Top News:
Sahil Patel / Digiday:
Facebook-funded shows begin rolling out this week on Watch, as publishers including Business Insider, Tastemade, Refinery29, and Nat Geo debut original content — Facebook's latest attempt to take on YouTube begins in earnest this week as various publishers begin to roll out Facebook-funded shows on the platform.
Discussion:
Adweek, FierceCable and The Verge
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Todd Spangler / Variety:
Facebook to debut one of its original shows, a reality docu-series about retired athlete LaVar Ball and his family, on August 31 — Can LaVar Ball's boastful antics and familial dramas draw a TV-size audience for Facebook? — The first two episodes of “Ball in the Family” …
Discussion:
Business Insider, Forbes, The Wrap, CNET and Ball In The Family
Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:
Ben Jacobs, the Guardian reporter assaulted by congressional candidate Greg Gianforte, says Gianforte is refusing a promised on-the-record interview — Reporter recounts fight with GOP candidate — Ben Jacobs, the reporter who was assaulted by Montana congressional candidate Greg Gianforte …
Discussion:
@bencjacobs, Washington Post, Real Stories, USA Today, New York Magazine, Business Insider, Mediaite, @sahilkapur and @sahilkapur
Nick Cumming-Bruce / New York Times:
UN human rights chief rebukes Trump's repeated verbal attacks on some media outlets and journalists, says the claims could amount to incitement — GENEVA — The United Nations human rights chief said on Wednesday that President Trump's repeated denunciations of some media outlets as …
Discussion:
Reuters, Mediaite and Washington Post
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed:
Scottish blogger Jason Michael McCann, who calls himself a journalist in his Twitter bio, defends his viral hoax tweet showing a shark in Houston's flood waters — “Of course I knew it was fake, it was part of the reason I shared the bloomin' thing.” — It was just before 6 a.m. in Dublin …
Jack Shafer / Politico:
The Freedom Forum spent too much on the symbolic $450M Newseum rather than on supporting journalism — You know that triumphant feeling that sweeps from your brain to your toes when one of your enemies stumbles and falls into a mass of his own excrement? Such delight overwhelmed me yesterday …
Discussion:
@jeffreygoldberg, Washington Post, @cheeky_geeky, @greta, @johnjharwood, @whet, @amyjbrittain and @mckaycoppins
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Gerry Smith / Bloomberg:
Publishers are letting writers go as they turn to video and try to replicate success of Vice, which is said to be valued at $5.7B or twice that of the NYT — Digital media churns out videos for tech and media giants — Adults to spend 81 minutes a day on digital video: eMarketer
Discussion:
Digital Content Next and Forbes
Reuters:
Like many journalists, Reuters staffers juggled reporting, helping others, and helping their own families while editing and writing amid Texas flooding — As flooding in Houston reached catastrophic levels from the relentless rains of Hurricane Harvey, Reuters photographer Rick Wilking …
Discussion:
@courtneyabc13, Philly.com, Washington Post and Poynter
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Jeremy Barr / Hollywood Reporter:
Fox News hires conservative pundit Tomi Lahren as a contributor and to work on an unnamed digital project currently in development — The conservative pundit will opine on the news and will work on “an FNC digital product currently in development.” — In mid-August, conservative media …
Discussion:
Media Matters for America, The Wrap, The New York Observer, @esotericcd, Tomi Lahren, Real Stories, @jbarro and Jezebel
Jessica Davies / Digiday:
Axel Springer teams with German non-media companies to launch Verimi alliance, which will offer a single login to better compete with Facebook-Google duopoly — The hottest trend in German media: cross-industry alliances that prioritize consumer data privacy and aim to compete with the Facebook-Google duopoly.
Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
Q&A with Medium founder Ev WIlliams on the platform's pivot away from advertising and how its new reader-powered business model will work — “What we want to do is create the best possible place to support great content. How does the best media in the world work?
Ross Benes / Digiday:
USA Today Network reformats mobile site to provide personalized homepages for users, plans rollout to all users for all of its properties within six months — The USA Today Network is taking a page out of Facebook's playbook by reformatting its digital properties to give users more personalized webpages.
Gene Maddaus / Variety:
A year after Philippe Dauman was ousted as CEO of Viacom, the company has continued to struggle, with its stock price plummeting another 30% — It has been one year since Shari Redstone, daughter of Sumner Redstone, prevailed in an epic battle for control of her father's business empire.