Top News:
Financial Times:
GB News and UnHerd owner Paul Marshall acquires The Spectator for £100M and plans to expand the magazine overseas; Spectator chair Andrew Neil resigns — Acquisition bolsters hedge fund boss's position as one of UK's most influential right-leaning media barons
Discussion:
New York Times, Press Gazette, Spectator, @afneil, @frasernelson, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Telegraph, Sky News, The Times, The i Paper, Bloomberg, @afneil, Irish News, @ian_fraser, @peterjukes, @semaforben, @colinbraziertv, @nfmusic, @montie, @aphclarkson, @danwootton, @peterjukes, @aphclarkson, @jamesrbuk, @sangitamyska, @peterjukes, @jdportes, @mattwridley, @peterjukes, @notthatbigian, @lefoudubaron, @twlldun, London Evening Standard, Reuters, @danielthomasldn and Guido Fawkes
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy is considering mutualizing the BBC, giving direct ownership to license-fee payers, as part of a review of funding options — Culture secretary Lisa Nandy says ‘nothing off table’ as government and broadcaster prepare for talks over funding
Discussion:
London Evening Standard
New York Times:
Business Insider names Jamie Heller, the business editor of The Wall Street Journal, to lead its newsroom as its next editor in chief — Ms. Heller spent two decades at The Wall Street Journal, most recently leading corporate coverage. — Business Insider is expected to name Jamie Heller …
Washington Post:
The US DOJ's case against Google's ad business may benefit Meta, Amazon, and news organizations that pay Google a cut of revenue for brokering their website ads — Federal prosecutors are seeking a divestment of Google's multibillion-dollar online advertising business, saying its monopoly power harms advertisers and publishers.
RELATED:
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Jorge Ramos, one of the best-known Spanish-language TV journalists in the US, plans to leave Univision at the end of 2024 — Jorge Ramos, a news anchor who is perhaps the best-known Spanish-language TV journalist in the United States and who has grilled top politicians and covered top world events …
Ben Smith / Semafor:
Former SI and The Players' Tribune executives launch OffBall, a site, newsletter, and social feed with curated sports news from social media and other sources — The Scoop — A new brand is hoping to provide a hub for the booming conversation around the culture of sports.
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
Ofcom: internet replaced TV as UK's most popular news source; 71% of adults get news online, vs. 70% via TV; 52% use social media for news, up from 47% in 2023 — Media regulator describes change as a ‘generational shift in the balance of news media’ — Online platforms have overtaken TV channels …
Discussion:
Advanced Television, Press Gazette, TechCrunch, Deadline, London Evening Standard, City A.M. and Financial Times, more at Techmeme »
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Audible plans to invite some US-based audiobook narrators to train AI on their voices, to clone the voices for recordings through a royalty-sharing model — The audiobook service is inviting some US-based narrators to train artificial intelligence on their voices
Discussion:
TechCrunch and The Verge, more at Techmeme »
Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
The WSJ offers advertisers a performance guarantee between Oct. 15 and Nov. 15 to dissuade them from pausing ad campaigns during the US presidential election — Some brands are going dark for the presidential election. WSJ has data to convince them otherwise.
Jack Apollo George / The Guardian:
A writer who works for a tech company describes how he helps train AI models how to write, by making up pretend responses to hypothetical chatbot questions — Journalists and other writers are employed to improve the quality of chatbot replies. The irony of working for an industry …
Discussion:
Mark Little on LinkedIn
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Mike Krieger on his new role as chief product officer at Anthropic, co-founding and selling news app Artifact, copyright issues, AI content, and more — Anthropic's new chief product officer on the promise and limits of chatbots like Claude and what's next for generative AI.
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
An interview with Brian Stelter about Reliable Sources, which will now publish each weekday morning “in beta mode”, with a shorter and “sharper” format — Starting Monday, “RS” will publish each weekday morning, Monday through Friday, and the next edition …
Discussion:
@brianstelter@threads.net, Adweek, @brianstelter, @bristei, The Wrap and @brianstelter@threads.net