Mediagazer: The Athletic hires the BBC's sports correspondent David Ornstein as part of its recruitment of journalists whose large followings are fans of big soccer teams (Simon Austin/Prolific North)

Kerry Flynn / Digiday:

Twitter releases LiveCut, a tool to help publishers make, monetize, and share video clips of live broadcasts, similar to SnappyTV, which Twitter bought in 2014 — Twitter has a new tool to help publishers make more Twitter videos. — LiveCut lets publishers make, monetize and share video clips of live broadcasts through Twitter.

Bloomberg:

Sources: Apple plans to fund original, exclusive podcasts and has reached out to media companies, in a bid to compete with Spotify — - Tech giant looks to use exclusives to compete with Spotify — Company has recently added new Podcasts Mac app, web interface

Jem Aswad / Variety:

Sony unites its recorded-music operation, Sony Music Entertainment, and its publishing company, Sony/ATV, under Sony Music Group led by SME chief Rob Stringer — Sony has created Sony Music Group, an umbrella for both its recorded-music operation — Sony Music Entertainment …

Discussion: Billboard

Kevin Roose / New York Times:

Reflecting on VidCon, it's clear that influencers' command of social media foreshadows future power in politics and elsewhere — As social media expands its cultural dominance, the people who can steer the online conversation will have an upper hand. — ANAHEIM, Calif. …

Discussion: @nytimesbusiness, @joshspero, @nytimesbusiness and @kevinroose, more at Techmeme »

Sara Guaglione / MediaPost:

Group Nine's animal-focused publisher The Dodo debuts a children's vertical called Dodo Kids, with a brand-safe YouTube channel — The Dodo, a digital publisher owned by Group Nine that focuses on animal content, launched a new vertical called Dodo Kids. — The division will produce kid …

Discussion: Axios, @benjlerer and Tubefilter

Aaron Rupar / Vox:

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway grilled a Jewish reporter about his ethnicity while defending Trump's racist statements about four congresswomen of color — When the quiet part becomes very loud. — White House counselor Kellyanne Conway went as far as to grill a Jewish reporter …

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:

Facebook Journalism Project announces 22 projects receiving grants between $5,000 and $25,000 to fund community-building proposals over the next six months — In its latest quest to build community, Facebook is trying to develop a meta-community for local news publishers to then, you know, build that community.

Discussion: Facebook Journalism Project and @mathewi

April Ehrlich / Jefferson Public Radio:

Sinclair has invested in a small Oregon newspaper, which partnered with a Sinclair TV station to share content, a web management system, and soon, a building — America's biggest broadcast media company is financially backing the owner of the Rogue Valley's largest newspaper …

Discussion: @aprilehrlich, @aprilehrlich, @aprilehrlich, @emilycureton, @carlschirps and @dana_flo, Thanks:@morganatopb

Max Willens / Digiday:

Bloomberg launches Work Wise, a newsletter with work and career content, after noticing 48% of traffic to its company pages came from people under the age of 34 — Shortly after Julia Beizer joined Bloomberg Media as chief product officer last year, she had a conversation with David Harding …

Discussion: Bloomberg Media and @juliabeizer

BBC:

Pearson, the world's largest education publisher, says all future releases of its 1,500 active US titles will be “digital first” and updated on an ongoing basis — The world's largest education publisher has taken the first step towards phasing out print books by making all its learning resources “digital first”.

Discussion: @janiswong_, @tombennett71, @nicolebarbaro, @joenutt_author and @tcarpenter216, more at Techmeme »

Simon Austin / Prolific North:

The Athletic hires the BBC's sports correspondent David Ornstein as part of its recruitment of journalists whose large followings are fans of big soccer teams — BBC Sports Correspondent David Ornstein is leaving the Corporation after 12 years to join American sports website The Athletic.

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Spectator, @mikelizun and @markdistef

Andrew Beaujon / Washingtonian:

Interview with Politico's Daniel Lippman about why he's moving on from writing Politico's Playbook newsletter to report on the White House full-time — We talked with him about his new job reporting full-time on the White House and life in Washington. — Daniel Lippman will probably …

Discussion: @dlippman