Mediagazer: St. Louis Post-Dispatch demands city drop charges against reporter Mike Faulk, condemns “highly disturbing” arrest, seeks city protocols to prevent recurrences (Jeremy Kohler/St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

12:25 PM ET, September 21, 2017

Top News:

Sheryl Sandberg / Facebook:

Facebook will strengthen enforcement of ad targeting policies, add more human oversight, and urge users to report potential abuses directly — Last week we temporarily disabled some of our ads tools following news reports that slurs or other offensive language could be used as targeting criteria for advertising.

Dylan Byers / CNNMoney:
Democratic senators and representatives urge Federal Election Commission to consider rules preventing foreigners from using social media ads to influence voters

Discussion: CNN, Quartz, Bloomberg, The Hill, @martinheinrich and @dylanbyers

Will Oremus / Slate:
Blaming algorithms obscures the true source of Facebook's ad problem: the structure of the company's ad business and the decision-making of those who run it

Discussion: @rsingel, @kantrowitz, @selenalarson, BuzzFeed, CBS San Francisco, @willoremus, @whatthebit, @ericnewcomer, @zephoria and Fortune

Peter Kafka / Recode:

RIAA: 30M+ pay for streaming, which now accounts for 62% of US music biz; streaming revenue up 48% in first half of 2017 to $2.5B, digital downloads down 24% — Spotify, Apple Music and other services have 30 million U.S. subscribers, and streaming revenue is up 48 percent so far this year.

Discussion: Forbes, Radio & Television …, RIAA, hypebot, The Wrap, Jacklail.com, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Variety and Billboard

Issie Lapowsky / Wired:

Twitter will meet with the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election next Wednesday — TWITTER HAS CONFIRMED it will meet with the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Discussion: Politico, Variety, Recode, Engadget, Vanity Fair, Business Insider and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Jeremy Kohler / St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

St. Louis Post-Dispatch demands city drop charges against reporter Mike Faulk, condemns “highly disturbing” arrest, seeks city protocols to prevent recurrences — Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk was caught in the sweep when police arrested dozens of people at the corner …

Discussion: @christopherave

Alexandra Martellaro / KSDK-TV:
Society of Professional Journalists condemns police assault and arrest of St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk amid protests

Discussion: @mike_faulk, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Rolling Stone, @ryanjreilly and @mike_faulk

Steven Perlberg / BuzzFeed:

CNN says CNN Digital will bring in $370M+ in 2017, its highest ever, but sources say unit faces $20M shortfall partly due to tough ad market, polarized politics — CNN is having a huge year on TV, but a budget shortfall at CNN Digital has restricted travel for digital employees and scaled back expenses.

Discussion: @perlberg, @rafat, @robinwigg, @passantino, @joshsternberg and FierceCable

Shan Wang / Nieman Lab:

Philadelphia's The Lenfest Institute announces $1M in grants for 17 local and national small-scale projects and $1M for its Philadelphia Media Network — The Philadelphia Media Network is getting $1 million. Twelve organizations and five entrepreneurs-in-residence will be getting another …

Discussion: @poynter, @kristenhare and The Lenfest Institute …

Media Matters for America:

The Drudge Report linked to 79 articles from Russia's RT, SputnikNews, or Tass in 2015 and 122 articles in 2016, before dropping to 45 for 2017 through Sept. 18 — Drudge Report has linked nearly 400 times to RT, Sputnik News, TASS since 2012 — On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 …

Jessica Davies / Digiday:

In the last eight months, BBC has shifted funds in “low seven figures” to make hires and establish 12-person fact-checking team to focus on in-depth “slow news” — In the last eight months, BBC News has undergone a major “reprioritizing exercise” …

SecureDrop:

Freedom of the Press Foundation announces $2,500 bug bounty program for SecureDrop, the open-source whistleblowing tool — Created date — The SecureDrop engineering team welcomes the contributions of security researchers. SecureDrop is relied on by sources to talk with journalists …

The Guardian:

Indian reporter Shantanu Bhowmick beaten to death covering civil unrest in country's north-east region, two weeks after murder of editor Gauri Lankesh — Shantanu Bhowmick attacked with sticks outside Agartala two weeks after high-profile murder of another journalist

Discussion: Times of India, Associated Press, The Indian Express and Press Gazette

Allison Schiff / AdExchanger:

Tencent announces suite of ad options for WeChat designed for Western brands and ad agencies, has tentative plans for self-serve ads within six months — Chinese tourists spent $35 billion dollars in the US in 2016. WeChat parent company Tencent rolled out a suite of advertising tools …

Discussion: Fast Company, Ad Age and CNBC

Jonathan Keane / Tech.eu:

Swedish podcast platform Acast raises $19.5M Series B, bringing its total funding to $32M, to expand further into international markets — Podcast platform Acast, based in Stockholm, has raised $19.5 million in a Series B round from Swedbank Robur's Ny Teknik and Microcap funds to continue its internationalisation.

Discussion: Reuters, Financial Times and VentureBeat