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9:20 AM ET, October 19, 2020

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
New York Times:
A look at a pay-for-play network of ~1,300 sites and some papers that fills a local news void in the US with propaganda ordered by GOP and corporate PR groups  —  A nationwide operation of 1,300 local sites publishes coverage that is ordered up by Republican groups and corporate P.R. firms.
Katie Robertson / New York Times:
Sources: NY Post's article about Hunter Biden was written mostly by Bruce Golding, who did not allow his byline to be used amid doubts in the tabloid's newsroom  —  Some reporters withheld their bylines and questioned the credibility of an article that made the tabloid's front page on Wednesday.
RELATED:
New York Times:
Twitter says it is now letting the NY Post link be shared because the info had spread so widely that it can no longer be considered private  —  The latest change underlined how rapidly social media platforms are shifting their positions in the days leading up to the election.
Vijaya Gadde / @vijaya:
[Thread] Twitter updates Hacked Materials Policy, says it won't remove content unless shared by hackers themselves and will label tweets instead of block links
The Markup:
The Markup announces The Citizen Browser Project, an initiative with The NYT to analyze how the algorithms of Facebook and YouTube serve content to users  —  The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates how the world's most powerful institutions use technology to reshape society …
Ben Smith / New York Times:
Mark Burnett, the TV producer behind Survivor, Trump's The Apprentice, and The Voice, is facing his own string of flops and a cultural disconnect, for now  —  Mark Burnett helped turn Donald Trump into a national figure with “The Apprentice.”  But since 2016, his impact “has kind of gone bust.”
Online Journalism Awards:
2020 Online Journalism Awards announced: winners include South China Morning Post, The 1619 Project, Reuters, Star Tribune for coverage of George Floyd's death  —  Finalists for the 2020 OJAs have been announced and are listed below!  Winners will be announced at virtual awards events throughout ONA20 Everywhere, Oct. 1-16.
Matthew Ball / MatthewBall.vc:
Audio, which struggled for decades as a media category, is breaking out now, as tech enables new content formats as well as new monetization and delivery models  —  As most of the major media categories — music, video and video games — have existed for decades, we tend to forget that media is technology.
Dave McNary / Variety:
Study: women made up 38% of directors and 35% of writers of indie narrative features and docs from 2019-2020, with female directors doubling in the last decade  —  The percentages of women working as directors and writers on independent films reached recent highs in 2019-2020, according to a report released Thursday.
Daniel Cooper / Engadget:
Virtual studios, where the filmmaking takes place in front of a halo of flat screen displays connected to PCs, are offering a real alternative to green screens  —  For as long as filmmaking has existed, there has been a need to build fantastic worlds in front of cameras.
more at Techmeme »
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: as Facebook curbed political news in 2017, Zuckerberg OK'ed tweaks affecting sites like Mother Jones after some execs worried about impact on the right  —  Facebook's chief, once uninterested, has transformed himself into an active political operator in the Trump era
RELATED:
Ben Dreyfuss / Mother Jones:
Mother Jones' growth director recalls a sharp drop in Facebook reach in 2017 and '18, after WSJ reveals that algorithmic changes were made with politics in mind
Reese Oxner / NPR:
Disney+ has updated the disclaimer appearing before some of its classic films with stronger language acknowledging the “harmful impact” of racist stereotypes  —  Many people have long said certain Disney classics like Peter Pan, Dumbo and The Aristocats contain racist stereotypes and overtones.
Laura Wagner / VICE:
NYT AME Carolyn Ryan told staff that columnists have wide latitude to criticize colleagues' work, in contrast to a policy against criticism on Twitter or Slack  —  After Bret Stephens regurgitated criticisms of his colleagues' 1619 Project, NYT brass held a meeting to clarify who at the paper can write about what.
RELATED:
Jake Silverstein / New York Times:
A defense of the editing changes in summaries of The 1619 Project, following new criticisms from people including NYT columnist Bret Stephens
 
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 More News: 
Katherine Jacobsen / Committee to Protect Journalists:
Interviews with three foreign reporters on their experiences covering the US now, visa issues, safety concerns they have when going out into the field, and more
Paul O'Donnell / Dallas Morning News:
Journalists at The Dallas Morning News and Al Día have voted 84-28 in favor of a union, in an election overseen by the NLRB
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Comcast's NBCUniversal and some PE firms approached Disney earlier this year about acquiring Hulu or operating it as a partnership, but were rebuffed
 Earlier Picks: 
Lauren Katzenberg / New York Times:
NYT Magazine is winding down its At War project, a forum for exploring the experiences and costs of war, including the weekly Afghan casualty report
Brian Stelter / CNN:
Nielsen: Joe Biden's ABC town hall averaged 13.9M viewers, while Trump's NBC town hall averaged 10.6M; MSNBC and CNBC simulcasts of Trump brought total to 13M
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
EU data protection authority finds IAB Europe's GDPR consent framework, adopted by Google and others, fails to meet required legal standards of data protection
 

 
From Techmeme:

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working on a smart doorbell system with advanced facial recognition that can wirelessly connect and unlock third-party smart locks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Donald Trump announces that Sriram Krishnan, until recently a general partner at a16z, will serve as senior policy advisor for AI at the White House OSTP

Financial Times:
Sources: Palantir and Anduril are in talks with OpenAI, SpaceX, and more to form a consortium to bid for US defense contracts and plan to announce it in January
 
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