Mediagazer: ICM Partners COO Justin Dearborn and HR Chief Cindy Ballard resigned from the talent agency this week, will remain onboard through the end of the year (Joe Otterson/Variety)

4:35 AM ET, September 30, 2019

Top News:

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs / New York Times:

How a 20-year-old junior at Arizona State University broke the news of the resignation of Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, in the school's student newspaper — An editor at Arizona State University's student newspaper beat everyone else to the news that Kurt Volker had stepped down.

Discussion: @nycsouthpaw, The Arizona State Press, @projomike, @aaron4az, @amymcd_11, @therealwillyevs, @laurenpeikoff, @bymoriah, @histoftech, @son_deerrf, @olivianuzzi, @amanbatheja, @katierogers, @macloo, Washington Post, Newser, The Week, Politico, CNBC, Fox News, ABC News and KTLA

The Guardian:

BBC faces a growing backlash for censuring presenter Naga Munchetty for her response to racism; Ofcom to review her words against its own broadcasting code — Corporation faces staff revolt over response to presenter's Donald Trump remarks — The BBC is facing a growing crisis over its decision …

Discussion: Nieman Lab, @pbns_india, @jdesmondharris, @ericgordy, @anuanandhall, @jostevenslabour, @revrichardcoles, @tracyvwilson, @sarfrazmanzoor, @mark_george_qc, @neilhimself, @markdistef, @markdistef and @mepadraigreidy

Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
BBC defends Munchetty censure, saying it applied to her discussion of Trump's motivations for his racist comments, though she didn't directly call him racist

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @jeremycorbyn, @ianjamesparsley, @shreeparadkar, @afuahirsch, @mattprescott, @aurelmondon and @marcushwik

Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:

The Chernin Group buys a majority stake in Food52 for $83M, valuing the ecommerce and media startup which offers recipes and home-improvement tips at $100M+ — Food52, a media and e-commerce business, was founded by food journalists from the New York Times

Discussion: Vox, @benmullin, @benmullin, @rafat, @rafat and @rafat

Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:

AT&T's John Stankey says DirecTV is rethinking its exclusive deal for NFL's Sunday Ticket package, which ends in 2022; sources: DirecTV loses $500M+/year on it — AT&T executive questions growth potential of football package; says the longtime cornerstone could be ‘less critical to the business over time’

Discussion: The Wrap, @modestproposal1, @kevinmdraper, @kaplansportsbiz, @shalini, @stevekopack, @claytravis, @jbflint, @asharma and Awful Announcing

Joe Otterson / Variety:

ICM Partners COO Justin Dearborn and HR Chief Cindy Ballard resigned from the talent agency this week, will remain onboard through the end of the year — Two top executives are out at ICM Partners. — Chief operating officer Justin Dearborn and chief human resources officer Cindy Ballard are leaving …

Discussion: @palewire and The Wrap

Poynter:

Global Disinformation Index study finds that adtech companies spend ~$235M per year running ads on sites found by fact-checkers to publish misinformation — How misinformation makes money — There has been much written about how fake news websites and other sources make money from spreading misinformation.

Discussion: @zimbalist, @dpfunke, @karlbode, @michellemanafy and @jerdemink

Freddy Mayhew / Press Gazette:

The Financial Times has closed a WhatsApp group through which it shared one free story about markets per day, both to subscribers and non-subscribers — The Financial Times has closed its Whatsapp group through which it shared one free markets story per day with individuals who had signed up.

Discussion: @niemanlab and Talking Biz News

Lakeidra Chavis / ProPublica:

ProPublica journalists recommend books and articles that inspired them — ProPublica Illinois is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. Sign up for our newsletter to get weekly updates written by our journalists.

Discussion: @spj_tweets, @dailycopywriter and @penamerica

Alison Flood / The Guardian:

PEN America says the country's largest book ban is in state and federal prisons where book restrictions are “often opaque, subject to little meaningful review” — George Orwell, John Updike and Barack Obama are among the names PEN America says have been illogically withheld from prisoners

Discussion: @rorymargraf, @penamerica, @shane_bauer and @nylsacs

Vikas SN / The Economic Times:

Netflix is experimenting in India with making the first episode of its latest Indian original series available to non-subscribers, amid growing competition — Netflix is making available the first episode of its latest India original series ‘Bard Of Blood’ to non-members in the country for a limited time …

Discussion: @refsrc, @shukla_tarun and @tsuvik, more at Techmeme »

Greg Dool / Folio:

Interview with New York magazine EIC David Haskell, on the acquisition by Vox Media, which surprised many staffers, his first six months as EIC, and more — David Haskell on the Vox sale, succeeding Adam Moss and prioritizing journalism in a time of change.

Faisal Kalim / What's New in Publishing:

A look at reader-supported Denník N, a Slovak newspaper that has built open source tools to drive subscriptions, aided by Google Digital News Initiative grants — Denník N is a Slovak digital and print newspaper, founded in January 2015 by journalists who were earlier working …

Discussion: @pennyriordan1, @wnip and @kvasinka

Cherie Hu / Music Business Worldwide:

As media orgs produce shorter content like TikTok memes and longer content like Netflix docuseries, “normal” formats act as test beds for more lucrative content — The MBW Review offers our take on some of the music biz's biggest recent goings-on.

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Audius, a SoundCloud alternative built on the blockchain, has launched its music streaming service with songs hosted by independent operators to avoid takedowns — Launching today — “It was SoundCloud's opportunity to lose and now it's ours,” says Audius CEO Roneil Rumburg.