Mediagazer: YouTube says it has terminated 400+ channels and deleted tens of millions of comments in response to concerns about its videos being used to exploit children (Julia Alexander/The Verge)

3:35 PM ET, February 21, 2019

Top News:

Max Willens / Digiday:

Medium plans to offer four of its own subscription publications, starting with tech, business, health, and general interest, free to Medium subscribers — One of Medium's first big bets was paying to build magazines that lived on its platform. Last week, the venture-backed publishing platform sent …

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Casey Newton / The Interface:

Pinterest has stopped returning results for searches on vaccinations, differentiating between freedom of speech and freedom of reach — Programming note: The Interface will be off Thursday as I finish up a project that I will share with you next week. — Since the reckoning …

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BuzzFeed News:
Investigation finds that YouTube is promoting anti-vaccine misinformation in search results and recommendations

Discussion: Tubefilter, @amywebb, @buzzfeeduk and Fortune

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

CNN hiring Sarah Isgur is puzzling given her reported loyalty pledge to Trump's anti-press agenda and numerous critical tweets of CNN, reporters, and Democrats — Sarah Isgur has spent her young career in the public square. She did communications work for the Republican National Committee …

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Brian Stelter / CNN:
CNN employees raise ethics concerns over CNN's hire of Sarah Isgur, who is moving directly into a managerial role

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
By hiring Sarah Isgur, CNN is aiming for a both-sides-are-equal type of coverage in a bid to boost its ratings, positioning it between MSNBC and Fox News

Sam Wolfson / The Guardian:

Dutch historian leaks un-aired video of Fox News host Tucker Carlson cursing and calling him names after accusations of hypocrisy and critique of Fox's agenda — In a heated exchange that was not aired, Rutger Bregman accused Carlson of being a pawn for the Murdochs and Kochs

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CNBC:

AT&T says it is pulling all advertising from YouTube, after reports of pedophiles openly using the platform; Nestle and Epic Games have also pulled ads — - AT&T is pulling its ads from YouTube following reports that pedophiles have latched onto videos of young children and lurk in the comments section.

Discussion: MediaPost, CNBC, The Wrap, Adweek, Reuters, The Verge, The Verge, The Verge, @winnersusedrugs, Fortune, TechCrunch, @danielmadison78, 9to5Google, Engadget, @mattbinder, Tubefilter, Variety, Gizmodo, @bmorrissey and Beyond Search, more at Techmeme »

Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube says it has terminated 400+ channels and deleted tens of millions of comments in response to concerns about its videos being used to exploit children

Discussion: Washington Post, @yoda, Engadget and PC Gamer, more at Techmeme »

K.G Orphanides / WIRED UK:
Investigation: YouTube is monetizing sexualized videos of minors, many with comments from predators; Epic Games pauses all pre-roll ads following inquiry

Discussion: New York Times, Business Insider, BBC, The Daily Caller, The Guardian, The Verge, Talking Biz News, Adweek, Wall Street Journal, @kgorphanides, @gregwilliams718, @andyvan, @mattburgess1, Tubefilter and Mashable

Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:

Women's Media Center report: female representation in newsrooms and bylines continues to disappoint; ~69% of AP and Reuters bylines go to men — The dismal factoids in a new report released Thursday by the Women's Media Center go on and on. And on. — While women outnumber men …

Discussion: @laurahazardowen, Women's Media Center and @andreagonram

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Nielsen buys Sorenson Media, an addressable TV technology provider and a building block for its new Nielsen Advanced Video Advertising group, for $11.25M — Nielsen thinks it has the pieces in place to finally drive up the scale of addressable TV advertising, targeted based …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News, AdExchanger, Ad Age, MediaPost and Adweek

Maylan Studart / TheStreet:

Gannett missed Q4 earnings with revenue of $751M and a net loss of $14.2M, down from $13.6M in 2017; digital advertising represented 48% of total ad revenue — Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI) shares fell nearly 4% on Wednesday morning after the company missed fourth quarter earnings and revenues estimates …

Discussion: USA Today, Forbes, Gannett Investor Relations and Business Wire

Hadas Gold / CNN:

Mark Zuckerberg is meeting with UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright in CA after refusing to appear before the UK committee investigating online disinformation — (CNN Business)Mark Zuckerberg is finally coming face to face with a top UK official who'd like to regulate Facebook.

Discussion: The Guardian, The Verge, Fortune and BBC, more at Techmeme »

Sam Dean / Los Angeles Times:

Investigation finds Facebook still lets users target ads based around interest in neo-Nazis; Facebook says it will remove the seldom-used audience groupings — Facebook makes money by charging advertisers to reach just the right audience for their message — even when that audience …

Discussion: Engadget, @katzish, @juliacarriew, @jmbooyah, @russellbrandom, @jmbooyah, @juliaturner and @jmbooyah, more at Techmeme »

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

UK's Rapid Response Unit, which fights misinformation online, will continue on a permanent basis after a pilot phase begun in April 2018 is deemed successful — A specialist unit set up last year to monitor and combat “fake news” and disinformation online is set to continue operating …

Sahil Patel / Digiday:

Overtime, a two-year-old sports video publisher, raised $23M Series B last week from investors including Spark Capital, MSG Networks and a couple of NBA players — Two-year-old sports video publisher Overtime has made a name for itself by paying people to record viral high school sports highlights …

Discussion: @strictlyvc and @digiday

Charter Communications Newsroom:

Charter Communications to launch Spectrum TV Essentials, a $15 per month package of 60+ live TV channels, at the end of March without requiring a cable box — Priced at $14.99, Spectrum TV Essentials Will Feature More Than 60 Live Popular Channels Including Networks from Viacom, Discovery, A&E, AMC and Hallmark

Discussion: FierceVideo, AppleInsider and News Roundup

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Sports streaming service FuboTV adds Viacom's entertainment networks to its TV line-up, bringing select programs from Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, others

Discussion: Variety, Multichannel News, MediaPost and Fortune

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