Top News:
Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Herbert J. Siegel, a billionaire entertainment industry mogul who enabled the 1989 Time Warner merger and sold 10 TV stations to News Corp. in 2000, dies at 95 — As head of Chris-Craft Industries, he played a role in the Time-Warner merger and sold 10 television stations to Rupert Murdoch.
Angela Yang / NBC News:
Major outlets including Insider, Variety, and the LA Times had to walk back their reporting about the supposed death of child rapper Lil Tay — A post on Lil Tay's Instagram account announced her death. A day later, it was removed. — Lil Tay's life has always been shocking …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X lowers eligibility threshold for ads revenue sharing from 15M to 5M impressions within the past 3 months; Musk says only views from “verified handles” count — Elon Musk-owned social network X, formerly Twitter, said late Thursday that it is lowering requirements for its creator payout program.
Discussion:
@support, @elonmusk, The Verge and Wired, more at Techmeme »
Nicole Gallucci / Decider:
Writers for the series Suits, which aired from 2011 to 2019 and has received renewed interest on Netflix and Peacock, criticize their paltry streaming residuals — As WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes persist and tens of thousands of people withhold labor in pursuit of equitable streaming residuals …
Discussion:
Screen Rant, @deweycrowe3, @lucas_shaw, @lucas_shaw, Us Weekly, Collider, Los Angeles Times and New York Post
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
An interview with X CEO Linda Yaccarino on her having “autonomy” under Elon Musk, brands including Coca-Cola and Visa returning under her leadership, and more — WATCH NOW — X Corp. CEO Linda Yaccarino told CNBC that she has “autonomy” under owner Elon Musk in an interview Thursday …
Discussion:
Insider, Boing Boing, @mmfa, Gizmodo, @sparrowmedia, @mmfa, @darthbluesky.bsky.social, Mashable, @mmasnick.bsky.social, @oneunderscore__, @atrupar, MobileSyrup, @jyarow, @w7voa, @justinbaragona, @junlper, CNN, Reclaim The Net, New York Post, TechCrunch, @librarianshipwreck … and The Wrap, more at Techmeme »
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Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
X CEO Linda Yaccarino plans to reinstate the company's “client council”, an invite-only yet-to-be-decided group of marketing and ad executives, in the fall
Discussion:
Media Matters for America, Insider, Fortune, CNBC, CNN, @lindayax, Associated Press, The Information, Reclaim The Net, Ad Age, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Engadget, PRWeek, TechCrunch, The Wrap, Digiday and Mashable
Nicola Agius / Search Engine Land:
X unveils Sensitivity Settings and Enhanced Blocklist to boost brand safety and control for advertisers, rolling out over the next few weeks in X Ads Manager
Discussion:
@lindayax, MediaPost, @elyanathierry, @xbusiness, The Register, MobileSyrup, Social Media Today, X for Business, Engadget, TechCrunch, Forbes and Mashable
Georgi Azar / Bloomberg:
FC Barcelona plans to list its content creation unit Barca Media on Nasdaq in Q4 via a SPAC merger valued at $1B — Spanish football's FC Barcelona will list its content creation unit Barca Media in the US via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company that values the combined entity at $1 billion.
Sarah Fielding / Engadget:
To fight spam, YouTube plans to deactivate links in Shorts descriptions, comments, and the vertical feed from August 31 and make social media icons unclickable — The move follows other anti-spam measures. — YouTube knows that it has a spam problem, particularly when it comes to its two-year-old Shorts feature.
Danny Goodwin / Search Engine Land:
The New York Times updated its terms of service on August 3, aiming to prevent AI companies from using the media organization's content to train their systems — Many large language models are trained using website content without permission - and some brands are demanding compensatation.
Discussion:
MediaNama, Search Engine Journal, Agence France-Presse, @lauren@mastodon …, Adweek and Insider
Mickey Djuric / Canadian Press:
Meta's blocking of news outlets has impacted some satirical websites in Canada, including The Beaverton and The Toronto Harold, requiring appeals to the company — OTTAWA - Luke Gordon Field is trying to figure out how he can explain the concept of deadpan satire to an algorithm. — 3 min to read
Discussion:
@thebeaverton
Reuters:
News Corp reports Q4 revenue down 9% YoY to $2.43B and profit up 8% YoY to $341M, with digital revenue accounting for over 50% of FY 2023 total revenue — Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NWSA.O) on Thursday beat quarterly profit estimates thanks to its cost-cutting efforts and talked …
Discussion:
Seeking Alpha, The Guardian, @normative, New York Post, Wall Street Journal and News Corporation
James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:
Diana Marcum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former feature writer for the Los Angeles Times, San Bernardino Sun, and Fresno Bee, dies at 60 — Diana Marcum forged a career, and a life, by giving a voice to Californians whom many people didn't take time to notice.
Discussion:
Poynter, @larry_bohannan, @janycemcgregor, @mattdpearce, @nicolemfoy, Fresno Bee, @demianbulwa, @jaylclendenin, @janycemcgregor and @janycemcgregor
Jacob Granger / Journalism.co.uk:
Blendle, bought by Cafeyn in 2020, is ending micropayments for news articles in the US and Germany on September 4, focusing on subscription bundles instead — News consumers expect all-access, Spotify-style subscription bundles, not small purchases — Credit: Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Discussion:
@jbenton and Nieman Lab
Wendy Lee / Los Angeles Times:
The WGA's negotiating committee plans to meet the AMPTP on August 11; AMPTP President Carol Lombardini requested the meeting, the second since the strike began — After more than 100 days of striking, the Writers Guild of America said it has agreed to meet again with the negotiators representing the major Hollywood studios on Friday.
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