Top News:
Washington Post:
Sources: Trump personally pushed US Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon and other companies — President Trump has personally pushed U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms …
Discussion:
@jdawsey1, TechCrunch, Mediaite, GeekWire, CNBC, Engadget, @trevortimm, The Verge, BloombergQuint, @ddale8, @mehdirhasan and @jayrosen_nyu, more at Techmeme »
Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:
Sources: bidding for Meredith's Time magazine nears $200M, with Fortune and Money together drawing similar bids — Selloff activities and employee purges continued at Meredith this week. — Sources say Citigroup is lining up management presentations for next week for potential suitors interested …
Discussion:
New York Post and Mediawire
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Lara O'Reilly / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Google to meet with publishers on May 24 to discuss concerns that GDPR-related changes will make Google even more dominant in digital advertising — Google invites publishers to meetings at four of its global offices on May 24. — Alphabet Inc.'s Google has agreed to meet …
Discussion:
Ad Age
Jessi Hempel / Wired:
A look at the history of Facebook's Internet.org project, which it says has brought 100M online, from its 2013 debut to Free Basics — Five years ago Mark Zuckerberg debuted a bold, humanitarian vision of global internet. It didn't go as planned—forcing Facebook to reckon with the limits of its own ambition.
Discussion:
@lkherman, @jessiwrites, @sdkstl, @eringriffith and @karengeier
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Media outlets plan saturation coverage of the royal wedding: Snapchat is producing a four-part series with TLC, BBC and CNN will stream for free early Saturday — The British royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — the first American princess in generations — is a global-zeitgeist event made-to-order for social media.
Discussion:
Fast Company, Broadcasting & Cable, Ad Age, MediaPost, Recode, Fortune, The Ringer, CNNMoney, @ranimolla, Folio and TVSpy
Mathew Ingram / Columbia Journalism Review:
Accepting funding from Google and Facebook raises tough questions for media and researchers about influence, conflict of interest, and working with competitors — In March, Google announced with much fanfare the launch of the Google News Initiative, a $300 million program aimed at …
Discussion:
@mathewi, @mathbabedotorg, @eamonn, Nieman Lab, @datatheism, @sophienadeau, @jbenton, @jason_kint, @mathewi, @digiphile, @asherschechter, @soktaykilic, @farai, @asherschechter, @elvanathaci, @grove, @emilybell, @lauraelizdavis, @emilybell, @jon_allsop, @digiphile, @digiphile and @mollydeaguiar, Thanks:@adders
Oliver Darcy / CNNMoney:
Sources: Dianne Brandi, Fox News' EVP of legal and business affairs, continues to quietly work for the company, despite repeated claims she is on leave — From Fox hosts' lips to the president's ears — A top Fox News executive who has been named in harassment lawsuits over allegations …
Discussion:
Los Angeles Business Journal, @oliverdarcy, @perlberg and Newser
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Sahil Patel / Digiday:
Publishers prefer YouTube over platforms like Facebook because of predictable success parameters, longer shelf life of evergreen content, deeper user engagement — Sometimes, being reliable goes a long way — and for smaller publishers looking to grow sustainable video businesses, that means focusing on YouTube.
Jonathan Randles / Wall Street Journal:
Judge says he will approve agreement between Thiel and Gawker Media, declines Gizmodo's request to prevent Thiel from funding future lawsuits against it — Agreement ends wrangling with the billionaire who funded the Hulk Hogan privacy lawsuit that sent Gawker into bankruptcy
Karl Bode / Techdirt:
Charter is using language from net neutrality repeal in dispute over unfulfilled promises with NY state to claim states have no authority over it in lawsuits — While people remain exclusively fixated on the telecom industry's attacks on net neutrality, the reality is companies like Comcast …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook to start testing ads in Stories today in the US, Mexico, and Brazil, says Stories has 150M daily users, defines a user as anyone who watches one story — After 14 months of silence since launching, Facebook Stories has finally announced a 150 million daily active user count for its Snapchat Stories clone.
Discussion:
Marketing Dive, iPhone in Canada Blog, Android Police, Variety, Adweek and Engadget, more at Techmeme »
Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:
Alleged owners of Mugshots.com, a site that publishes mugshots and demands payment for removal, arrested on extortion, money laundering, identity theft charges — Mugshots.com is a “business permeated with fraud,” California AG says. — Two alleged owners of Mugshots.com …
Discussion:
The Guardian, California Attorney …, @kristenclarkejd, @rebeccavallas, Boing Boing, Law & Crime, Gizmodo and Engadget, more at Techmeme »
Nicholas Diakopoulos / Columbia Journalism Review:
As deepfakes rise, journalists with forensic training could act as trusted validators and should codify transparent verification procedures for video and text — A few weeks ago BuzzFeed published a video of former President Barack Obama making some decidedly out-of-character quips.