Mediagazer: Fox says the company can deduct the cost of its $787.5M settlement with Dominion; writing off the full payment would amount to an estimated $213M in tax savings (Julia Rock/The Lever)

4:20 PM ET, April 20, 2023

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Memo: BuzzFeed News is shutting down, and BuzzFeed is cutting jobs by ~15%; 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, based on text and distributed via social media, has passed

Gerry Smith / Bloomberg:
BuzzFeed CRO Edgar Hernandez and COO Christian Baesler are leaving as part of the company's cutbacks; BZFD is down 20%+

Discussion: Insider, @angelanfu, @tomgara, @matthewfoldi, @poynter and @petersterne

Bron Maher / Press Gazette:

Insider is laying off about 10% of its US-based staff, affecting editorial and commercial roles; the company employs approximately 950 people globally — The company president emailed staff to inform them at 7am Eastern time on Thursday. — Insider is laying off 10% of its staff in the US …

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

Angela Fu / Poynter:

A deep look at changes at The Buffalo News: print and design outsourcing, employee furloughs, insurance snafus, fewer reporters, and more pay for 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.

Discussion: @byjonharris, @tompreciousalb, @willcleveland13, @sulliview, @ckrewson, @poynter, @poynter, @byjonharris, @buffaloscribe and @zachreports

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

Katherine Le Ruez / The Guardian:

The Guardian signs a licensing deal with British tech company Illuma, letting Illuma use The Guardian API to categorize article pages 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, @vivaldibrowser, @accountabletech, @missig_geek, @mattrogerson and @digiday

Nate Saunders / ESPN.com:

The family of ex-F1 racer Michael Schumacher plans legal action against German magazine Die Aktuelle, which ran an AI-generated fake interview with the driver — 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, Fox News, The Verge, CBS News, Engadget, @edspencer99, @marybschneider, @lavosaurus, The Daily Beast and Fortune

Mark Joyella / Forbes:

Fox News host Dan Bongino says he is leaving the network after unsuccessful contract 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, The Hill, @parkermolloy, @helenkennedy, @jennaellisesq, @justinbaragona, @bradmossesq, Deadline, @mattgertz, The Daily Beast and @jeremymbarr

Julia Rock / The Lever:

Fox says the company can deduct the cost of its $787.5M settlement with Dominion; writing off the full payment would amount to an estimated $213M in tax savings — Fox's massive settlement with private equity-backed voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems didn't just spare …

Discussion: @davidsirota, The Wrap, Vanity Fair, @halmarshall2309, @halmarshall2309, @halmarshall2309, @halmarshall2309, @halmarshall2309, New Republic, @davidwbrown and New York Times

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

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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

Jef Feeley / Bloomberg:

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

Discussion: Gizmodo and @timobrien

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

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.

more at Techmeme »

Financial Times:

Internal slides: in the coming months, Google plans to let advertisers supply “creative” content for generative AI to “remix” for more sophisticated campaigns — Big tech groups are racing to incorporate the groundbreaking new technology into their products

Discussion: Engadget, MarTech, Gizmodo, The Verge, @johnreedwrites, @ruslantrad, @bigmeaninternet, @cristinacriddle and @lukolejnik, more at Techmeme »

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:

Alec Baldwin's lawyers say involuntary manslaughter charges against him will be dropped in the fatal shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins — Baldwin faced two counts of involuntary manslaughter.