Mediagazer: Involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will be dropped in the shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (Winston Cho/The Hollywood Reporter)

8:00 PM ET, April 20, 2023

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Memo: BuzzFeed shuts down News and cuts ~180 jobs, or ~15% of its staff; Jonah Peretti: “we will have a single news brand in HuffPost, which is profitable” — BuzzFeed News, which won a Pulitzer Prize but never made money, is “beginning the process of closing,” the company's founder …

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Ben Smith / Semafor:

The end of BuzzFeed News signals a vast shift in digital media: the old way of thinking about news as text distributed primarily on social media has passed — My old boss and partner Jonah Peretti announced today that he's shutting down BuzzFeed News, which we built together starting in 2012.

Gerry Smith / Bloomberg:
BuzzFeed CRO Edgar Hernandez and COO Christian Baesler are leaving as part of the company's cuts, following advertisers pulling back; BZFD closes down 19.71%

Discussion: Insider, @angelanfu, Sydney Morning Herald, @tomgara, @matthewfoldi, @poynter and @petersterne

Bron Maher / Press Gazette:

Insider lays off ~10% of its US-based staff to stay “healthy and competitive”, affecting editorial and commercial roles; the company employs ~950 staff globally — The company president emailed staff to inform them at 7am Eastern time on Thursday.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Gizmodo, New York Daily News, @david_slotnick, @lmoses, Talking Biz News, @litcapital, @pressgazette, @pressgazette, @pressgazette, @tomaxwell, @corbinbolies and The Information

Nate Saunders / ESPN.com:

The family of former F1 racer Michael Schumacher plans to take legal action against German magazine Die Aktuelle for a fake interview generated by an AI chatbot — Michael Schumacher's family plans to take legal action against a German magazine that ran an AI-generated interview with the Formula One legend.

Discussion: Reuters, @riathalsam, Newser, CBS News, The Verge, The Daily Beast, @edspencer99, @marybschneider, @lavosaurus, Engadget, Fox News and Fortune

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:

Involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will be dropped in the shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins — Baldwin faced two counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Discussion: Deadline, The Hill, Bloomberg, Variety, SlashFilm, Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera, Bustle, ABC News, The Wrap, IGN, Vanity Fair, The A.V. Club, New York Daily News, Fox News, The Guardian, Insider, Associated Press, Comic Book, New York Post, IndieWire, Semafor, abc7NY, Rolling Stone and Page Six

Angela Fu / Poynter:

A deep look at the changes at The Buffalo News: print and design outsourcing, staff furloughs, insurance snafus, fewer reporters, and higher-paid Lee executives — Lee cut budgets, pushed out veterans and outsourced design and print production at a paper that had been spared the worst of the industry's decline.

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Katherine Le Ruez / The Guardian:

The Guardian signs a commercial licensing deal to let London-based tech startup Illuma use The Guardian's API to categorize articles for contextual ad purposes — The Guardian has signed an agreement with a British technology company, Illuma, to categorise article pages for contextual advertising purposes …

Discussion: Digiday, @missig_geek, @vivaldibrowser, @accountabletech, @mattrogerson and @digiday

Mariella Moon / Engadget:

Imgur plans to delete “old, unused, and inactive content” that's not tied to a user account, starting on May 15, potentially erasing years of internet history — For years, Imgur has made sharing photos and GIFs on the internet as easy as uploading a file — you don't even need an account to use it.

Discussion: @sophaskins, Mashable and @tomgara, more at Techmeme »

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Imgur plans to ban explicit images, but permit artistic nudity, from May 15, and expects issues as the service adopts a mix of automatic and human moderation

Discussion: Wired, The Verge, Gizmodo and Windows Central, more at Techmeme »

Jef Feeley / Bloomberg:

Sources: the prospect of fired Fox News producer Abby Grossberg's secret recordings being played during trial pushed Fox News to its $787.5M Dominion settlement — The prospect of a fired Fox News producer's secret recordings being played during trial helped push the conservative network …

Discussion: Washington Post, Gizmodo and @timobrien

David Pierce / The Verge:

A look at ActivityPub, the open, decentralized social network protocol finalized in 2018 that is gaining prominence powering Twitter alternatives like Mastodon — The tech industry is abuzz about a new standard for social networking that is more open, more user-centric, and potentially more powerful than Twitter and Facebook.

Discussion: @shoq and @anildash, more at Techmeme »

Mark Joyella / Forbes:

Fox News host Dan Bongino says he is leaving after unsuccessful contract extension talks, ending his shows Unfiltered with Dan Bongino and Canceled in the USA — Fox News has ended its relationship with Dan Bongino, who hosted the Saturday night show Unfiltered with Dan Bongino.

Discussion: Mediaite, Pew Research Center, Metro US, New York Daily News, @pewjournalism, Los Angeles Times, The Hill, @mattgertz, @justinbaragona, @jennaellisesq, The Daily Beast, @bradmossesq, @parkermolloy, @helenkennedy, @jeremymbarr and Deadline

Deadline:

Former Marvel exec Victoria Alonso reaches a multimillion-dollar settlement with Disney over her firing; her lawyer says she was silenced for criticizing Disney — EXCLUSIVE: The Walt Disney Company has settled with former Marvel Studios VFX chief Victoria Alonso after pink-slipping her last month.

Discussion: Variety, The Wrap, Los Angeles Times, @tvgrimreaper, IndieWire, IGN, The A.V. Club and The Hollywood Reporter

Tim Ingham / Music Business Worldwide:

Mandolin, a music livestreaming platform that launched in June 2020 and closed a $12M Series A in June 2021, announces it is shutting down — During the pandemic, it was billed as one of the leading platforms in the music livestreaming space. Last year, it was named the most innovative music company in the world by Fast Company.

Discussion: Variety, AllAccess.com, Pollstar News and Hypebot

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.

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