Top News:
Tim Baysinger / The Wrap:
CBS and Viacom finalized their merger after market close Wednesday, combining CBS with Paramount, alongside Viacom channels including MTV and Nickelodeon — CBS and Viacom are finally, really, back to together. Less than four months after announcing their intentions to rejoin as one company …
Discussion:
New York Times, Variety, Ad Age, Broadcasting & Cable, Los Angeles Times, Variety, @manologvergara, @nickandmore, @nytimesbusiness, TVNewser, Multichannel News, Adweek, Forbes and CNN
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon Web Services reaches multiyear deal with Fox to transmit content to TV customers and streaming services, replacing 90s-era infrastructure — - Multi-year deal makes AWS Fox's official cloud provider — Fox Corp. is turning to Amazon.com Inc.'s cloud to route video to the broadcaster's cable …
Discussion:
Hollywood Reporter, @erinscafe and @mattmday
Variety:
Jermaine Hall, who has held leadership posts at Vibe, BET, and more, launches a new culture publication, LEVEL, on Medium, the platform's seventh launch of 2019 — Jermaine Hall, who has held executive editorial posts at Vibe, XXL, BET and King, today announced a new culture …
Discussion:
Level, @levelmag, @adriana_lacy, @jermainehall and @ev
Will Oremus / OneZero:
A study by Avaaz may have overstated the problem of false stories on Facebook, but it also revealed cracks, loopholes, and limitations in Facebook's systems — Three and a half years after the pope endorsed President Donald Trump (or didn't), Facebook has put in a lot of work to clean up its News Feed.
RELATED:
Marton Dunai / Reuters:
Six international press watchdogs say the EU should take action against Hungary as it has “systematically dismantled media independence” under Viktor Orban — BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary has stifled its independent media and imposed a level of control over journalists …
Hanaa' Tameez / Nieman Lab:
Washington Post launches El Washington Post, its first Spanish-language news podcast aimed at a global audience, with 20-minute episodes on Tuesdays and Fridays — The Washington Post published the first episode of its new Spanish-language podcast today, its latest effort to expand …
Discussion:
Digiday, @verambergen, @niemanlab, Washingtonian, MediaPost and Washington Post
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
UK's The Daily Telegraph says it now has 420K paying subs, the first time it's had more subs online than in print, and aims to add 100K more by October 2020 — The Telegraph now has more paying subscribers online than in print for the first time in its 164-year history.
Discussion:
@lalpert1 and Wall Street Journal
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple News launches a daily email newsletter with summaries written by Apple's editorial team — Apple News is expanding its mail notifications with a new ‘Good Morning’ daily newsletter. Previously, users could opt in to receive email alerts from Apple News about select featured stories.
Discussion:
@abnormalreturns
Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:
Two jury members for the Data Journalism Awards, once run by the closed Global Editors Network, are planning new awards sponsored by The Google News Initiative — If you're seeking a community around data journalism, fear not: Several are bubbling up in the wake of the Global Editors Network's closure, which was announced a month ago.
Discussion:
@smfrogers and @pilhofer
Ravi Somaiya / Columbia Journalism Review:
Digital journalists at respectable news outlets play a role in amplifying false videos and other social media junk; they should thoroughly report before posting — At 1:15pm Eastern on Wednesday, May 22, a Trump supporter named Shawn Brooks posted a video on Facebook called “Is Nancy Pelosi drunk?”
Discussion:
@mikeh_pr, @beschizza, @ravisomaiya, @daciampaglia and @mathewi
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Plex launches a free, ad-supported streaming service featuring thousands of movies and shows from studios like MGM, available in ~220 countries — Plex today is launching its own ad-supported streaming service, a rival to The Roku Channel, Tubi, Crackle, Vudu's Movies on Us …
Discussion:
MediaPost, Plex, @moblordtv, The Streamable, The Verge and Variety, more at Techmeme »
Jessica E. Lessin / The Information:
The Information launches Tech Top 10, a human-curated tech news aggregator, available on iOS and Android for $29.99/year or $2.99/month — We launched The Information six years ago to the day with a mission to conduct fearless and deep original reporting about the technology industry.
Discussion:
@lauriesegall, @jessicalessin, @jessicalessin, Talking Biz News and App Store