Top News:


The Atlantic fires columnist Kevin Williamson after first defending some of his earlier commentary, including that women should be hanged for having abortions — The Atlantic on Thursday fired conservative columnist Kevin Williamson after it became apparent that his belief that women …
Discussion:
HuffPost, Media Matters for America, Washington Post, @ewerickson, CNNMoney, @jessicavalenti, The New York Observer, @noahcrothman, @jessicavalenti, Daily Wire, Mediaite, @benshapiro, National Review, @noahcrothman, @mattgertz, @sulliview, @davidnakamura, Washington Post, Jezebel, @jillfilipovic, @farhip, @jkarsh, @kristinerudolph, @heerjeet, New York Times, Hit & Run, @farhip, The Daily Caller, @monaeltahawy, Mother Jones, The Federalist, @nytmedia, Adweek, Vox, Media Matters for America, @mlcalderone, ThinkProgress, The Wrap, Slate, @ifwhenhow, @robbysoave, Boing Boing, @joeconason, @ilyseh, @alexyablon, @wentrogue, @danilizsky, @stephstephking, Politico, @wentrogue, @maggieserota, @libbycwatson, @jray05, @shakestweetz, @jamilsmith, @austin_walker, iMediaEthics, @anildash, TheBlaze, thecut, @jljacobson, @leannenaramore and Boing Boing


AMC, owned by Dalian Wanda, wins the first cinema operating license in Saudi Arabia after a 35-year ban on public theaters, will open 30+ cinemas in five years — Hollywood seeks keys to the Kingdom — America's biggest movie theater company is bringing the silver screen to Saudi Arabia.
Discussion:
Variety, Reuters, The Verge, @theundefeated, CNET, The A.V. Club, MovieWeb News, NPR, Slate, The Daily Caller, Business Insider, IndieWire, Fortune, io9, Fast Company, The FADER and PAPER


Three political candidates vow not to advertise on Sinclair TV stations, and Sen. Richard Durbin asks Sinclair for information about its “must-run” stories — First Sinclair Broadcast Group got lacerated by the public and other news organizations for its controversial promotional campaign.
Discussion:
NPPA, Vox, BuzzFeed, New York Magazine, The Daily Signal, @dalrymple, @trevortimm, Salon, Los Angeles Times, Mumbrella, Refinery29, Daily Wire, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, Techdirt, Motherboard, DSLreports, The Wrap, FTVLive and CNNMoney
RELATED:

Sinclair CEO David Smith defends his company's “must-run” segments on media bias, likens them to the late-night shows other networks air on local affiliates
Discussion:
MySanAntonio.com, Talking Points Memo, CBS News, Deadspin, The Daily Beast, Mediaite, Washington Post, TVSpy, @melbournecoal, @nytimesbusiness, @anthonymasoncbs and AOL


The new owners of LA Weekly, Semanal Media, have launched a campaign to push back against an ongoing boycott, saying the weekly is being bullied and harassed — In the four months since a mysterious group of rich people took over the L.A. Weekly, news outlets across the country have continued …
Discussion:
KCRW, The Outline, Eater LA, @markeortega, @boycottlaweekly, @gwencalavera, @dangibson520, LA Weekly, @drewmillard, @thesarahbennett, Curbed LA and @passionweiss


Facebook gets accreditation from Media Rating Council for first of three audits it committed to, validating ad impressions on Facebook News Feed and Instagram — The Media Ratings Council (MRC,) which has for decades acted as the de facto watchdog for the media and advertising industries …
Discussion:
Adweek, Adweek, Media Rating Council, AdExchanger and Ad Age


Sony says it sold 17% of its 5.7% stake in Spotify on Tuesday, the day Spotify went public, for $250M+; other big labels are thought to own 4% or less — In the music industry, one of the biggest issues hanging over Spotify's arrival on the New York Stock Exchange has been what the major record companies …
Discussion:
Digital Music News, Engadget and Wall Street Journal
RELATED:


CNN brought in $19.9M, Fox News $16.2M, and MSNBC $8.1M in ad spending in the first quarter; many of the same brands advertised across all cable channels — As we shared with you yesterday, all three cable news networks saw very strong first quarters in the ratings, with Fox News and MSNBC the No. 1 and No. 2 channels on all of cable.


Q&A with Rob Byers, the laid-off son of a coal miner who worked at WVA newspapers for over 26 years, on covering coal and politicians, and uncertainty in media — And Rob Byers is out of a job. — Two days after graduating from West Virginia University in 1991, Rob Byers joined …
Discussion:
@sulliview, @davidfolkenflik, @robbyerswv, @rachelmolenda, @nickriccardi, @citizencohn, @hberkes, @jacquib and @marinafang


Cambridge Analytica denies Facebook's claim that it accessed data on 87M Facebook users, claims it “licensed data for no more than 30M people” — Cambridge Analytica is refuting a report by Facebook today that said Cambridge Analytica improperly attained data on up to 87 million users.
Discussion:
Facebook, Politico, Recode, Slate, Fortune, 9to5Google, @patrickesque, Yourstory.com, Bloomberg and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »
RELATED:


The Paris Review names a new editor: Emily Nemens, co-editor of The Southern Review, who hopes to strike “a balance between stewardship and innovation” — Emily Nemens, a co-editor of The Southern Review, seems agnostic and omnivorous when it comes to narrative mediums.


Twitter says it suspended 274K accounts for promoting terrorism in last six months of 2017, bringing total to 1.2M since August 2015 — It suspended more than 274,000 accounts just in the last six months of 2017. — Twitter suspended more than 1.2 million accounts that were promoting terrorism …
Discussion:
Twitter, Forbes, TechCrunch, GeekWire, Engadget, ZDNet, Fortune, CNET, Business Insider, Fast Company, The Outline and Los Angeles Times, more at Techmeme »

MoviePass parent company acquires Moviefone from Oath for $15M; Oath will continue selling Moviefone's digital ad inventory — MoviePass is saying “Hello — and welcome to Moviefone!" — Helios and Matheson Analytics, the majority owner of MoviePass, announced the acquisition of Moviefone from Verizon's Oath subsidiary.
Discussion:
Adweek, Business Wire, Deadline, /Film, Forbes, Business Insider, Android Police, Fortune, TechCrunch, @tim_stevens, Hollywood Reporter and The Wrap, more at Techmeme »