Mediagazer: Podcasting startup Wondery raises $5M round led by Greycroft, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and Advancit Capital, plans to add shows and increase staff (Natalie Jarvey/Hollywood Reporter)

2:45 PM ET, March 30, 2018

Top News:

How Trump helped National Enquirer's David Pecker meet the Saudi crown prince; Pecker's American Media recently published a 97-page glossy promoting the prince — In July, David J. Pecker, the chairman of the company that owns The National Enquirer, visited his old friend President Trump at the White House.

Discussion: @dylanbyers, Washington Post, New York Magazine, @justinjm1, @dankennedy_nu, @helenkennedy, @tripgabriel, @alexburnsnyt, @otpor17, @sigimideast, @joshsternberg, @buzzedition and Common Dreams

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:

NewsWhip data suggests that hyperpartisan sites, and even two fake-news sites, are doing as well or better on Facebook as they were before News Feed changes — Data that NewsWhip pulled together for Nieman Lab suggests that popular hyperpartisan publishers are actually doing pretty well post-algorithm change.

Discussion: Nieman Lab, Fast Company, @laurahazardowen, Media Bias/Fact Check, @oliverdarcy, @mattyglesias, Columbia Journalism Review, Splinter, @agfhome and Politico

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Trump's crusade against Amazon has nothing to do with the post office or mom-and-pop shops and everything to do with his hatred of The Washington Post — President Trump is determined to find some way to hurt Amazon, reports Jonathan Swan. “He's obsessed with Amazon,” a source tells him.

Charles Elmore / Palm Beach Post:

GateHouse Media acquires the Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach Daily News for $49.25M, adding to its stable of more than 140 daily newspapers — One of the nation's busiest acquirers of newspapers and online media has agreed to buy The Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach Daily News in a deal announced Wednesday at $49.25 million.

Discussion: Associated Press

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:

Interview with Tim Griggs, who developed the curriculum for Facebook's 12-week Local News Subscriptions Accelerator, which began this week in 14 US newsrooms — “We tested this, it tanked. You tested this, it worked. Why?" — This week marks the launch of Facebook's Local News …

Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:

Podcasting startup Wondery raises $5M round led by Greycroft, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and Advancit Capital, plans to add shows and increase staff — The round was led by Greycroft, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Shari Redstone's Advancit Capital. — Wondery, the podcasting startup behind Dirty John …

Discussion: RAIN News, Los Angeles Business Journal, Business Wire, Variety and TechCrunch

Tejal Rao / New York Times:

A look at the wave of small US food magazines that are telling stories on their own terms, often as labors of love — Shayne Chammavanijakul, a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, felt let down by the way some magazines depicted Asian cuisines — framed as alien …

Discussion: @tandemvines, @jwalkersmith, @illinois_alma, @zingermans, @evankleiman, @qkatie and @simonathibault

Jeff Baumgartner / Multichannel News:

Anime-focused video streaming site Crunchyroll publishes its first mobile game, Memoria Freese, to deepen ties with audience, 90% of whom say they're gamers — Anime-focused SVOD service offers ‘Memoria Freese’ on mobile devices — Crunchyroll, Ellation's Anime-focused subscription VOD service, is branching out into games.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Forbes, Collider, TechQuila, in Anime by Crunchyroll! and Engadget

Hadas Gold / CNNMoney:

RT broadcast in Washington, DC, ends April 1 because RT's distributor MHz lost the lease on the broadcast license though RT blames the Justice Department — Russia's English language network last year took out dozens of cheeky ads across Washington D.C. to court viewers.

Discussion: Voice of America

Aditi Sangal / Digiday:

Interview with Kara Swisher on Facebook's relationship with the media, whether Facebook would ever pay publishers for content, YouTube's value, and more — On this week's Digiday Podcast, Recode executive editor Kara Swisher said Facebook's relationship with the media has long been based on lip service.

Max A. Cherney / MarketWatch:

Baidu's streaming video service iQiyi falls 13.6% in Nasdaq debut, closing at $15.55, down from opening price of $18 — Baidu subsidiary valued at $12.7 billion in second-largest U.S. IPO for Chinese company; shares fall 14% in debut — With more subscribers than Netflix Inc. …

Discussion: Reuters, TechCrunch, Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal, 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.

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

Discussion: Fortune, Ad Age, @kerrymflynn, Engadget, @kerrymflynn and Variety

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.