore, @aaronrutkoff, @mattbraga and @thestalwart

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Google News gets new Local Source tag to highlight local coverage of major news stories — Google has today announced plans to shine a light on local news reporting with the introduction of a new Local Source tag in Google News. — The Internet giant has long appended articles in Google News …

Discussion: Google News Blog, Search Engine Land, @walldo, Mashable and Engadget

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

Founders of Philadelphia's Billy Penn to launch a site in Pittsburgh by end of summer, using recent Gannett investment — The founders of Billy Penn, a local news startup in Philadelphia, are launching a second site in Pennsylvania's second biggest city, Pittsburgh.

Meg James / Los Angeles Times:

Judge dismisses mental competency lawsuit brought against Viacom's controlling shareholder, Sumner Redstone, by ex-girlfriend — A Los Angeles judge has dismissed a salacious lawsuit that challenged the mental competence of Sumner Redstone and provided a rare window into the rivalries …

Discussion: New York Times, The Wrap, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Wrap, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, Variety, Broadcasting & Cable, Fortune and CNBC

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Journalist Julia Ioffe files police complaint following anti-semitic abuse from Trump supporters, alleged offense listed as threat to kidnap or injure a person — Julia Ioffe has filed a report with the D.C. police department over the anti-Semitic threats that she received …

Discussion: FishbowlDC and AOL

Irving Azoff / Recode:

Artist manager Irving Azoff writes open letter to YouTube, criticising Google for not letting artists opt out of it, says company hides behind safe harbor law — “You have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn't work well for artists," says the legendary artists' manager.

Discussion: Fast Company, Mashable, RAIN News, Fortune, The Wrap, @alec_empire, @terrencehart, hypebot and @pakman

A.J. Katz / TVNewser:

Fusion partners with The Young Turks to launch a weekly, one hour show this fall covering election — Road trip! — Millennial-focused cable channel Fusion announced today it's launching a weekly, one-hour show this fall in tandem with online news series The Young Turks, founded by former MSNBC and Current TV host Cenk Uygur.

Discussion: The Wrap, Variety and FishbowlDC

Steven Erlanger / New York Times:

The BBC, with annual income of over $7B, faces intense budget pressure as UK government prepares plans for its new charter — LONDON — The British Broadcasting Corporation is variously seen as a crown jewel of British culture, a producer of refined entertainment and reliable news coverage …

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 8:00 PM ET, May 9, 2016.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Energy & Commodities Editor, Tokyo — Bloomberg

Politics Reporter, TX — Texas Tribune

Consumer Brands Reporter, GA — AJC

Deputy Editor - Health Care, VA — Politico

Product Editor, CA — CalMatters

Indigenous Affairs Editor, Sydney — Guardian US

China Markets Correspondent, Shanghai — Reuters

Bangor Reporter, ME — Bangor Daily News

Commerce Editor - Health, Remote US — Yahoo

Sports Editor, MI — Detroit News

Deputy Politics Editor, CA — Sacramento Bee

Alphaville Reporter, London — FT

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

Ricardo Bilton / Nieman Lab:
Q&A with Sam Dolnick, editor in charge of VR content at NYT, about its in-house projects, returning users, and the challenges of the medium

Ricardo Bilton / Nieman Lab:
In Latin America, a digital community of media startups hopes to make entrepreneurship easier

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:
Q&A with Investopedia Vice President Caleb Silver on emphasizing news, using data to determine coverage, and where traffic comes from

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Fullscreen Reorganizes Into 3 Divisions, Changes Name to Fullscreen Media

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and The Wrap

Jeremy Barr / Ad Age:
SEC filing: Time Inc paid $87M to acquire certain assets of Viant, parent company of MySpace

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
A year in at Vox, Recode looks at its future: Video, distributed content, more podcasts, and no /

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Re/code, Politico, Media Wire Daily, @shansquared, @alexweprin and @jeremymbarr

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
Tribune adopts shareholder rights plan, known as a “poison pill”, to foil any hostile takeover attempts by Gannett

Discussion: Poynter, Editor & Publisher, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press

Earlier Picks:

Lucinda Southern / Digiday:
The Sunday Times now lets subscribers share stories with non-subscribers on Facebook and Twitter, and is posting occasional stories outside paywall

Discussion: @digiday

Shan Wang / Nieman Lab:
Die Welt measures story quality for newsroom feedback using five criteria: bounce rate, pageviews, social shares, time spent on page and video views

BBC:
BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and team expelled from North Korea

Discussion: New York Times, The Huffington Post, Telegraph, The Week, Fortune, AOL, Deadline, CNN, TheJournal.ie, Newser, Al Jazeera English, International Business Times, @facklernyt, @passantino, @gadyepstein, Telegraph, The Telegraph and Reuters

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
GroundTruth, a Boston-based non-profit, which aims to train and support foreign correspondents, tries to plug gap in foreign reporting through podcasting

Discussion: @torystarr3

Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:
Source: Magna Global shifts $250M from its clients' TV ad budgets to spend on YouTube between October 2016 and December 2017

Discussion: Digiday

Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:
Business news streaming startup Cheddar launching premium $6.99/mo service powered by Vimeo

Discussion: Vanity Fair, Media Wire Daily, @conorsen, @myurow, @shaliniwsj and Talking Biz News

From Techmeme:

Megan Farokhmanesh / Wired:
Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser says the company is “actively assessing” the impact of US tariffs, which “weren't factored into” its Switch 2 pricing

Logan Plant / IGN:
Q&A with Nintendo of America VP of Product Bill Trinen on pricing first-party games like Mario Kart World at $80, Joy-Con 2 and using it as a mouse, and more

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Meta VP of generative AI Ahmad Al-Dahle denies a rumor that the company trained its Llama 4 models on test sets, saying Meta “would never do that”

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page