Mediagazer: Profile of Chris Cox, who, despite being chief product officer for years, never drew the attention for Facebook's scandals that Zuckerberg and Sandberg did (Roger Parloff/Yahoo Finance)

8:15 AM ET, April 30, 2019

Top News:

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:

Facebook to give 60+ academics around the world access to its data for projects on news polarization, disinformation, and more — Facebook knows it screwed up, is trying to do better, and is spending some of this year actually listening to critiques and suggestions (supposedly).

Discussion: Financial Times, items.ssrc.org, @nanjala1, Facebook, SOCIAL SCIENCE ONE, @mshannahmurphy, @kadhimshubber, @niemanlab, @ssrc_org, Engadget, The Verge, The Hill, CNET, Poynter, Adweek and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

VICE News:

Fox News dominates Facebook with 80% more engagement than CNN through a mix of traditional news and viral content, despite having 17M followers vs CNN's 31M — By the time Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference landed, the battle to spin it had already begun, with politicians …

Discussion: @jason_koebler, @viacristiano, @caseynewton, Media Matters for America and Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:

Amazon doorbell company Ring searches for an editor to deliver breaking crime alerts; local TV has already led Americans to overestimate crime rates — When news organizations think about competition from tech companies, it's usually in terms of the audience's attention and advertisers' dollars.

Discussion: @jbenton, @byrosenberg, @byrosenberg, Business Insider, @stephmbuck, @andrewkragie, @michaelbarthel, @samanthaculp and @vectorpoem, more at Techmeme »

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Twitter announces live streaming content deals with Univision, WSJ, and Time and new initiatives with previous partners including Viacom, the NFL, and ESPN — - Twitter Expands Live-Streaming Video Lineup, Sets Content Deals With Viacom, ESPN, Live Nation, Univision, and More

Discussion: The Wrap, TechCrunch, Engadget, Tubefilter and Deadline, more at Techmeme »

Roger Parloff / Yahoo Finance:

Profile of Chris Cox, who, despite being chief product officer for years, never drew the attention for Facebook's scandals that Zuckerberg and Sandberg did — In late 2003, during his senior year at Stanford, Chris Cox, the future Chief Product Officer at Facebook (

Discussion: @hkanji, @zooko, @hardcorevalue, @mathewi, @alexeheath, @mikeisaac, @yahoofinance, Business Insider and Beyond Search

Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed:

On paid email newsletter platforms, small audiences are translating to dollars for writers, such as on Substack, where the 12 top earners make $160K+ on average — As writers gravitate toward paid email newsletters, small audiences translate to meaningful dollars.

Discussion: @tonyajoriley, @rachelysanders and @elizabethminkel, more at Techmeme »

Amanda Meade / The Guardian:

Nine Entertainment sells its Australian Community Media & Printing business, which includes 160+ former Fairfax regional papers, to ex-Fairfax exec for AU$115M — Former Domain boss Antony Catalano and Thorney Investment Group reach deal for Canberra Times, Newcastle Herald and others to change hands

Discussion: Reuters, ABC, The West Australian, @lukehgomes, Australian Financial Review and @grogsgamut

Eben Novy-Williams / Bloomberg:

FanDuel to be the first sports betting operator in the US to offer live-sports broadcasts alongside betting odds on its website and mobile app — - Website, app to provide live soccer, tennis from Sportradar — Operator bets games alongside odds will spur more gambling

Lloyd Grove / The Daily Beast:

New York Times ends relationship with CartoonArts, the cartoon syndication service that supplied the anti-Semitic cartoon — A ‘Times’ spokesperson told The Daily Beast exclusively about the paper's decision to stop using syndicated cartoons, including those from the syndicator of the offensive cartoon.

Discussion: Breitbart, New York Times, The Daily Caller and New York Post

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed News:

The relationships between some political candidates and their supporters can resemble social media fandoms, making media vetting less relevant — If you covered American politics between 1976 and 2012, you developed a sense of the rhythm of a party primary: A big field of candidates would rise …

Discussion: American Press Institute, @annehelen, @jonathanalter, @forecasterenten, @charliespiering and @jackposobiec

Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:

Royalties from digital services to UK copyright society PRS for Music rose 17% to £145.7M in 2018, the first year of its licensing deal with Facebook — British collecting society PRS for Music saw its collections grow by 4.4% to £746m (around $965.4m) in 2018, setting a new record.

Discussion: The Guardian, NME and Music Business Worldwide

Washington Post:

Inside Lou Dobbs' TV career and his unusual relationship with Donald Trump as he helps shape the President's border policy — One day in mid-March, President Trump gathered his top economic team at the White House to get its read on the state of the nation's financial health.

Discussion: @loudobbs, @snlester, @mattgertz, @costareports, @rolandsmartin, @swin24, @brianstelter, @philiprucker and Mercury News

Spotify:

Spotify reports Q1 revenue of €1.5B, up 33% YoY, reduces net loss to €142M, says it has 217M MAUs, up 26% YoY, with 100M premium subscribers, up 32% YoY — Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) today reported financial results for the first fiscal quarter of 2019 ending March 31, 2019.

Discussion: New York Times, The Guardian, Variety, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, @richbtig, @pkafka, USA Today, Business Insider, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, Engadget and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Spotify confirms it paid €50M to acquire the podcasting studio Parcast in addition to the €308M spent on Anchor and Gimlet in 2019

Discussion: MediaPost

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 8:15 AM ET, April 30, 2019.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Output Producer, CA — AP

China Markets Correspondent, Shanghai — Reuters

Senior Assignment Editor, DC — WaPo

Breaking News Editor, Tokyo — Bloomberg

Senior Correspondent - Wealth, NY — WSJ

Reporter - Ottawa Bureau — Globe & Mail

Local Government Reporter, IA — The Gazette

Research Director, CA — OCBJ

Immigration Enforcement Reporter — Documented

Presque Island Reporter, ME — Bangor Daily News

Contributing Parks Ed. - SW, CA — SFGATE

AI Content Editor, WA — Outlier

Legislative Reporter, TN — Daily Memphian

Editorial Assistant, Remote US — Launch Potato

Elon Musk Reporter, NY or CA — The Information

Government & Politics Editor, WA — Seattle Times

Business & GA Reporter. VT — VTDigger

Sports Reporter, WA — Everett Herald

Energy Reporter, TX — Houston Chronicle

Senior Reporter, SC — Island Packet

Trade & Climate Correspondent, DC — FT

Reporter, WI — Racine County Eye

Political Newsletter Writer, CO — The Lever

Jackson Reporter, MS — Verite

Music Editor, AZ — Phoenix New Times

Breaking News Reporter, NV — Las Vegas Sun

Fearless Reporter/Producer, IA — BPC

Reporter II - Technology, Remote — NPR

Editor, Remote US — Daily Kos

City Reporter, WA — Tacoma News Tribune

Executive Editor, OR — Lookout Local

Education & Budget Reporter, CA — Politico

Senior Writer/Editor, FL — Gulfshore Business

Media Editor, Remote — Axios

Add your company here

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

Eoin Burke-Kennedy / The Irish Times:
Belgian media company Mediahuis has agreed to buy Independent News and Media, Ireland's largest newspaper group, for ~€146M

Discussion: Press Gazette, Financial Times, RTÉ, Investis Digital, Mediahuis, @irishtimes, TheJournal.ie and Independent.ie

IAB:
Advertisers to spend $18M on digital video, up nearly 25% YoY; half to be spent through programmatic buys, 70% of digital video advertisers use influencers

Discussion: MediaPost and Adweek

Nico Lang / Columbia Journalism Review:
Samantha Allen, a national reporter for The Daily Beast, talks about her book Real Queer America, which profiles LGBTQ lives in red states

The Mozilla Blog:
Facebook's Ad Archive API is criticized for lacking info on ad targeting criteria and being limited to keyword searches, preventing a comprehensive look at ads

Discussion: TechCrunch, @profcarroll, @mozilla, @kevinroose, @jmgrygiel, Gizmodo, The Mac Observer and Lifehacker, more at Techmeme »

Daniel Funke / Poynter:
Survey of 1,018 US journalists: only ~15% say they have been trained on how to best report on misinformation, while 80%+ have been duped by false info online

Discussion: @poynter

Bloomberg:
Sources: Walmart plans to create at least 6 original Vudu shows over the next year, which will make money by advertising products, testing “shoppable content”

Discussion: @lucas_shaw, Streaming Observer, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, MacRumors, The Verge and Forbes, Thanks:@lucas_shaw

Earlier Picks:

Jessica Davies / Digiday:
El Pais-owner Prisa Media made a tool that uses machine learning to identify articles that evoke positive feelings, in a bid to sell brand-safe ads at a premium

Discussion: @geninnovate

Bloomberg:
With PR workers now outnumbering journalists six to one, journalists are bombarded by PR pitches looking to control corporate narratives

Discussion: @johndstoll, @fredericl, @abqdyer, @caseynewton, @erinahennessy, @elisabethmahy and @hamiltonnolan

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
After a record-busting $1.2B opening weekend, Avengers: Endgame shows that, despite the ubiquity of streaming content, theaters can still deliver breakout hits

Discussion: Variety, BGR, Variety, Wired, Los Angeles Times and /Film, more at Techmeme »

Ginny Marvin / Search Engine Land:
Microsoft rebrands Bing Ads as Microsoft Advertising, says it will introduce more advertising products with built-in AI over the next year

Discussion: ZDNet, Bing Ads, @carnage4life and The Drum, more at Techmeme »

Nic Fildes / Financial Times:
Sources: UK's Telegraph Media Group plans to cut about 50 jobs in its commercial department as it continues its shift to a subscription-first revenue strategy

Discussion: Digiday, @jayrosen_nyu and @orskov

From Techmeme:

Wall Street Journal:
Gina Raimondo says holding back China in the chips race is a “fool's errand”, and investment, more than export controls, will keep US ahead of Beijing

Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Exploring the scaling challenges of transformer-based LLMs in efficiently processing large amounts of text, as well as potential solutions, such as RAG systems

Reuters:
Albania bans TikTok for a year from January 2025, part of a broader plan to make schools safer following the killing of a 14-year-old near a school in November

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page