Mediagazer: Facebook begins letting fact-checking partners review photos and videos and also lets them flag stories before being prompted (Josh Constine/TechCrunch)

7:50 PM ET, March 29, 2018

Top News:

Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:

Sources: Snap cuts about 100 employees on the advertising side of the business; this downsizing is said to be the final step in restructuring process — The reductions this time center on its ad division — Snap Inc. is cutting another set of employees, focusing this time on the advertising side …

Discussion: Variety, The Hill, TechSpot, Mashable, Engadget, Recode, The Wrap, TechCrunch, CNET, Fast Company and FierceCable, more at Techmeme »

Baltimore Sun:

Serial podcast subject Adnan Syed will get a new trial after Maryland appeals court upholds a ruling that overturned his murder conviction — Maryland's second-highest court has upheld a judge's ruling overturning the murder conviction of “Serial” podcast subject Adnan Syed.

Discussion: @tomnamako, The Wrap, Vox, Rolling Stone, PAPER, NPR, @helenkennedy, @emilydreyfuss, @rectorsun, @rectorsun, @makingarecord and Law & Crime

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook begins letting fact-checking partners review photos and videos and also lets them flag stories before being prompted — Facebook has begun letting partners fact check photos and videos beyond news articles, and proactively review stories before Facebook asks them.

Discussion: Ad Age, Fortune, Variety, @kerrymflynn, Engadget and @kerrymflynn, more at Techmeme »

Facebook Newsroom:

Facebook outlines steps to protect elections: fight foreign influence, remove fake accounts, increase transparency of ads, and reduce spread of false news — Last fall Mark Zuckerberg announced the steps we're taking to protect elections from abuse and exploitation.

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Guardian, VentureBeat, Fast Company, TechSpot, CNBC, Recode, Gizmodo, @kerrymflynn, @kerrymflynn, @kerrymflynn, @adrianweckler, @samidh, @kadhimshubber, Mashable, @kerrymflynn, The Verge, @kerrymflynn, @coldbrain and BloombergQuint

Scott Rosenberg / Axios:

Traditional media gains from Facebook's scandals, blames tech giants for its problems; both parties offer a public service paid for by selling users' attention — Facebook and Google execs privately complain about the barrage of critical coverage they face, charging that media companies …

Discussion: The Drum, New York Magazine, @oneunderscore__, @jarroddicker, @bmorrissey and @donie

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Express Newspapers report a mean gender pay gap of 17% favoring men, lower than new owner Trinity Mirror's 18% pay gap. — Express Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star on Sunday, has reported a mean gender pay gap of 17 per cent favouring men.

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
News UK gender pay gap report: average hourly pay rate for men is 15.2% higher than for women, and 24.8% at The Sun; CEO Brooks cites efforts to hire more women

Discussion: Press Gazette and News UK

Mark Sweney / The Guardian:

16-24 year olds watch Netflix and listen to services like Spotify more than BBC and BBC's radio stations; over 80% of children watch YouTube, 29% BBC iPlayer — Broadcaster fears being ‘overtaken by competitors’ as technology firms increasingly dominate on-demand viewing

Discussion: bbc.co.uk, Engadget, @niemanlab, TechRadar.com, The Verge, Press Gazette and Deadline

The A.V. Club:

Employees at Onion Inc., which includes The A.V. Club, The Onion, and Clickhole, have voted to unionize under WGA, East — We've decided to form a union here at Onion Inc., home of The A.V. Club and our sister sites The Onion and ClickHole. First, all of The A.V. Club staff …

Discussion: @mattdpearce, Splitsider, @libbycwatson, Variety, @noamscheiber, @muffinlordsa and The Wrap

Jason Schwartz / Politico:

Conservative publishers accuse Facebook's algorithm change of unfair targeting, though change may be the result of users labeling them as untrustworthy — Right-wing sites are jumping on the beleaguered network for an alleged liberal bias. — Add another item to Facebook's growing list of headaches …

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Splinter, @joshuahol, @agfhome and @thegarance

The New York Times Company:

The New York Times discloses ethnic and gender diversity of its staff members for the first time, with women making up 50% and people of color 20% — The New York Times is driven by a simple but powerful mission: to help readers understand the world. — Building a diverse and inclusive workplace is essential to that mission.

Discussion: New York Times, @eugene_scott, @ksacknyt and Fast Company

Kevin Roose / New York Times:

Social media companies' problems are caused by their revenue models; solutions are user-run collectives, a federated social network, an automatic profile purge — I don't need to tell you that something is wrong with social media. — You've probably experienced it yourself.

Discussion: @polyamorous_q, @kumehira, @mikeelgan, @drleighmjohnson, @torystephens, @brennancarlson, @mikeelgan, @michelleapriest, @dbrjesus, @luca_peluzzi, @digiphile and BloombergQuint

Tow Center for Digital Journalism:

Study of urban and suburban residents in the Philadelphia metro area finds that engaging readers and inviting participation could build trust in local media — For many communities, the roots of mistrust go deeper than recent concerns about what's being called “fake news.”

Discussion: @rispolimike, @jenniferbrandel, @brizzyc, @cjr, @brizzyc, @will_bunch and @cjr

Maxwell Strachan / HuffPost:

WSJ staffers say senior editor tried to pull a story about economic changes since '08 for political reasons; one ex-WSJ staffer said EIC Gerard Baker was editor — “This is censorship and it is beneath the standards of the Wall Street Journal," they wrote in a letter.

Discussion: Vanity Fair, @eisingerj, Fast Company, @cezary, @juliaangwin, @lpolgreen, @charliemagne, @heyheyesj, Mother Jones and Boing Boing

Alex Webb / Bloomberg:

Most of Facebook's new privacy measures are happening in response to EU's GDPR, which goes into effect on May 25 — Mark Zuckerberg is making it easier to tear digital pages out of your Facebook. But that doesn't mean he wants to. — At first glance, it's a sincere reaction to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Discussion: Fortune, iPhone Hacks, Yourstory.com, BloombergQuint, BuzzFeed, @chrismessina, TechSpot, Gizmodo, Android Police and @sivavaid, more at Techmeme »

Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Facebook shuts down Partner Categories, says it will stop using data from third-party aggregators like Experian to supplement its own data for ad targeting