Mediagazer: Source: on August 22, The Washington Post quietly laid off several top marketing staff, program managers, and product designers at Arc XP, its technology arm (Max Tani/Semafor)

11:25 AM ET, August 30, 2023

Top News:

Warner Bros. Discovery names Mark Thompson, the former New York Times CEO and BBC director-general, as the chairman and CEO of CNN, starting on October 9 — Mr. Thompson, who oversaw a period of growth at The New York Times, will lead the network during a pivotal period.

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver debut Spotify podcast Strike Force Five; proceeds will go to their out-of-work staff — ‘Strike Force Five’ limited series features Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver

Discussion: Spotify, Fox News, The Hollywood Reporter, IGN, @markeortega, Mashable, Los Angeles Times, Billboard, UPROXX, Mediaite, TVLine, IndieWire, The Wrap, Vanity Fair, Deadline, Rolling Stone and Consequence

Amrita Khalid / The Verge:

Q&A with SiriusXM SVP Adam Sachs on heading the entertainment, comedy, and podcast programming unit, leveraging radio, comedians embracing podcasts, and more — It's only Tuesday, and it's already been a packed week for podcast news. Shortly before hitting publish on this issue of Hot Pod …

Discussion: Podnews, The Hill and 98 Rock Online

Luke Bouma / Cord Cutters News:

Starz lowers the price of its annual membership from $74.99 to $69.99 and claims to be one of the few streaming networks that is profitable — Great news for fans of Outlander and other popular shows on STARZ: Starting today, STARZ has lowered the price of its annual membership form $74.99 a year to $69.99.

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Streamable and @tvgrimreaper

Mack DeGeurin / Gizmodo:

CoinDesk retracts two opinion pieces criticizing TRON founder Justin Sun and Chainalysis executive Elizabeth Bisbee, citing “highly personalized attacks” — Popular crypto industry news outlet CoinDesk has retracted a pair of opinion articles criticizing the founder …

Discussion: Protos, Amy Castor, BeInCrypto, Talking Biz News, CoinDesk and crypto.news

Jim Edwards / Press Gazette:

The Mill, a network of local UK journalism newsletters, raised £350K from Mark Thompson, Axios' Nicholas Johnston, and others, and expects £400K in 2023 revenue — Former New York Times boss Mark Thompson invests in The Mill. — Joshi Herrmann, the founder of The Mill …

Discussion: @pressgazette and The Guardian

Oliver Darcy / CNN:

Disney, Bloomberg, WaPo, The Atlantic, Axios, ABC, ESPN, Condé Nast, Hearst, Vox, and others join the NYT and Reuters in blocking OpenAI's GPTBot web crawler — Editor's Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter.

Discussion: Poynter, The Wrap, Press Gazette and Decrypt

Reuters:

Similarweb and Data.ai: Meta blocking news in Canada barely impacted Canadians' Facebook usage, backing Meta's claim that news has little value for the company — Meta's (META.O) decision to block news links in Canada this month has had almost no impact on Canadians' usage of Facebook …

Discussion: @mgeist, @mgeist, Al Jazeera and Gizmodo

Dade Hayes / Deadline:

ESPN signs a deal with Theater Sports Network to stream dozens of ACC college football games, some playoffs, and the national championship in movie theaters — - College Football Widens Reach In Movie Theaters As ESPN Sets Distribution Deal For ACC Regular Season, New Year's Bowl Games And Playoff

Discussion: The Wrap, ESPN Press Room U.S., Associated Press, ABC57, Awful Announcing, The Athletic and Barrett Media

Ernesto Van der Sar / TorrentFreak:

Letter: the UFC, the NBA, and the NFL tell the USPTO that the DMCA needs to be updated so live content can be removed “instantaneously or near-instantaneously” — The UFC, NBA and NFL are without a doubt among the most recognizable sports brands in the world.

Discussion: UFC-NBA-NFL, Engadget, Ars Technica, Front Office Sports, Cord Cutters News and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Bart Barnes / Washington Post:

Douglas Feaver, an Online News Association founder and a Washington Post reporter who retired as WashingtonPost.com's executive editor in 2005, dies at 84 — As a reporter in the 1970s and 1980s, he specialized in writing about transportation. He also was assistant Metropolitan editor and a business desk editor.

Discussion: @jimbrady, @dleonhardt, @ignatiuspost, @danbalz, @ona, @jimbrady, @dleonhardt, @jimbrady, @peterbakernyt, @edokeefe, @dleonhardt and @jimbrady

Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:

The Texas Tribune blames its first-ever layoffs on a budget shortfall after institutions pulled sponsorships and revenue fell 5% YoY; some blame its leadership — Frustration over a lack of transparency has been amplified by the newsroom's status as “the gold standard of nonprofit journalism” …

Discussion: @neenareports, @mattdpearce, @hanaatameez, @jayrosen_nyu, MediaPost and Talking Biz News

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Who's Hiring in Media?

Accounting Specialist Editor, Remote US — Reuters

Senior Correspondent - Wealth, NY — WSJ

Asia Credit Reporter, Seoul — Bloomberg

Senior Editor, DC — National Geographic

Sr. Social Media Specialist, NC — espnW

Associate Editor - Aviation, TN — Firecrown

Assistant Editor - Digital, NC — SBJ

Video Producer - YouTube, NY — Morning Brew

Senior Managing Ed. - Daily Desk — The Athletic

Content Managing Editor — Freedom Forum

Editor, MA — Nieman Reports

Team Editor - Breaking News, ON — Toronto Star

Senior Reporter & Event Host, NY/CA — Newcomer

Associate Editor, Remote — Tech Policy Press

Retail Reporter, MN — Star Tribune

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Managing Ed. - Berks County, PA — Spotlight PA

News Editor - UK, Remote — The Verge

Staff Writer, TX — Dallas Observer

Multimedia Journalist, PA — Observer-Reporter

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More News:

Matt Bors / Bors Comics:
The Nib, a 10-year-old site and print magazine for political cartoons and non-fiction comics, ends publication with a special edition on September 1

Discussion: @mattbors, @joshksky.bsky.social, @hrm-kristin-i.bsky.social and @iboudreau.bsky.social

Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:
In a “safety” blog post, X announces “paid-for promoted political posts”, starting in the US, and plans to “provide a global advertising transparency center”

Sara Fischer / Axios:
The Daily Wire plans to debut the first episode of Convicting a Murderer, its 10-part docuseries, for free on X on September 8 and spend six figures on X ads

Discussion: @sarafischer, @kennysmith@mstdn.social, @dangillmor@mastodon.social and @kennysmith@mstdn.social

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
UK-based The Independent names Managing Director Christian Broughton as its CEO, succeeding Zach Leonard, who will work on growing the US business as global COO

Discussion: The Independent

Max Tani / Semafor:
Source: on August 22, The Washington Post quietly laid off several top marketing staff, program managers, and product designers at Arc XP, its technology arm

Discussion: American Press Institute, @editorialiste, @mediaevan and @semaforben

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube now lets creators take an educational training course when they receive a warning, which YouTube lifts if they don't violate the same policy for 90 days

Discussion: Mashable, @nealmohan, HBR.org, Social Media Today, YouTube Official Blog, Engadget, 9to5Google, Tubefilter, Gizmodo and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Fox Sports signs a deal to use Google Cloud's Vertex AI Vision system to search footage from 1.9M+ videos and produce new TV, social, and marketing content

Discussion: PR Newswire and Google Cloud Blog

Earlier Picks:

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Snap rolls out Dreams, Snapchat's take on the generative AI selfies that Lensa and others popularized, charging $1 for an eight-photo pack; the first is free

Discussion: Social Media Today, Engadget, MediaPost, Mashable, Neowin, Adweek and TechCrunch

Sara Fischer / Axios:
TechCrunch acquires Connie Loizos' media startup StrictlyVC, which has 60K newsletter subscribers, and appoints Loizos as editor-in-chief and general manager

Discussion: TechCrunch, @om, @katie_roof, @alexrkonrad, @cookie, @arrington, @panzer, @sarafischer, @thekenyeung, @propllrhead, @danprimack, MediaPost, Talking Biz News, Business Wire and TechCrunch

Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
Google unveils SynthID, a tool that can embed an invisible digital “watermark” into AI-generated images, available now to Cloud customers for Imagen-made images

Discussion: DeepMind Blog, MediaNama, MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, Engadget, Android Police, Decrypt, @glenngabe@mas.to, Mashable, The Verge, Gizmodo, BBC, Axios and @Dhmspector@mastodon.social, more at Techmeme »

Josef Adalian / Vulture:
WBD's Max will stream seven AMC+ shows from September 1 to October 31 as AMC seeks to maximize AMC+'s reach; source: no money is involved in the marketing event

Discussion: The Streamable, TechCrunch, Screen Rant, MediaPost, The Wrap, The Verge, Pressroom, Gizmodo, Next TV, The A.V. Club, Variety, Vanity Fair, CNBC and Los Angeles Times

Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
US National Cinema Day on August 27, when tickets cost $4 at 3,000+ theaters, resulted in 8.5M tickets sold, up 5% YoY, and $34M in sales, up 16% from August 20

Discussion: Gizmodo, Variety, Media Play News and The Wrap

Charlotte Klein / Vanity Fair:
MSNBC is drawing in major ratings, having emerged as the go-to network for coverage of Donald Trump's criminal charges just as Fox News and CNN face instability

Discussion: Adweek, Deadline, @dannygroner, @wajahatali, @jayrosen_nyu, @charlottetklein, Mediaite, Poynter and The Wrap

From Techmeme:

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X starts rolling out an update to let users see public posts, and following and followers lists, of users who block them; blocked users still can't engage or DM

Financial Times:
Sources: Meta's plans to build a US nuclear-powered AI data center were thwarted in part after a rare bee species was found on land earmarked for the project

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with GM SVP Baris Cetinok on having a “high conviction” that ditching CarPlay and Android Auto is the right call, building autonomous cars, and more

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