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, Publishers Weekly, Variety, Variety, Broadcasting & Cable, Ad Age, @nickandmore, @nytimesbusiness, @manologvergara, CNN, Los Angeles Times, TVNewser, Multichannel News, Adweek and Forbes
New York Times:
Rudy Giuliani is in Europe interviewing Ukrainians for an OANN documentary series, which is being promoted as a Republican alternative to impeachment hearings — President Trump's personal lawyer has been in Budapest and Kyiv this week to talk with former Ukrainian prosecutors …
Discussion:
@rudygiuliani, @brooklynmarie, @ewong, @billkristol, @mattgertz, emptywheel, Raw Story, Fox News, The Daily Beast, Mediaite, Vanity Fair, The Week and Talking Points Memo
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:
@firstdraftnews, @daciampaglia, @cjr, @kboo, @mikeh_pr, @beschizza, @ravisomaiya and @mathewi
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, @jermainehall, @ev and @adriana_lacy
Allison Schiff / AdExchanger:
Ogury, a mobile ad network featuring a consent management platform for publishers to manage consent, raises $50M led by Idinvest Partners, for a total of $92M — Mobile data company Ogury raised $50 million in Series C funding on Thursday with an eye on international expansion and consumer privacy-related R&D.
Discussion:
Digiday and EU-Startups
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Imgur says it now has 300M MAU and launches Melee, an iOS app where users see a feed of memes and gameplay clips for the games to which they subscribe — 10 years after debut, 300 million monthly user Imgur is one of the last massively popular yet unpersonalized home pages on the internet.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, PCMag Australia and App Store, more at Techmeme »
Emily Bell / Columbia Journalism Review:
As tech companies embrace fact-checking to prove they are active in trying to stop misinfo, fact-checking orgs' association with traditional media is weakening — Has our investment in debunking worked? — Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, of which it's a very small amount …
Discussion:
American Press Institute, @emilybell, @joegermuska, @cjr, @emilybell, @emilybell, @daviduberti and @emilybell
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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.
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, @mattmday and @erinscafe
Josh Owens / New York Times:
An ex-Infowars employee discusses why he joined the outlet, its tendency to look for evidence to back up preconceived narratives, Alex Jones' erratic behavior — I dropped out of film school to edit video for the conspiracy theorist because I believed in his worldview. Then I saw what it did to people.
Discussion:
The Daily Beast, Boing Boing, @jonronson, @anneapplebaum, @oliverdarcy, @ehananoki, @cwarzel and Raw Story
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
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 …
Discussion:
International Press Institute, @penamerica, @peterbale, @risj_oxford, @pressfreedom and @panyiszabolcs
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