Mediagazer: Knight study of local TV news: revenues and viewership are rising, and in smaller markets, TV news websites are the dominant local news source (Laura Hazard Owen/Nieman Lab)

5:40 PM ET, April 5, 2018

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 …

Sherisse Pham / CNNMoney:

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, Fast Company, Reuters, CNET, PAPER, Slate, Business Insider, The Daily Caller, The Verge, IndieWire, io9, Fortune and The FADER

Sara Fischer / Axios:

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, Ad Age, Media Rating Council and AdExchanger, more at Techmeme »

Jason Cherkis / HuffPost:

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

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

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, Slate, Recode, Fortune, 9to5Google, @patrickesque, Yourstory.com, BBC, Mashable, The Ringer, BuzzFeed, Mumbrella and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »

Eleanor Dickinson / Mumbrella Asia:
Facebook statistics show data from 3.6M+ users in Asia, ~1M in UK, and 700K+ in Mexico may be among the 87M who had information analyzed by Cambridge Analytica

Discussion: Forbes, Reuters and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »

Kurt Wagner / Recode:

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, ZDNet, Fortune, GeekWire, Engadget, CNET, Business Insider, Fast Company, The Outline and Los Angeles Times, more at Techmeme »

Todd Spangler / Variety:

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, /Film, Forbes, Deadline, Business Insider, @tim_stevens, Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, Android Police, TechCrunch and Fortune, more at Techmeme »

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:

Knight study of local TV news: revenues and viewership are rising, and in smaller markets, TV news websites are the dominant local news source — In many smaller markets, it's local TV stations' websites — not newspapers' sites! — that are the dominant digital local news source.

Discussion: Informed and Engaged and Poynter

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Conde Nast has a median pay gap of 23.3% despite a female majority at every pay level; The Economist Group's 29.5% median pay gap is the highest in UK media — Conde Nast has the largest mean gender pay gap favouring men among all UK publishers and broadcasters, but, when the median is taken …

Discussion: Forbes, BuzzFeed, National Union of Journalists, @jamesrbuk, gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk, Digiday and WIRED UK

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

NBCU debuts CFlight metric, which adds up exposure via broadcast, cable, and streaming and counts completed views of commercials, as audience metrics multiply — - Jason Chaffetz, Katie Pavlich, Brian Kilmeade and Pete Hegseth to Sub for Laura Ingraham on Fox News

Discussion: Deadline, Broadcasting & Cable, AdExchanger and FierceCable

Mike Ananny / Columbia Journalism Review:

Report on Facebook's fact-checking partnerships examines the struggles of tech companies teaming up with news orgs, details distrust and lack of transparency — Facebook and five US news and fact-checking organizations—ABC News, the Associated Press, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and Snopes …

Discussion: The Wrap, The Verge, @writemegwrite, @alkapdc, @seanrobinsontnt, @grahamstarr, @jon_allsop, @alaphia, @michaelbkelley, @doplinger, @bgrueskin, @clancynewyork, @cwarzel, @towcenter and @jayrosen_nyu

Sydney Ember / New York Times:

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 — David D. Smith, the chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, says the media is getting his company all wrong.