Top News:
Publishers Weekly:
Scholastic apologizes for asking a children's book author to cut language in an author's note about ongoing racism after saying the note might lessen readership — Concerns about censorship at Scholastic's Rising Voices Library, a diversity-focused provider of educational materials …
Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:
Parlement Technologies sells Parler to digital media company Starboard, which plans to temporarily shut down the right-wing social network ahead of a relaunch — Social network popular with conservatives will be sold for an undisclosed amount and overhauled for a relaunch
Discussion:
Reuters, Variety, The Hill, The Desk, The Wrap, Engadget, Deadline, Forbes, Ars Technica, Fortune, Mediaite, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, @digiphile, The Verge, Recurrent, @starboardllc, TheBlaze, Rolling Stone and Boing Boing, more at Techmeme »
Patrick Frater / Variety:
Comcast invests $200M in James Murdoch and Uday Shankar's Bodhi Tree Systems, which will use the money to buy a minority stake in Indian media group Viacom18 — Comcast, the conglomerate behind NBCUniversal and the Sky European TV giant, is to invest $200 million in Bodhi Tree Systems …
Discussion:
Reuters, Observer, The Hindu, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and TechCrunch
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Instagram updates Reels with a section for trending audio and hashtags, expands gifts to more countries, enhances its editing tools, adds new metrics, and more — As governments around the world express growing concerns about TikTok, its rival Instagram Reels is getting a series of new updates aimed at creators.
Discussion:
Instagram for Creators, MediaPost, @mosseri, Meta, Tubefilter, Social Media Today, The Verge, Engadget, @lovebunnycos, @mattnavarra, @jeffveillette and @nickcicero, more at Techmeme »
Ryan Barwick / Marketing Brew:
Since cutting Taboola and open-market programmatic ads, Bloomberg has replaced those advertisers with in-house promos worth ~$7.4M over the past few months — Spring cleaning came early for Bloomberg Media. Last fall, the publisher said it would cut ties with the programmatic open marketplace …
Discussion:
@outlandishjosh, @marketingbrew, @ckrewson and Media Voices
Zac Ntim / Deadline:
French fashion house Saint Laurent is launching a production banner headed by its creative director Anthony Vaccarello and debuting two short films at Cannes — French fashion house Saint Laurent is moving into the world of cinema with an official production banner headed by house creative director Anthony Vaccarello.
Discussion:
WWD, @wwd, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap and Variety
Pete Pachal / CoinDesk:
CoinDesk plans to stop using generative AI images and spells out its rules for AI use in different contexts, requiring disclosure for articles but not headlines — Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are changing the way we work - especially the media. Here are the rules of the road for CoinDesk.
Discussion:
@petepachal, @coindesk and @bmorrissey
Financial Times:
Sources: the European parliament is close to finalizing tough new measures on AI, including forcing chatbot makers to reveal if they use copyrighted material — Proposals include requiring chatbot makers to reveal if they are using copyrighted material — The European parliament …
Discussion:
@tonyajoriley, @pt and @alexwitzleben, more at Techmeme »
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
A study of 33 UK media companies: the average median gender pay gap fell from 15.7% in 2017 to 12.1% in 2022 and the average mean gap fell from 17.7% to 13.7% — There are more men than women in the top-paid quartile at 91% of major UK media companies. — Men were paid more on average …
Discussion:
@chartbeat, The Hill, @annieeaves, @dcnorg, @mattnavarra, @pressgazette and @pressgazette
Andy Maxwell / TorrentFreak:
Noonoo TV, a South Korean movie and TV show piracy platform, shuts down, blaming high bandwidth charges and “pressure”, likely from a new anti-piracy coalition — One month ago, South Korean movie and TV show piracy platform Noonoo TV was riding the crest of a wave along with tens of millions of dedicated fans.
Sheila Dang / Reuters:
Sensor Tower: Twitter's top 50 advertisers spent $83M over the past two months, down from $102M YoY; Mars, AT&T, Volkswagen, and Stellantis haven't returned — Twitter-owner Elon Musk has said advertisers are returning to the social media platform, but statements from several companies …
Discussion:
@reuters and Media Matters for America, more at Techmeme »
Nicholas Quah / Vulture:
A look at the Economist's aloof and listenable podcasts, which averaged ~25M downloads in March 2023 and have ~5M listeners, as the content gets more ambitious — It's hard to argue that there's much fresh energy among news podcasts of late. The genre's modern generation largely came …
Discussion:
@natashaloder, @codendahl, @tiagodf, @birdyword and @eaterofsun
Senior Data Journalist, NY — 
Manager - Publishing Editorial, Manila — 
Oil Reporter, Singapore — 
Newsperson - State Govt. & Politics, CA — 
Business Reporter, SC — 
State Government Reporter, WA — 
Climate Crisis Columnist — 
Multimedia Journalist, CA — 
Community Engagement Mgr., DC — 
Senior California Politics Reporter, CA — 
Staff Writer - Business, NY — 
Team Editor - Opinion, ON — 
Assistant Correspondent, DC — 
Climate & Weather Reporter, MN — 
Senior Tech Editor, Remote US — 
Lead Business Reporter, TN — 
Managing Editor, WA — 
Private Credit Reporter, NY — 
Trending News Reporter, TX — 
City Correspondent, London — 
Legislative Reporter, CA — 
Reporter, PA — 
Visual Editor, Remote — 
Staff Writer, MI — 
Senior Political Reporter, DC — 
California Playbook Writer, CA — 
National Investigative Reporter, NY — 
Business & Gaming Reporter, NV — 
Coastal Climate Reporter, SC — 
Environment & Energy Reporter, CT — 
Coordinating Editor, OR — 
Editor, Remote US — 
Business Reporter, WA — 
Editor-in-Chief, AZ — 
