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Lawrence Hurley / @lawrencehurley:
[Thread] Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito uses a Wall Street Journal op-ed to respond to questions from ProPublica, instead of simply issuing a statement — Justice Alito appears to be trying to get out ahead of a new ProPublica report that will address a trip he went on with billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer. Weirdly, it is published as an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/...
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Peter White / Deadline:
Sources: in a surprise move, WBD shops some HBO titles to Netflix, including Issa Rae's 2021 comedy Insecure, to boost revenue; some HBO veterans pushed back — EXCLUSIVE: HBO's streaming walled garden is coming down, it seems. — In a hugely surprising move, Deadline understands …
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Washington Post:
ProPublica reporters and other staff are unionizing; president Robin Sparkman and EIC Stephen Engleberg say ProPublica plans to recognize the union — The donor-supported hub for investigative reporting isn't grappling with the same economic strains as its corporate peers. Its staffers still want a union anyway.
Justin Baragona / The Daily Beast:
Geraldo Rivera says Fox News took him off The Five; in early May, he complained that he had “been canceled” from upcoming broadcasts of the show — Rivera had been tapped to be one of the late-afternoon chat show's regular “liberal” co-hosts last year, but he has seen his appearances dry up in recent months.
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Todd Spangler / Variety:
Smosh co-founders Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox buy back a majority stake in the YouTube brand they launched 18 years ago, from Rhett & Link's Mythical — The duo have reunited as onscreen comedy partners and offscreen business associates to acquire a majority ownership stake in Smosh …
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The Wrap, Smosh on YouTube, @devonwerkharder, Forbes and Tubefilter
Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter:
Netflix tweaks its weekly top 10 rankings to sort by “views”, calculated by dividing the time spent watching a film or a show in a week by its running time — The streamer's weekly rankings will now show the most popular titles by number of accounts watching as well as total time.
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The Verge, @nina_metz, @nreviewed, BGR, UPROXX, TVLine, The A.V. Club and IndieWire, more at Techmeme »
Zosha Millman / Polygon:
Ali Selim, the director and executive producer of Marvel's Secret Invasion, says Method Studios used AI to design the opening credits scene — ‘It just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity’ — The world of Secret Invasion is decidedly sketchy.
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Mia Sato / The Verge:
Patreon adds a free membership tier for the first time and plans to let creators sell one-off downloadable products such as videos and podcasts, taking a 5% cut — Patreon built a user base with creators who wanted to charge a fee for the content they create.
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TechCrunch
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Twitch plans to require that streamers add new content labels for streams with sexual themes, graphic violence, drug use, gambling, or “significant” vulgarity — Twitch is rethinking the way it flags mature content, swapping its existing toggle for a more granular set of topic-specific labels.
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The Drum, blog.twitch.tv, Polygon, The Verge, Tubefilter and Forbes, more at Techmeme »
Isabella Simonetti / Wall Street Journal:
An interview with Fox News host Greg Gutfeld about his late-night show's ratings success, controversial comments, wanting Tucker Carlson's time slot, and more — Host of late-night show ‘Gutfeld!’ and co-host of ‘The Five’ emerges as bigger player at network after Tucker Carlson's exit
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Discord plans to let creators sell “Downloadables”, digital products available via one-time purchases, and rolls out Media Channels in beta — Discord plans to give creators a new way to make money from their communities by selling digital products via one-time purchases.
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Music Ally and @itsurboyevan, more at Techmeme »
Manuel Baigorri / Bloomberg:
Vivendi's Canal+ agrees to acquire a 26.1% stake in Hong Kong-based streamer Viu for $200M; the investment could increase to $300M under certain conditions — Canal+, the French broadcaster owned by billionaire Vincent Bollore's Vivendi SE, has agreed to buy a significant minority stake …
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Deadline, WORLD SCREEN, Broadband TV News, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety