Mediagazer: For Fox Corp., which ended 2022 with $4.1B in “cash and cash equivalents” on hand, $787.5M is a bargain to avoid more embarrassment and continue its sleazy ways (Jack Shafer/Politico)

9:55 PM ET, April 19, 2023

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Steven Monacelli / @stevanzetti:

[Thread] Twitter suspends Wired's Dell Cameron, claiming he broke hacked material rules, after he reported on a person who said he hacked Matt Walsh's account — WOW: @dellcam has been suspended by Twitter after reporting about the hack of Matt Walsh's Twitter account https://twitter.com/...

Jack Shafer / Politico:

For Fox Corp., which ended 2022 with $4.1B in “cash and cash equivalents” on hand, $787.5M is a bargain to avoid more embarrassment and continue its sleazy ways — For the media mogul, the massive Dominion settlement fee is just the cost of doing business.

CNN:

Sources and the mediator detail how Fox and Dominion settled, after Dominion notified Fox that Rupert Murdoch and Tucker Carlson were among its first witnesses — Veteran mediator Jerry Roscoe was on a relaxing river cruise from Budapest to Bucharest celebrating his 70th birthday on Sunday when he received an urgent phone call.

Discussion: The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, @keitholbermann, @sarah_boxer, Semafor, @marshallcohen, @marshallcohen, @oliverdarcy, @brianstelter, @mattgertz, @kira_lerner and @srl

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Fox News says its court settlement reflects its “commitment to the highest journalistic standards”, showing that not even court evidence of perfidy can shame it — When news of a possible settlement between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News surfaced on Sunday night …

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Fox spared its executives and hosts further embarrassment on the witness stand but the $787M settlement sets a benchmark for lawsuits from Smartmatic and others

Discussion: Washington Post, Law & Crime, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter, CNBC, New York Times, @katiephang, Bangor Daily News, Vanity Fair, New Republic, @karolcummins, @jonathanlanday and @frasermatthew

Washington Post:
The Fox-Dominion settlement is the largest publicly disclosed one in a US defamation case yet; sources: Fox doesn't have to make an on-air correction or apology

Discussion: CNN, @tripgabriel, @aaronblake, The Intercept, @justinbaragona, @maassp, New York Times, Robert Reich, NPR, Deadline, @donmoyn, @steven_strauss, @timobrien, @ryanvanvelzer, The Hill, @walshfreedom, CBS News, Media Matters for America, @alexpadilla4ca, @jamilsmith, @wilkowmajority, @mollyjongfast, @tedlieu, @ron_fournier, @davidfolkenflik, New Republic, @macfarlanenews, @davidaxelrod, @waltisfrozen, @renato_mariotti, @tomfitton, Morning Shots, @nickconfessore, @brianstelter, Poynter, @bgrueskin, Broadband TV News, @haldavis3, @lindyli, @erikwemple, @jakeadelstein, @farhip, @farhip, @claremalone, @bgrueskin, @bgrueskin, @erikwemple, @mattiweil, @blowryontv, @brianklaas, @alfranken, @kbandersen, @tripgabriel, @lindyli, @pickardje, @maassp, @aaronblake, @froomkin, New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, CBC News, @heidilifeldman@mastodon …, @juddlegum@journa.host, @JoshuaHolland@mastodon.social, @jeffjarvis@mastodon.social, @Theoreticalb@mastodon.social, @heidilifeldman@mastodon …, PBS NewsHour and The Atlantic

CNBC:
Fox Corp and its cable networks agree to pay $787.5M to Dominion Voting Systems to settle the defamation lawsuit over Fox's lies about Dominion's machines

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Matt Binder / Mashable:

Microsoft plans to drop Twitter support from its ad platform on April 25; users won't be able to access or manage Twitter accounts through Microsoft's tool — Yet another big B2B service passes on paying for Twitter's new high-priced API. — Twitter is being removed from yet another big B2B platform.

Discussion: CNBC, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, The Verge, @elonmusk, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, The Information, @mattbinder, CNN, @evan_rosenfeld, help.ads.microsoft.com and @mattbinder, more at Techmeme »

Washington Post:

An analysis of Google's C4 dataset, a snapshot of 15M websites used to train LLMs, shows that half of the Top 10 sites were news outlets like The New York Times — AI chatbots have exploded in popularity over the past four months, stunning the public with their awesome abilities …

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Netflix upgrades its ad-supported plan, increasing the video quality from 720p to 1080p and the number of streams from one to two, starting in Canada and Spain — Netflix is making its $6.99 per month ad-supported plan a much better value. … Subscribers in Canada and Spain …

Discussion: CNET, Comic Book and MacRumors, more at Techmeme »

Nicholas Gordon / Fortune:
Netflix added 1.46M subscribers in Asia-Pacific in Q1 2023, out of a total of 1.75M, 100K in the US and Canada, 640K in EMEA, and lost 450K in Latin America

Discussion: Insider Intelligence, Narcity and Financial Times

Sarah Krouse / Wall Street Journal:
Netflix plans to ship its last red DVD envelopes in September 2023, after 25 years of mailing shows and movies to subscribers and paving the way for streaming

Rosa Flores / CNN:

County official Mark Jennings resigns after an Oklahoma newspaper released audio allegedly of him and others talking about killing journalists and Black people — An Oklahoma county commissioner allegedly heard on a recording of local officials that included remarks about lynching Black people and killing journalists has resigned.

Discussion: Fox News, @sankalots and Rolling Stone

Liam Scott / Voice of America:
Oklahoma's governor calls on four officials to resign after a newspaper released audio of the group talking about killing journalists and lynching Black people

Pew Research Center:

December 2022 survey: 49% of US adults listened to a podcast in the past year; 87% of those who hear news discussed on podcasts expect it to be mostly accurate — About half of Americans have listened to a podcast in the past year, and most of those listeners come across news content

Discussion: @pewresearch, @pewresearch, New York Post, @douglesmerises, @kenvogel, @katmatsa, Hot Pod News, @pewresearch, RADIO ONLINE and American Press Institute

Rebecca Pettingill / Columbia Basin Herald:

Washington's legislature passes a bill giving a tax break to newspapers and websites that grew from newspapers; the bill awaits Governor Jay Inslee's signature — OLYMPIA - Senate Bill 5199, a measure that gives a tax break for newspaper publishers, passed the Washington House of Representatives 89-7 Monday.

Discussion: @andersem and @dankennedy_nu@journa.host

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:

Snap expands its revenue share program to accept creators with 50K+ followers and 25M+ monthly views, and says its TikTok rival Spotlight has 350M monthly users — Snapchat is rolling out additional features to help creators get noticed and make a living. — Over a year ago …

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Information, The Drum, Tubefilter and The Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Mark Sweney / The Guardian:

Kantar: UK households canceled 167K paid streaming service subscriptions in Q1 2023, taking the total down to 29.4M; Netflix was estimated to be the hardest hit — Exclusive: households cancelled almost 170,000 streaming service subscriptions in first quarter of 2023

Max Goldbart / Deadline:

Fremantle UK names Amelia Brown as its new CEO, replacing Simon Andreae, who stepped down earlier this week after misconduct complaints and two investigations — Fremantle UK has named departing Thames boss Amelia Brown as its new CEO just days after Simon Andreae stepped down following misconduct complaints.

Discussion: The Wrap, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter

Charlotte Klein / Vanity Fair:

How Bellingcat researcher Aric Toler helped The New York Times identify Jack Teixeira, the Air National guardsman charged with leaking classified Pentagon docs — The Times publicly identified the man believed to have leaked intelligence documents before law enforcement did.

Discussion: @arictoler, @runasand, @matthewkeyslive, @vanityfair, @vanityfair, @arictoler, @arictoler, @trbrtc and @arictoler

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

A look at the decline of late-night TV as linear audiences wane; Vivvix: seven late-night shows drew $412.7M in 2022 advertising, down ~41% from $698M+ in 2018 — People from all over the world on most weekdays eagerly line up across New York City — ready to do something they'd likely never do at home.