Top News:
Trevor Timm / The Guardian:
Assange's plea deal doesn't create an official precedent, but he still had to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act for a “crime” outlets commit regularly — Instead of just dropping the case, the Biden administration got a guilty plea and set a dangerous tone for reporters everywhere
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Associated Press:
Julian Assange pleads guilty to a conspiracy charge as part of a deal with the US, letting him go free after spending five years in a British prison — A plane believed to be carrying WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday. Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge …
Discussion:
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Ann M. Simmons / Wall Street Journal:
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich appears in a Russian Court for the start of his closed-door trial on espionage charges, which he denies — Proceedings lack due process, at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow — Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich appeared …
Max Tani / Semafor:
In the last month, Sam Stein, Burgess Everett, and now Jack Shafer have decided to leave Politico; sources: Alex Ward and Lara Seligman are leaving for the WSJ — The Scoop — The unfolding internal crisis at the Washington Post has obscured drama playing out across the river in Rosslyn, Virginia.
Zoe Samios / Australian Financial Review:
Australia's Seven West axes three top executives amid 150 job cuts at the company, as its commercial deal with Meta, estimated to be worth ~$15M annually, ends — Seven West Media chief executive Jeff Howard has lost some of his most senior lieutenants including the head of sport …
Discussion:
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Wall Street Journal:
Sources: The New York Times is working to move its top podcasts behind a paywall, with the goal of eventually tying most, if not all, to a subscription service — Publisher plans to limit access to shows like ‘Serial’ to subscribers, cap number of free episodes of ‘The Daily’
Discussion:
Podnews, @paulconstant.com, @balsam.bsky.social and TVNewsCheck
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Reddit says it will update its robots.txt “to be as clear as possible” that companies using an automated agent to access Reddit need to abide by its terms — The warning comes after reports that AI companies regularly ignore instructions not to scrape.
Discussion:
MEDIANAMA, Reddit Upvoted, Reuters and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »
Kerry Flynn / Axios:
Lost In raised a $4M seed and acquired a Berlin-based travel guidebook publisher to build a travel media brand focused on the “premium economy traveler” — Exit Content Preview … - The Los Angeles-based company has nine staffers, including the three co-founders …
Financial Times:
Sources: YouTube is in talks with Sony, Warner, and Universal to license their songs for AI music generation tools coming in 2024 that mimic artists' music — Licensing negotiations come as music industry wrestles with legal and creative impact of artificial intelligence
Discussion:
@annaknicolaou, Wall Street Journal and CNN, more at Techmeme »
Paul Farhi / Columbia Journalism Review:
Nonresponses from sources to requests for comment in news stories are rife, and growing rapidly; some PR reps defend the silence, depending on circumstances — As the author of CNN.com's daily newsletter about the news and entertainment industries, Oliver Darcy regularly reports …
Discussion:
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Laura Dobberstein / The Register:
In a rare admission of ad fraud, Yahoo Japan to waive $189M ad revenue, or ~1.6% of parent company LY Corp's FY 2023 revenue, after detecting fraudulent clicks — Admits it's not sure some clicks from from humans, points to bettter quality as sign not all is rotten
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Christopher Grimes / Financial Times:
Independent film company A24 raised $100M led by Josh Kushner's Thrive Entertainment at a $3.5B valuation, up 40% from its first fundraising in 2022 — The movie house that produced ‘Uncut Gems’, ‘Lady Bird’ and other critical hits is suddenly a favourite with investors too
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, The Wrap, Variety, The Information, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline
Deadline:
IATSE and AMPTP reach a tentative agreement, a month before the current contract expires, covering some 50,000 mostly LA-based film and TV crew members — EXCLUSIVE: (Updated with joint statement) With over a month to go before IATSE's current contracts expires, the union and the studios …
Discussion:
The Wrap, IATSE, TVNewsCheck, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, Los Angeles Times, @deadline and Variety