Mediagazer: Q&A with ESPN's Stephen A. Smith on his new docuseries Up For Debate: The Evolution of Sports Media, streaming on ESPN+, his motivation for the series, and more (Alex Kirshner/GQ)

6:45 PM ET, June 2, 2024

Top News:

Alex Kirshner / GQ:

Q&A with ESPN's Stephen A. Smith on his new docuseries Up For Debate: The Evolution of Sports Media, streaming on ESPN+, his motivation for the series, and more — The reigning king of sports media discusses his new docuseries, his upcoming contract negotiations, and his pick for the next Disney CEO.

Joseph Menn / Washington Post:

Hacked emails and documents: top editors of US-focused news website The Grayzone received funding from Iran's Press TV, as well as Russia's RT and Sputnik — Misinformation experts say an overlap in funding underscores concern that the spread of falsehoods and propaganda online is entering …

Discussion: @charliearchy@mstdn.social, @jasonmbrodsky and @josephmenn

Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post:

Content creators are amassing audiences of thousands on Twitch by covering political news and raising funds for Palestinians, as other platforms eschew politics — Dozens of content creators are leveraging the live streaming app to raise funds for Palestinians, circumventing political content bans on other platforms.

Discussion: @taylorlorenz and Tubefilter

Laura Wagner / Washington Post:

The Times Guild leaders say NYT, while rolling out expanded bio pages for staff, made “petty” cuts to the language in which staffers extolled their Guild work — After rolling out expanded bio pages designed to ‘bolster trust with readers,’ the Times excised language in which staffers extolled their work with the Guild

Discussion: Business Insider

Alexandra Alter / New York Times:

How TikTok influencers helped a self-published author sell 1M+ copies of her book, including ~700K on the TikTok shop, showing how TikTok changed book marketing — Keila Shaheen's “The Shadow Work Journal” shows how radically book sales and marketing have been changed by TikTok.

Discussion: @sandwichspy, @worrierprincess, Linda Secondari on LinkedIn, Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, Los Angeles Times and Hacker News, more at Techmeme »

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

YouGov: the news sources Americans say they trust the most aren't always used most heavily; YouTube and Facebook are often sources for news but not trusted much — That's particularly true among Republicans. — Americans in 2024 again have a source of news that they agree is reliable …

Discussion: YouGov

Brian Welk / IndieWire:

The Tribeca Festival and OpenAI plan to feature five short films made using OpenAI's text-to-video tool Sora on June 15 — “Nanny” director Nikyatu Jusu is among the five filmmakers who created a film for the festival using the tech. — Post — Short films generated by artificial intelligence …

Discussion: Bloomberg and The Hollywood Reporter

Michael Hytha / Bloomberg:

LA-based Webtoon, owned by South Korea's Naver, files for a US IPO; sources: the online comics platform could seek to raise up to $500M at a $3B-$4B valuation — Los Angeles-based Webtoon said in a filing Friday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that South Korean internet company Naver …

Discussion: @ca_ecostrategy, US Securities and Exchange Commission, Reuters and The Korea Times, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Disney and Comcast's NBCUniversal hit an impasse in Disney's buyout plans for NBCU's 33% Hulu stake, with a significant disagreement over valuation — Companies are discussing a Disney buyout of Comcast's stake in streaming service; with a big valuation gap, the prospect of a court battle looms

Discussion: Media Play News, @tvgrimreaper, The Information, The Desk, The Streamable and The Media Leader

Diana Falzone / Mediaite:

Eric Bolling, formerly of Sinclair and Fox News and host of Newsmax's 8pm show The Balance, is leaving the network after three years — Eric Bolling has parted ways with Newsmax. — The veteran television host, who helmed the conservative network's 8 p.m. hour with The Balance …

Discussion: Eric Bolling, @ericbolling, Adweek, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, Deadline and The Wrap

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:

Sources: TikTok pauses plans to launch its e-commerce business in major European markets to focus on growth in the US where it's fighting the divest-or-ban law — - ByteDance halts plan to roll out shopping from Spain to Italy — Company aims to entrench itself in its most lucrative market

Max Tani / Semafor:

Details of CNN's ad packages for its Biden-Trump debate on June 27: a top-tier level with a $1.5M minimum, limits on spending by campaigns and PACs, and more — The Scoop — The Donald Trump-driven boom times are back for the business of American television — at least, for one night in June.

Discussion: New York Post, Reuters, Adweek and Variety

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More News:

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Meta says 40M+ US and Canadian adults aged 18 to 29 use Facebook daily, the highest number in three years, reflecting efforts to win back younger users

Discussion: Deadline, 24/7 Wall St., Meta and Reuters

Financial Times:
Sources: a Paramount special committee approved the sweetened offer from Skydance; Paramount's board, chaired by Shari Redstone, will vote on the deal June 4

Discussion: The Wrap, Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Desk and Advanced Television

Tom Dreisbach / NPR:
Salem Media is halting distribution of the film and book 2000 Mules and removing the film from its platforms; it apologized to a man who sued for defamation

Jeremy Barr / Washington Post:
A look at Robert Allbritton's NOTUS, a nonprofit national politics outlet that employs 10 full-time fellows and is intended to act as a journalist incubator

Discussion: @herbscribner, @structstories, @kylewilsontharp, @kenvogel, @tchingarande, @ron_fournier, @evanmcs, @kbode@threads.net, @kbode@threads.net and Brad Bosserman on LinkedIn

Winston Cho / The Hollywood Reporter:
Startup Fable Studio announces Showrunner, a streaming service that lets users watch AI-generated series and create their own series by writing prompts

Discussion: Fadi Ismail on LinkedIn, B. Earl on LinkedIn, Tubefilter, The Guardian and Gizmodo

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Moonbug Entertainment names Courtney Holt, previously Spotify's head of studios and video, as managing director for the Americas, taking over from Andy Yeatman

Discussion: Courtney Holt on LinkedIn, The Wrap, Deadline and Advanced Television

Earlier Picks:

Nieman Lab:
A look at the term “fact-based journalism”: its rise coincided with “fake news” in 2016, but the term is redundant as all journalism is fact-based

Discussion: Josh M. on LinkedIn, @davidpwhelan@mastodon.world and @nw@ioc.exchange

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Rest of World retracts an article on WhatsApp misinformation “tip lines” in India after several fact-checking orgs detail how it was “riddled with inaccuracies”

Discussion: @india_mca and @dau_mca

Kristin Robinson / Billboard:
Sampling of King Willonius' AI-generated “BBL Drizzy” creates a new precedent; the recording is public domain but Willonius' lyrics give him publishing rights

Discussion: Willonius Hatcher on LinkedIn and Daniel Rowland on LinkedIn

Reuters Institute:
Rasmus Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, plans to step down at the end of September; he assumed the role in December 2018

Discussion: @arusbridger, @rasmus_kleis, @rasmus_kleis, @jeffjarvis, Claes de Vreese on LinkedIn, Mitali Mukherjee on LinkedIn and Federica Cherubini on LinkedIn

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Researchers claim that 2,107 US voters, mostly older, white Republican women, accounted for spreading 80% of the fake news on Twitter during the 2020 election

Discussion: @mediaevan, The Hill, @GreenFire@mstdn.social, @dsilverman@mastodon.social, Pablo Breuer, Ph.D. on LinkedIn and Science

From Techmeme:

Emanuel Maiberg / 404 Media:
Figma disables its recently launched generative AI app design tool Make Design, after a user showed it copied Apple's Weather when asked to design a weather app

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
For ~10 years, millions of macOS and iOS apps using CocoaPods were vulnerable to a serious flaw in the dependency manager, which was patched in October 2023

Kamila Wojciechowska / Android Authority:
Source: Google plans AI features for the Pixel 9 under the Google AI brand, like Pixel Screenshots, which lets users search their screenshots using on-device AI

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