Top News:
Quartz:
Facebook letting go of entire Trending Topics editorial staff, consisting of 15-18 workers contracted through a third party — Facebook will no longer employ humans to write descriptions for items in its Trending section, which attracted controversy over allegations of political bias in May.
Discussion:
@kyletblaine, Gizmodo, Washington Post, FishbowlNY, @hadas_gold, Fortune, Vanity Fair, @edsu, @culturejedi, MediaFile, @ronellsmith, @diakayyali, @pkafka, @alexjamesfitz, @naaceceo, @marshallk, Recode, Refinery29, @nathanjurgenson, @mcwm, The Verge, @charlesarthur, TechCrunch, @caseynewton, The Drum, Facebook Newsroom, Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, The Wrap, GeekWire, Business Insider, @goc9000, CNET, @emptywheel, @marginoferror, SocialTimes, @caitlin__kelly, @_alastair, ZDNet, fox13now.com, @zeynep, @zeynep, @glennf and @michaelroston
RELATED:
Ken Meyer / Mediaite:
Facebook's Trending News section features fake story about Megyn Kelly being fired, is shared thousands of times before finally being removed — Facebook has taken a story off its “Trending News” section after it was discovered to be a fake piece about Megyn Kelly being fired from Fox News.
Discussion:
Daily Mail, Business Insider, Engadget, Vanity Fair and The Verge
Derek Thompson / The Atlantic:
The average age of a Fox News viewer is about 70, meaning the network is relying on a disappearing demographic; unclear if younger audiences will replace them — October 7, 2016, will be the 20th birthday of the Fox News Channel, and at the moment, the network is experiencing the soap-operatic highs …
Discussion:
@petbugs13 and @gruber
RELATED:
Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:
Sources leak 400-page “oppo” file shared inside Fox News in 2012 on Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman, with details on property records and voter registration
Sources leak 400-page “oppo” file shared inside Fox News in 2012 on Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman, with details on property records and voter registration
Discussion:
TVNewser, MediaFile, @connieschultz, The Wrap, @philiprucker, @juliaioffe, @themurdochtimes and Mediaite
Brian Feldman / New York Magazine:
To serve advertisers, digital media companies are shifting away from text and pictures toward video, a hard move for small web properties with few resources — It's been a big, weird year for the media industry. Gawker, the pioneering blog, declared bankruptcy and was sold off to Univision …
Discussion:
Business Insider, @phil_rosenthal, @dkthomp, @simonmarksfsn, @jaycaspiankang, @medium, @maxrivlinnadler, @noahchestnut, @mariekshan and @lauraelizdavis
RELATED:
Michael Wolff / USA Today:
As Google and Facebook dominate advertising, the digital media market is likely to shrink and consolidate; strategies up until now have all been untested bets — Not too long ago, a senior figure at BuzzFeed told me at a private lunch that although BuzzFeed was going strong, everybody else in digital media was screwed.
Discussion:
@ned_newhouse, @owengood, @chrisseper, @sarahkendzior, @brianstelter and @niemanlab
Alex Koppelman / CNNMoney:
AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll defends the news wire's story about meetings Clinton took as secretary of state, says tweet was “sloppy” — Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll is defending her organization's controversial investigation into meetings Hillary Clinton took …
Discussion:
BuzzMachine, The Huffington Post, @brianstelter, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, @apdiplowriter, Media Matters for America, @raju, @eshap, @jayrosen_nyu, @johnmcquaid, @jayrosen_nyu, @denngree, @bobbymacreports, @lauraelizdavis, @taylorpopielarz, @johnmcquaid, @jeffjarvis, @mattyglesias, @chanders, @chanders, @jeffjarvis and Vanity Fair
Neil MacFarquhar / New York Times:
Russia increases the flow of false news stories spread in EU and US on social media and outlets like Sputnik, sometimes spilling into traditional news media — STOCKHOLM — With a vigorous national debate underway on whether Sweden should enter a military partnership with NATO …
Discussion:
@alinasphere, @samtamiz, @stephwillerton, @anneapplebaum, @jimhake, @politechris, @empireburlesque and @mspaaz
Roger Yu / USA Today:
Q&A with Time Inc. chief content officer Alan Murray on growing digital revenue, building audiences across platforms, and breaking down silos across brands — Alan Murray has been a journalist since he was a 9-year-old kid, publishing his neighborhood newspaper.
Discussion:
FishbowlNY and @jamcnn
Trevor Timm / Freedom of the Press Foundation:
Questions for those cheering the demise of a media organization at the hands of a legal system — Gawker.com, the pioneering and controversial media blog, officially died yesterday. It was killed by billionaire Peter Thiel in his successful quest to bankrupt Gawker Media Group through …
Discussion:
Guardian, New Republic, @gaberivera, @trevortimm, @bradwilson, @nixxin, @mims, @zackbogue, @mmasnick and Magforum
Ingrid Cobben / WAN-IFRA:
Q&A with editor-in-chief Lea Korsgaard of Denmark's Zetland on building a reader-funded publication — In order to succeed in the new media market, you have to rethink the relationship between journalists and readers, according to Danish publication Zetland, which is well on the way to building …
Discussion:
@orskov
Jon Talton / Rogue Columnist:
A look back at the importance of newspapers and their buildings amid a wave of demolitions — Apparently, most Americans learned about the death spiral of metropolitan newspapers and the consequences from watching John Oliver. Then they went back to kitten videos on social media.
Discussion:
@jontalton and @marynewsom
Oliver Darcy / Business Insider:
The dominance of Drudge, Breitbart, Hannity, and Coulter and their Trump support have damaged Republican party, other conservative media figures say — Sean Hannity, sitting comfortably in his air-conditioned New York studios on a hot August afternoon, was on a fiery rant.
RELATED:
Michael Wolff / Hollywood Reporter:
Univision's $135M Gawker buy is a desperate play for millennials to build toward a face-saving IPO — The Spanish-language broadcaster's flawed strategy to chase bilingual young audiences with the doomed Fusion TV network has given way to a new obsession with English-only sites like The Onion …
Discussion:
@profjeffjarviss, @johncassidy, @rafat and @michaelwolffnyc