Mediagazer: News Media Alliance and America's Newspapers CEOs send an open letter to Trump, McConnell, and Pelosi about need for federal gov't help in sustaining local news (David Chavern/News Media Alliance)

Brian Stelter / CNN:

CNN's Chris Cuomo has been diagnosed with COVID-19, but he says he is feeling well and will continue anchoring his show from his home — New York (CNN Business)CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has been diagnosed with Covid-19, the network said in a memo to employees on Tuesday.

Discussion: @chriscuomo, Variety, Mediaite, The Wrap, Tangle, @marygeorgant, @bykellycohen and Los Angeles Times

Daniel Bernhard / Toronto Star:

Canadian media, starved of ad revenues for years, is on the brink of mass extinction due to the pandemic; CBC cancelled all local TV news broadcasts last week — By some industry estimates, many of our major media outlets will fail within weeks. Starved of advertising revenues for years …

Discussion: @robshaw_vansun, @akurjata, @sulemaan and @rosajsaba

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:

Free alt-weekly Chicago Reader lost 90% of its ad revenue and is turning to ideas like a fundraising colouring book and a souvenir issue to fill the funding gap — Considering the regimentation of pre-digital publishing — repeating the same workflows day after day, week after week — journalists are very adaptable animals.

Discussion: @mdoukmas, @briannawellen and @niemanlab

Tony Maglio / The Wrap:

Fox withdraws financial guidance, citing delayed productions and sports cancellations and postponements, and says it plans to amend agreements with lenders — Fox is the latest major media corporation to walk back its prior financial guidance due to the impact of the continuing coronavirus pandemic.

Discussion: Multichannel News, Broadcasting & Cable, Variety and Hollywood Reporter

Jason Lynch / Adweek:

IAB postpones its now-virtual Digital Content NewFronts by two months to the week of June 22 — Annual event moves from late April to week of June 22 — Key insights: — Buyers are increasingly skeptical that upfront talks can take place in the traditional timeframe.

Discussion: Variety, Broadcasting & Cable, MediaPost and IAB

Variety:

Memo: iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman waives salary, other execs take pay cuts, as an unknown number of staff receive 90-day furloughs without pay due to pandemic — iHeartMedia has joined the growing list of companies implementing sizable pay cuts for senior executives amid the upheaval caused by the coronavirus crisis.

Discussion: RAMP

Marc Tracy / New York Times:

Profile of STAT, a science and medical news site that was early to cover COVID-19 and has attracted ~30M unique visitors this year, 4x to 5x its usual traffic — Stat, started in 2015 by the Red Sox owner John Henry, is drawing four to five times its normal audience. “We were built for this,” one of its editors said.

Discussion: @marcatracy, @davemcclure and @pathtweets

Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:

Vice will no longer match 401k contributions, freezes promotions through July, cuts salaries for top staff including the CEO, and will furlough some top execs — STAY AFLOAT — Vice Media will cut salaries for top staff and halt retirement benefit-matching following the economic downturn spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.

Discussion: Digiday and @maxwelltani

Chris Best / Substack Blog:

Substack donates $100K in grants to writers struggling due to pandemic, drops its cut of subscription revenue for pubs donating earnings to COVID-19 causes — We started Substack because we believe that what you read matters and good writing is valuable. We believe that writers, bloggers …

Discussion: TechCrunch

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Spotify for Kids launches in the US, Canada, and France on the $14.99/month Spotify Premium Family tier with 8,000 songs, of which 50% is localized — Spotify is giving more housebound parents — and their cooped-up kids — a new tool to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Discussion: Spotify, TechCrunch and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

David Chavern / News Media Alliance:

News Media Alliance and America's Newspapers CEOs send an open letter to Trump, McConnell, and Pelosi about need for federal gov't help in sustaining local news — President and CEO of the News Media Alliance, David Chavern, and CEO of America's Newspapers, Dean Ridings …

Discussion: @sarafischer

The Guardian:

Hungary passes a draconian coronavirus law that allows PM Orbán to rule by decree and includes jail terms of up to five years for spreading “misinformation” — Fears over coronavirus legislation that gives no time limit for state of emergency

Discussion: @balazscseko, Foreign Policy, New Statesman, Washington Post, @melissajpeltier, @shaunwalker7, @michaeldweiss, Boing Boing, @davidfrum, Yahoo News and The Week

Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:

Sources: on an internal call, Jeff Zucker defended airing Trump briefings live, arguing that viewers need to hear Trump answer tough questions from journalists — Zucker said on an internal staff call that he has “probably spent more time on this topic than anything else,” …

Discussion: @realdonaldtrump, @jayrosen_nyu, @poniewozik, @klr_editor, @froomkin, @ericschultz, @kimmasters, @brianstelter, @oliverdarcy, @maggienyt, @pkafka, @jaketapper, Press Watch, Vanity Fair, Reason and New York Times