Mediagazer: Internal chats: after UK government pressure, BBC editors asked reporters to avoid using the word “lockdown”; the BBC says the messages are “out of context” (The Guardian)

4:20 PM ET, March 15, 2023

Top News:

BuzzFeed News EIC Karolina Waclawiak says the outlet plans to publish more stories to boost profits, focus on viral topics, and pursue long-form investigations — ‘What we can control is how many stories we publish each day,’ BuzzFeed News editor in chief tells newsroom

Charlotte Klein / @charlottetklein:

Axios fires Tampa Bay reporter Ben Montgomery after he replied to a press release about a Governor DeSantis event, “This is propaganda, not a press release” — News: Axios fired @gangrey on Monday over this email https://twitter.com/...

Tim Baysinger / Axios:

Sources: Diamond expects to lose some MLB rights after bankruptcy but could retain the sports rights for the 16 NBA and 12 NHL teams the company currently owns — Diamond Sports Group expects to come out of its bankruptcy process with fewer teams' rights, with the cuts coming from its baseball roster …

Discussion: The Athletic, Sportico, Associated Press, @benverlander, @jeremydstanley, The Streamable, @kerrymflynn, UPI, @kerrymflynn, Next TV and CNBC

Dietrich Knauth / Reuters:

Diamond Sports, which operates the Bally Sports channels, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas, listing both assets and liabilities between $1B and $10B — Diamond Sports Group, which provides local television broadcasts for nearly half of NBA, NHL and MLB games, filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection …

Discussion: Business Wire, Insider, @ourand_sbj, Bloomberg, New York Post, Axios, CBS News, @adater, MediaPost, @claylepard, @tvgrimreaper, @ourand_sbj, @ourand_sbj, @loudmouthjulia, @ourand_sbj, Barrett Media, Deadline, MarketWatch and Sportico

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
Filing: Diamond Sports owes $1.8B to US Bank, $77.2M to Dolan Broadcast, $40.1M to DirecTV, $30.8M to Arizona Diamondbacks, $15M to Intelsat, and more

Discussion: Radio & Television …, @thedeskdotnet, @matthewkeyslive and Awful Announcing, Thanks:@thedeskdotnet

Michael J. Socolow / The Conversation:

While Americans across the political spectrum have a growing disdain for journalism, media criticism remains an essential component of a vibrant democracy — Everyone seems to hate what they call “the media.” — Attacking journalism - even accurate and verified reporting - provides a quick lift for politicians.

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, @reditlhabi, @risj_oxford, @michaelsocolow, @klerner, @jackshafer, @naomi_schalit, @niemanlab and Newhouse School …

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

The US charges exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui with leading a conspiracy to defraud his online followers out of $1B+ and arrests him; the DOJ seizes $634M — The U.S. government on Wednesday charged exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui with fraud, accusing him of orchestrating …

Jennifer Maas / Variety:

Q&A with new Vice Media co-CEOs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala on Nancy Dubuc's exit, potential sale and buyers, divesting assets like Refinery29, and more — But despite the newness of their current roles, Lokhandwala and Dixon are already well versed in the inner workings …

Discussion: Adweek, @kerrymflynn and @kerrymflynn

Sahil Patel / The Information:

Sources: the NBA wants to triple its current revenue from TV deals; Amazon is interested in NBA rights but has no intention of overpaying for a multiyear deal — The NBA is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world. It also has high hopes for squeezing far more money …

Discussion: @sportstvratings, @sizpatel, @sizpatel, Barrett Media and @tiagodf

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

Quora launches a $19.99/month tier for its chatbot app Poe, giving users access to bots powered by GPT-4 and Anthropic's Claude+ on iOS or Apple Silicon Macs — Yesterday, OpenAI unveiled its new GPT-4 model and competitor Anthropic unveiled its own ChatGPT competitor Claude.

Discussion: Axios, more at Techmeme »

Jon Allsop / Columbia Journalism Review:

A journalists' union in Greece apologized for downplaying repeated warnings about the country's rail system; some blame a deficit of accountability journalism — b — Two weeks ago, a passenger train and a freight train collided on the line between Athens and Thessaloniki, in Greece.

Discussion: Agence France-Presse, @brunotersago, @lydiaemman, @risj_oxford, @ebersi, @cjr, @investigate_eu, @jon_allsop, @alohamoira, @cjr and Bloomberg

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Snap plans to begin publishing its guidelines for serving personalized Snapchat content after previously sharing them with publishing partners and some creators — Snapchat on Wednesday said it will begin publishing guidelines that detail what types of content gets algorithmically distributed in its app to users.

Discussion: Snap Inc. and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Fortune CEO told staff that Fortune.com pageviews grew 90% YoY in 2022 to around 427M, with syndication revenue up 87% and social referral traffic up 300% — Fortune magazine CEO Alan Murray sent out the following to the staff on Wednesday: — Hello Fortune team!

Discussion: @tvgrimreaper

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 4:20 PM ET, March 15, 2023.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Output Producer, CA — AP

China Markets Correspondent, Shanghai — Reuters

Senior Assignment Editor, DC — WaPo

Breaking News Editor, Tokyo — Bloomberg

Senior Correspondent - Wealth, NY — WSJ

Reporter - Ottawa Bureau — Globe & Mail

Local Government Reporter, IA — The Gazette

Research Director, CA — OCBJ

Immigration Enforcement Reporter — Documented

Presque Island Reporter, ME — Bangor Daily News

Contributing Parks Ed. - SW, CA — SFGATE

AI Content Editor, WA — Outlier

Legislative Reporter, TN — Daily Memphian

Editorial Assistant, Remote US — Launch Potato

Elon Musk Reporter, NY or CA — The Information

Government & Politics Editor, WA — Seattle Times

Business & GA Reporter. VT — VTDigger

Sports Reporter, WA — Everett Herald

Energy Reporter, TX — Houston Chronicle

Senior Reporter, SC — Island Packet

Trade & Climate Correspondent, DC — FT

Reporter, WI — Racine County Eye

Political Newsletter Writer, CO — The Lever

Jackson Reporter, MS — Verite

Music Editor, AZ — Phoenix New Times

Breaking News Reporter, NV — Las Vegas Sun

Fearless Reporter/Producer, IA — BPC

Reporter II - Technology, Remote — NPR

Editor, Remote US — Daily Kos

City Reporter, WA — Tacoma News Tribune

Executive Editor, OR — Lookout Local

Education & Budget Reporter, CA — Politico

Senior Writer/Editor, FL — Gulfshore Business

Media Editor, Remote — Axios

Add your company here

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn adds AI-powered writing suggestions, initially for writing profiles, using OpenAI's GPT-4, and for recruiters writing job descriptions, using GPT-3.5

Discussion: Gizmodo, @ediggs, The Verge and Wired, more at Techmeme »

Jake Kanter / Deadline:
The UK government increases the film and TV expenditure credit from 25% to as much as 34%, with the qualifying threshold for high-end TV shows held at £1M

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter and @jake_kanter

Colin Mann / Advanced Television:
Aluma Insights: 50%+ of US subscribers to the top 16 SVODs view Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ as essential and Epix Now, Apple TV+, and Peacock as least essential

Discussion: The Streamable and MediaPost

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Mythical, a studio built on YouTube by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, launches a 24-hour free channel on Roku, showing Good Mythical Morning and more

Discussion: @rhettmc

RFE / Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:
A Russian court declares RFE/RL bankrupt, after it refused to pay $14M+ for noncompliance with a “foreign agents” law; RFE/RL calls the law political censorship

Discussion: The Desk, Voice of America and scussion

Earlier Picks:

The Verge:
Sources: Spotify was ready to launch HiFi as a premium tier by the end of 2021 but Apple and Amazon offering lossless audio at no extra charge spoiled its plans

Discussion: Gizmodo, 9to5Mac, @chriswelch, Music Ally and The Desk, more at Techmeme »

The Guardian:
Internal chats: after UK government pressure, BBC editors asked reporters to avoid using the word “lockdown”; the BBC says the messages are “out of context”

Daniel Frankel / Next TV:
DirecTV sues Nexstar, Mission Broadcasting, and White Knight Broadcasting for allegedly conspiring to raise DirecTV's retransmission fees in some local markets

Discussion: The Streamable, DIRECTV Insider, MediaPost, The Desk and Cord Cutters News

Jason Kottke / kottke.org:
Kottke.org turns 25: the weblog with around 40K posts was started by Jason Kottke when he was 24 and has been his full-time job supporting his family since 2005

Discussion: @dimensionmedia, @jeansnow, @bwjones, @antonioortiz, @hemeon, @om, @abnormalreturns, @dvg, @conroyforreal, @ftrain, @beforesmag, @salimismail, @waxy, @davewiner, @tveskov, @austinkleon, @anildash and @kottke

Francesco Zaffarano / Nieman Lab:
Q&A with Bellingcat Senior Investigator and Trainer Giancarlo Fiorella, who runs the outlet's Discord server, on its sudden growth, benefits, purpose, and more

Discussion: @frazaffarano and @velile_mnyandu

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

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page