Top News:
Mike Klein / Sunlight Foundation Blog:
Sunlight Foundation exploring merger or alliances with other organizations, will discontinue tool building and database maintenance, will retire OpenCongress — The board of directors of the Sunlight Foundation has reached some important conclusions about our future.
Discussion:
@derekwillis, Fast Company, @digiphile, @b_fung, @digiphile, @jgreendc, @dangillmor, @zfurnas, @digiphile and @raju
RELATED:
Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
Source: Sunlight Foundation will lay off about five staffers out of about 20, a major drop from a staff count of about 40 in early 2014 — The Sunlight Foundation, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting transparency in government, will lay off five staffers in the coming weeks …
Discussion:
@eads, @emptywheel and @digiphile
Matthew Weaver / Guardian:
Editor of Norway's Aftenposten Espen Egil Hansen challenges Mark Zuckerberg to discuss Facebook's control of news and content — Head of Aftenposten, which forced backdown over ‘napalm girl’ photo, accuses Facebook founder of hiding from debate — The Norwegian editor who successfully took …
RELATED:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook's Trending Topics appears to ignore shooting death of Terence Crutcher by police in Tulsa, Okla. — Facebook says 53,000 people are talking about Terence Crutcher's death by police, but instead it's showing me Trends about Xbox, a Game Of Thrones actor, and New Jersey's governor, even though they all have less chatter.
Discussion:
Fusion, @tayhatmaker, @web, @joshconstine and @joshconstine
Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
Snowden may have broken the law but it was to serve his country, publicizing mass surveillance measures, some of which were illegal - he deserves a pardon — President Obama's administration has an unfortunate record of prosecuting whistleblowers, some of whom have been important sources for journalists.
Discussion:
@jayrosen_nyu, FishbowlDC, @pardonsnowden, @sulliview, @hatr, @lynndombek, @muckrakery, @barryeisler, @dangillmor, @jeffjarvis, @jameeljaffer, @tombuerkle, @judytrinhcbc, @abeaujon, @alexand3rthemeh, @aretvet, @jfdulac, @nylibertariann, @bryfitz, @travislylesnews, @wplyndarobinson, @ggreenwald and @dankennedy_nu
Jack Shafer / Politico:
Cable news' panicked coverage of the pipe bomb explosions gives us the impression that we are at risk, despite that modern life is safer than ever — Goaded by politicians and cable, a safer-than-ever America goes into full red alert mode. — In a rational world, we would interpret …
Jordan Cohen / The New York Times Company:
The New York Times partners with Google Jigsaw for comment moderation, sharing comment archive with Jigsaw and using predictive models to help moderators — The New York Times is working together with Jigsaw, a technology incubator at Alphabet, Google's parent company, to improve and expand its comments section.
Jason Zengerle / GQ:
Profile of MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, on his relationship with Mika Brzezinski, presidential aspirations, and his in-the-works musical about Donald Trump — Erstwhile congressman and current TV host Joe Scarborough in the studio, at work on his new musical. For real. — Photographs by
Discussion:
CNNMoney, FTVLive, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller and Mediaite
Oriana Schwindt / The Wrap:
Chernin Group-backed digital studio Gunpowder & Sky acquires distribution company FilmBuff, renames itself GunPowder & Sky Distribution — Gunpowder & Sky, the digital studio backed by The Chernin Group's and AT&T's Otter Media, has acquired distribution company FilmBuff.
Discussion:
Variety and @mattdentler
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
ABC News teams up with Facebook to live stream the 2016 general election debates — No TV? No problem - you can still catch the debates. This morning, ABC News and Facebook announced they are again teaming up to bring live coverage of the U.S. 2016 Presidential election to the social network …
Discussion:
The Verge, The Hill, SocialTimes, Variety, Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney, Mashable, Engadget, Gizmodo and AOL
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Draft RIAA report: US music streaming revenue grew 57% to $1.6B in the first half of 2016 and accounted for almost half of industry sales — Popularity of online listening offsets plunging album revenue — U.S. industry poised for second straight year of sales growth
Discussion:
RIAA, Fortune, AppleInsider, Engadget, The Verge, Cult of Mac, MacRumors and Recode
Sahil Patel / Digiday:
The Atlantic used underwriting from sponsors including Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, and Netflix to fund three new video projects which will roll out in October — The Atlantic's video business may not have the scale of a BuzzFeed or Vice, but it's attracting sponsors for some of its more ambitious projects.