Mediagazer: James Warburton, the CEO of Australia's Seven West Media since 2019, steps down; CFO Jeff Howard will take over as CEO starting on April 19 (Jonathan Barrett/The Guardian)

8:20 AM ET, April 18, 2024

Top News:

Oliver Darcy / CNN:

Uri Berliner says he is resigning from NPR as he “cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm” NPR's problems — Uri Berliner, a National Public Radio senior editor who wrote a scathing online essay accusing the public radio network …

Discussion: New Jersey Online, The Hill, New York Times, @uberliner, @ernie.tedium.co, @benmullin, @samsanders, @samsanders, @mikeisaac, @samsanders, @davidfolkenflik, @dkiesow@threads.net, Tedium, @maxwelltani, @viajoshhunt, @thefp, Politico, @audiecornish, @nycsouthpaw, @howardkurtz, @normative@threads.net, @normative@threads.net, @davidfolkenflik, @melodykramer@threads.net, @heminator, @aghamilton29, @bariweiss, @normcharlatan, @brien_jackson, @oldarenaghost, @ijbailey, @dgreenbaum, Washington Post, @kalihays1@threads.net, Newser, @yonetteajoseph@threads.net, The Present Age, @davelevitan.bsky.social, NewsNation, JONATHAN TURLEY, @jbouie.bsky.social, @kevinmkruse.bsky.social, @jbouie.bsky.social, Fox News, @zammer.bsky.social, Talking Biz News, @ryansingel@writing.exchange, @marcchannick.bsky.social, CBS News, Fox News, Current and Inside Radio

Ben Mullin / @benmullin:
About 50 NPR staffers sign a letter to NPR leadership calling for a public rebuke of the “factual inaccuracies and elisions” in Uri Berliner's essay

Discussion: Fox News, The Guardian, New York Post, JONATHAN TURLEY, MediaPost and The Wrap

Alicia Montgomery / Slate:
A former NPR editor says Uri Berliner's critique was inaccurate and ignored inconvenient facts, but the outlet has long been an overcautious, centrist mess

Discussion: The Guardian, Associated Press, Poynter, Differ We Must, Fox News, @claireatki, @mikeisaac, @lewispants, NPR, Inside Radio, Mediaite, New York Post, @lewispants, Nicole Carr on LinkedIn, @jessbravin, @profstevensmith, @biblioracle, @merulloboaz, @jamesfallows, Columbia Journalism Review, Media Nation, Wall Street Journal, @stevemullis, Beyond Search, Newser, The Daily Beast, @jackjenkins@threads.net, Neil Lewis, Jr on LinkedIn, Jessica Hansen I Voice Work on LinkedIn, Elaine Heinzman on LinkedIn, Mark McDonald on LinkedIn, Brendan Sweeney on LinkedIn, Doug McLennan on LinkedIn, @glyph@mastodon.social, @digiphile@mastodon.social, Twila Dang on LinkedIn, The Desk, @ashtonpittman.ms@threads.net, @tylrfishr@social …, @jayrosen_nyc@threads.net, @acdha@thepit.social, MediaPost, @JMarkOckerbloom …, @tusk81@mastodon.social, @dave@social.masto.land, @gretared@sfba.social, NPR, New York Times, Deadline, The Hill and The Wrap

Gene Maddaus / Variety:

A Los Angeles ethics agency fines former CBS CEO Les Moonves $15K for misconduct in obtaining confidential police info about a sexual assault claim against him — Leslie Moonves, the former CEO of CBS, was fined $15,000 on Wednesday by the L.A. City Ethics Commission for obtaining secret information …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, @arunadsouza.bsky.social, @iamiysha.bsky.social, @pppatticake.bsky.social, @mhanson101@union.place, @parsnip.bsky.social, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap and Deadline

Sam Tobin / Reuters:

UK court documents: actor Hugh Grant settled a lawsuit against The Sun publisher News Group Newspapers over claims of using private investigators to phone tap — British actor Hugh Grant has settled a lawsuit against the publisher of The Sun tabloid newspaper over claims journalists used …

Discussion: @hackedoffhugh, @hackedoffhugh, Sydney Morning Herald, @hackedoffhugh, Crikey, Newser, @hackedoffhugh, @hackedoffhugh, The Wrap, Rolling Stone, Associated Press, Press Gazette, The Hollywood Reporter, Mediaite, The Guardian, Deadline and HuffPost

Ellise Shafer / Variety:
Hugh Grant says he settled with News Group to avoid up to £10M in costs and “Murdoch's settlement money has a stink and I refuse to let this be hush money”

Discussion: @davidfolkenflik, Reuters and The Guardian

Emma Roth / The Verge:

Twitch plans to roll out its TikTok-style discovery feed later in April, letting users scroll clips and livestreams, after testing the feature for a year — After nearly a year of testing, Twitch's new TikTok-style discovery feed will finally roll out to all users later this month.

more at Techmeme »

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

An analysis of the gender pay gap in UK media: 76% of the biggest media organizations increased the proportion of women in their top pay tier from 2022 to 2023 — Average gender pay gap across major UK media organisations now stands at 11%. — Three-quarters of the UK's biggest media …

Discussion: @pressgazette

Jonathan Barrett / The Guardian:

James Warburton, the CEO of Australia's Seven West Media since 2019, steps down; CFO Jeff Howard will take over as CEO starting on April 19 — Media executive's exit comes as broadcaster faces a number of controversies — Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Discussion: Mumbrella, Variety and Deadline

Russell Brandom / Rest of World:

How Oscar winner RRR's success brought a wave of Telugu-language movies to Netflix's US catalog, about 50% of which is now made up of non-English content — Netflix's U.S. catalog has more content in Telugu than in German, Russian, or any dialect of Chinese.

Discussion: @restofworld@restof.social

The Economic Times:

VerSe Innovation, the parent of Indian news aggregator Dailyhunt, acquires New York-based digital magazine store Magzter in an undisclosed cash and stock deal — Homegrown digital newsstand Magzter, founded in 2011 and offering a cross-platform, self-service experience, has been acquired by Dailyhunt.

Discussion: Moneycontrol, YourStory, TechCrunch, Financial Express and Storyboard18

Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:

Music rights investor Concord agrees to buy Hipgnosis Songs Fund in a deal valuing the song catalog company at ~$1.4B, capping a period of turmoil for Hipgnosis — - Concord's long term backer Apollo will provide financing — Hipgnosis struggled to recoup its investment on music rights

Discussion: Billboard, Reuters, Financial Times, The Guardian, City A.M. and Digital Music News

Andrew Deck / Nieman Lab:

A look at Newsweek's use of AI, including in video production, an AI-focused Live News desk for breaking stories, and letting the tech write some first drafts — The legacy publication is leaning on AI for video production, a new breaking news team, and first drafts of some stories.

Discussion: @decka227

Sheena Vasani / The Verge:

TikTok starts rolling out TikTok Notes, its Instagram rival for sharing photo and text content, for limited testing in Australia and Canada on Android and iOS — TikTok has started rolling out its Instagram rival, TikTok Notes, to select Android and iOS users “for download and limited testing in Australia and Canada.”

Discussion: The Guardian, @tiktokcomms, @tiktokcomms and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Kate Knibbs / Wired:

How one author gained a limited copyright for the “selection, coordination, and arrangement of text” from AI, as the US Copyright Office wrestles with AI law — Elisa Shupe was initially rebuffed when she tried to copyright a book she wrote with help from ChatGPT.

Discussion: @brooklynlaw, @knibbs, @ai_machinations, @magdaromanska, @peterhndrsn, @ai_machinations, @blipclinic, @mahendra.bsky.social and Plagiarism Today, more at Techmeme »

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More News:

James Careless / TV Tech:
Parks Associates: US households with internet now consume an average 43.5 hours of video per week across all viewing devices, up from 37.2 hours in 2020

Discussion: Media Play News, NewsLab, The Streamable and WORLD SCREEN

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
After Forbes found 120+ YouTube videos and 27 Google ads promoting AI deepfake porn tools and “nudifier” Telegram bots, Google took them down

Discussion: @iblametom, @rashishrivast18 and @ttp_updates

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
The European Data Protection Board says large online platforms like Meta should give users an option to use their services for free without behavioral ads

Discussion: Gadgets 360, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, edpb.europa.eu, The Information, Daniel Tunkelang on LinkedIn, @intergalacticdesign …, Christos Zanganas on LinkedIn, Maria Lobato on LinkedIn, @parkert@threads.net, @documentingmeta@threads.net, @daveleebbg@threads.net and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Steven Kurutz / New York Times:
A profile of Rusty Foster, whose Today in Tabs daily media industry newsletter has 36,000 subscribers, of which ~10% pay $6 per month or $50 per year

Discussion: The Information and @waxy@xoxo.zone

Jesse Whittock / Deadline:
Swedish streaming service Viaplay, which shut down its US app in February, launches a $5.99 per month subscription channel on Prime Video Channels

Discussion: Advanced Television, Media Play News and Variety

Earlier Picks:

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Snap plans to add watermarks to AI-generated images exported from Snapchat; the watermarks appear as a translucent version of the Snap logo with a sparkle emoji

Discussion: Snapchat

Mike Allen / Axios:
The Daily Beast seeks a reporter to cover Jeff Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sánchez, part of plans to become a “smart tabloid” and cover tech execs and their ecosystem

Discussion: @katenocera, @mediaevan, @ashleevance, @teddyschleifer, @almostmedia, @dondisappoints, @nathanjrobinson, @bencjacobs, @joannacoles, @katienotopoulos, New York Post and Page Six

Bloomberg:
A profile of Uday Shankar, a former journalist who worked with the Murdoch family and is set to lead Viacom18, which is poised to dominate India's media market

Discussion: Sohee Kim on LinkedIn

Financial Times:
An interview with CNN CEO Mark Thompson on having “plenty of things” to fix, how shifting to digital is an “existential question”, subscriptions, and more

Discussion: @danielthomasldn, @astronomer_mark, @ft, @danielthomasldn, New York Post and Duncan Hooper on LinkedIn

Alexandra Alter / New York Times:
PEN America: 4,349 books were removed from US schools across 23 states from July 2023 to December 2023, up from 3,362 books in the entire previous academic year

Discussion: Plain Dealer, Boing Boing, CNN, The Daily Beast, The Hill and Publishers Weekly

From Techmeme:

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Nintendo shares Switch 2 details: a 7.9", 120fps, 1080p display, 4K at 60fps when docked, a custom Nvidia processor, 256GB of storage, and a new Pro Controller

New York Times:
Sources: Amazon has put in a bid to acquire all of TikTok, but various parties involved do not appear to be taking it seriously, ahead of the April 5 deadline

Rachael Bade / Politico:
Sources: President Trump told his inner circle, including Cabinet members, that Elon Musk will step back in the coming weeks; Trump remains pleased with DOGE

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