Mediagazer: How Piano created a “propensity” paywall that uses machine learning with 76 metrics to predict how likely someone is to subscribe, and adjusts accordingly (Christine Schmidt/Nieman Lab)

6:50 PM ET, August 8, 2019

Top News:

Sources: Facebook offered millions to ABC News, Dow Jones, Washington Post, and Bloomberg to license their content for a Facebook news section to debut in 2019 — Company approached ABC News, Dow Jones, Washington Post and Bloomberg as it plans to launch news section

Discussion: Nieman Lab, New York Times, The Verge, @pat_garofalo, @bradesposito, @jbillinson, @rachelcharlenel, @futterish, The Hill, Ars Technica, Boing Boing, @rafat, @benmullin, @benmullin, @jeffyoung and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Sam Levin / The Guardian:

Court docs show Monsanto ran a “fusion center” that monitored a Reuters journalist and encouraged negative reviews of her 2017 book on its Roundup weedkiller — Internal documents show how the company worked to discredit critics and investigated singer Neil Young

Discussion: @colinlecher, @kimseverson, @gmwatch, @dangillmor, @janeferguson5, @peterhimler, Boing Boing and @davidlwindt

Kim Kelly / Columbia Journalism Review:

Freelancer Kim Kelly describes how NPR parted ways with her citing her “activist stance”, after Tucker Carlson aired a segment about her — My life with heavy metal, Tucker Carlson, NPR, and strong opinions — My first byline was an article for my local newspaper's Teen Voice section …

Discussion: @samthielman, @ellaguro, NPR, @sethdmichaels, @craignewmark, @sarahw, @freedarko, @nberlat, @femmefeministe, The Daily Caller, @samthielman and Mediaite

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Facebook is testing selling video streaming subscriptions in the US, starting with four services including BritBox, CollegeHumor's Dropout, and Tastemade Plus — Facebook is dipping its toes into the subscription VOD waters — as an aggregator and reseller.

Discussion: Vox, Ad Age, Adweek, @xpangler, @mattnavarra, The Streamable, The Wrap, Fast Company and CNET, more at Techmeme »

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:

Interviews with members of a 900-strong private Facebook group for advertisers on Facebook and Instagram showcase the unreliability of Facebook's Ad Manager — - Advertisers say system has crashed regularly since November — Social-media company says it's ‘committed’ to fixing issues

Discussion: @shiraovide, @sarahfrier, @kurtwagner8 and @matthewstoller, more at Techmeme »

Anna Wiener / New Yorker:

How Hacker News moderators Daniel Gackle and Scott Bell practice a personal and slow approach, engaging with users in e-mail chains that can last for years — Can a human touch make Silicon Valley's biggest discussion forum a more thoughtful place? — Open-plan offices offer few pleasures …

Discussion: @gustaf, more at Techmeme »

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

CBS and AT&T strike a new carriage deal, ending a prolonged blackout of CBS programming — CBS and AT&T came to new terms on carriage of CBS stations on the telecommunications giant's DirecTV satellite service, ending a prolonged blackout of CBS programming. More to come......

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Multichannel News, MediaPost, TVWeek.com, The Streamable and @benmullin

David Segal / New York Times:

Profile of James Daunt, who saved Britain's Waterstones bookshop chain from the brink of bankruptcy and who will now try to revive Barnes & Noble as its new CEO — James Daunt fought Amazon and rescued the country's biggest bookstore chain. Now comes Chapter 2.

Discussion: @xanalter, @durgaraghunath, @dada_drummer, @kassiastclair, @lizflock, @kathryndill and @kjmcinnis1

Ashley Carman / The Verge:

Google will start surfacing individual podcast episodes in search results and will soon let users ask Google Assistant to play podcasts about specific topics — Search for what you want to hear — Google is taking the next step in making podcasts easier to find.

Discussion: The Keyword, Fast Company, @dzohrob, TechCrunch, @ashleyrcarman and @mrpaulbae, more at Techmeme »

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Viacom's Q3 revenue rose 4% YoY to $3.36B with ad revenue at its cable networks unit up 6% YoY, returning to US advertising growth for the first time since 2014 — The company, which is led by CEO Bob Bakish and has been in talks with CBS Corp. about a recombination, returned to domestic ad growth …

Discussion: The Wrap, The Wrap, @thr, @thr, Variety, @richattbd, FierceVideo, MediaPost and Viacom

Lucinda Southern / Digiday:

Some pubs including Vice Media and The Stylist Group say revenue and traffic from Apple News has risen in the past few months — Publishers including Vice Media and The Stylist Group say they've gotten traffic and, more importantly, revenue lifts from Apple News in the last three months.

Al Jazeera:

Journalists in Kashmir struggle to report due to a communications blackout; most English and Urdu language papers in Srinagar have not published since Monday — Reporters in the disputed region face difficulties due to ban on movement and communications blackout.

Discussion: @sonakshaiyengar, @zahidgishkori, @imtiazalamsafma, @hasanpatel, NPR and Business Insider

Jack Shafer / Politico:

By expecting the New York Times to be the paper of resistance, something it has vowed to never be, liberals are positioned for perpetual disenchantment — The Twitter multitudes came for the New York Times Monday night, swinging caltrops and battle axes in protest over the Page One banner headline …

Discussion: The Atlantic, @realdonaldtrump, @ddale8, @ajentleson, @politicomag, @rynk, @bvivian14, @lizzieohreally, @neeratanden, @owillis, @martinsfp and @jayrosen_nyu

Marc Tracy / New York Times:
New York Times reaches a high of 4.7M total subscribers in Q2, with nearly 3.8M subscribers to digital products; digital-only subscription revenue grew 14% YoY

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, @raju, @nickconfessore, Business Wire, @nytimesbusiness, @elanazak, @martyswant, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Benzinga and Zacks Investment Research

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More News:

Freddy Mayhew / Press Gazette:
The council of the London borough of Hackney loses a years-long fight to keep printing a free fortnightly paper, as other private newspapers cover the same area

Discussion: @allytibbitt and Hackney Citizen

Freddy Mayhew / Press Gazette:
UK's newspapers circulation auditor ABC will stop publishing six-monthly reports for regional papers, instead publishing on a rolling basis throughout the year

Ashley Carman / The Verge:
iHeartMedia debuts Sunday Night Podcasts, to air its top podcasts across 270 broadcast radio stations across the US, every Sunday

Discussion: @ashleyrcarman, Engadget and New York Times

Stewart Clarke / Variety:
Ofcom: streaming services' subscriptions for Q1 in UK: Netflix posts the largest gains, up 26% YoY to 11.5M, Amazon Prime trails with 6M but is up 23% YoY

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:
How Piano created a “propensity” paywall that uses machine learning with 76 metrics to predict how likely someone is to subscribe, and adjusts accordingly

Discussion: Talking Biz News, American Press Institute, Reclaim The Net, @hilmarschmundt, @roeiwrites, @iethics, @nisalahe, @kenherts, @niemanlab and @niemanlab, more at Techmeme »

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Federal judge rules that Ed Butowsky's libel suit against NPR for revealing his role in funding an investigation into the death of Seth Rich can go forward

Discussion: @justinhendrix, @gabrielmalor, @bmaz, @packerpoppa, @organizingpower, @joshgerstein, @profcarroll, Law & Crime and The Hill

Lesley Goldberg / Hollywood Reporter:
Netflix signs multi-year film and TV deal with Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss; sources say the deal is worth $200M

Alexandria Neason / Columbia Journalism Review:
Q&A with three music journalists about how R. Kelly's story was handled by the media before Surviving R. Kelly, and the challenges it posed for the Black press

Discussion: @cjr, @cjr, @cjr and @cheriehu42

Earlier Picks:

Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed News:
Researchers studying disinformation in the Philippines and countermeasures by Facebook and YouTube say little has improved since 2016, a red flag for elsewhere

Discussion: @filip_struharik, @craigsilverman, @miriamelder, @momblogger and Editor & Publisher

Nicholas Jackson / @nbj914:
Pacific Standard EIC says its board is shutting down the publication from next Friday after its primary funder cut off funding

USA Today:
USA TODAY office in McLean, VA was evacuated after police responded to what they say was a mistaken report of a man with a weapon

Casey Newton / The Interface:
TikTok's ad-fueled popularity could wane unless it can add new features, court influencers, please regulators, and curtail the rate that new users abandon it

Discussion: @paulbelleflamme, @colinkirkhodge, @caseynewton and Boing Boing

Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Guardian Media Group says it broke even in the last financial year, digital now makes up 56% of revenue, and it has 655,000 regular paying supporters

Discussion: MediaPost, Nieman Lab, @neilperkin, The Drum, @bernardchickey, @jude5456, @arusbridger, @willjennings80, @benedictevans, @jeremydcape, Press Gazette and The Guardian

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:
US radio giant Entercom Communications says it will acquire podcast companies Pineapple Street Media, source says for $18M, and Cadence13, source says for $50M

Discussion: Nieman Lab, Awful Announcing, Variety, @alexsilverman, @nwquah, @lemonproduction, TVNewser, The Verge, Radio & Television … and Fast Company

Brian Stelter / CNN:
Days after the El Paso shooter echoed language used by Fox News hosts, Tucker Carlson says white supremacy is “actually not a real problem in America”

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

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