Top News:
Kyle Cheney / Politico:
AP photographer Evan Vucci and AP Chief White House Correspondent Zeke Miller testified Thursday about damage done by the White House ban on the wire service — Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci testified at a court hearing in the AP's lawsuit over being kicked out of the White House press pool.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, New Jersey Online, The Independent, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, @peterbakernyt, @seungminkim, Stephanie Smith on LinkedIn, Lindsay Stewart on LinkedIn, The Hill, CNN, Saeed Ahmed on LinkedIn, @whoa-magic.lol, Giada Zampano on LinkedIn, Mediaite, @danlinder.bsky.social, Deadline, @kyledcheney.bsky.social, The Associated Press and The Wrap
Oliver Darcy / Status:
Sources: the Los Angeles Times has laid off dozens of employees on the business side this week, including VP of Communications Hillary Manning — The newspaper slashed dozens of business-side staffers this week—including its longtime chief spokesperson—in a painful new round of cuts, Status has learned.
Discussion:
The Wrap, Breitbart, @pinemikey.bsky.social, @oliverdarcy.bsky.social, @passantino.bsky.social and TVNewsCheck
Charlotte Klein / New York Magazine:
Guardian US expects $44M in donations in the US and Canada in 2025, up 33% YoY; contributions make up 60% of revenue, which exceeded costs by $16M in 2024 — There was a time in media when having a billionaire owner was an asset. For many outlets, this is still the case …
Patience Haggin / Wall Street Journal:
Adalytics: DoubleVerify, IAS, and Human Security, paid by advertisers to detect bots, regularly miss such traffic; DoubleVerify missed 21% of bot visits — Companies that claim to help brands avoid serving digital ads to bots regularly miss nonhuman traffic
Discussion:
MediaPost and Dr. Augustine Fou on LinkedIn
Olivia Solon / Bloomberg:
AppLovin hires a law firm to investigate short sellers' allegations that the mobile ad company's ad performance numbers are fraudulent — It followed a Muddy Waters report released on Thursday that alleged that AppLovin was misappropriating data and violating some of its platform partners' terms of service …
Discussion:
Yahoo Finance and AppLovin, more at Techmeme »
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Carmen Reinicke / Bloomberg:
AppLovin's stock closes down 20%+ after short seller Muddy Waters released a report, the third such short report against the company in about a month
Discussion:
Adweek, Yahoo Finance, Barron's Online, CNBC, Benzinga, Muddy Waters Research and Investor's Business Daily, more at Techmeme »
Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:
Penske Media and Tasty Media plan a Spanish-language edition of The Hollywood Reporter with original content, following editions in Italy, India, and Japan — The partnership sees the iconic entertainment brand expand its reach with Spanish-speaking readers in Latin America and Spain.
Matt Stevens / New York Times:
A report on California's creative economy finds entertainment jobs in 2024 were 25% below 2022; LA County's 2024 shooting days fell 42% compared to 2022 — Many entertainment industry workers have been jobless for months, leading state officials to consider increasing subsidies to keep film and television production in California.
Discussion:
Hollywood Life, Variety and Deadline
Reuters:
Court documents: India criticizes Elon Musk's X for wrongly labeling an official website, used to notify tech firms of harmful content, as a “censorship portal” — India has criticised Elon Musk's X for wrongly labelling as a “censorship portal” an official website …
Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
FICCI-EY: India's media and entertainment sector revenue hit $29.4B in 2024, with digital media accounting for 32%, surpassing TV for the first time — India's media and entertainment sector hit INR2.5 trillion ($29.4 billion) in 2024, according to the annual Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)-EY report.
Discussion:
Music Ally, The Economic Times, Press Trust of India, EY, MIT OpenCourseWare, Deadline and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »
John Nichols / The Nation:
Robert McChesney, a co-founder of media advocacy nonprofit Free Press and a globally respected media scholar and author, died from cancer at 72 — The academic and activist inspired generations of people to challenge corporate power and support a media reform movement that lives on. — Bluesky
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, Vanity Fair, @davidsirota.com, @jesspgh.bsky.social, @jenmercieca.bsky.social, @joeycoleman.ca, @victorpickard.bsky.social, @timkarr.bsky.social, Free Press, @froomkin.bsky.social, TVNewsCheck, @ajbauer.bsky.social, @christopherterry.bsky.social, @dankennedy.net, @mediamorphis.bsky.social, @nicholsuprising.bsky.social, @joshuabenton.com and @notaaroncraig.bsky.social
Jesse Whittock / Deadline:
JioStar, the joint venture that merged Viacom18 and Star India, says its streaming service JioHotstar has passed 100M subscribers — JioHotstar, the Indian streamer, has passed 100 million subscribers. — The service launched in February following the merger of Reliance Industries' Viacom18 …
Discussion:
Variety and WORLD SCREEN
Brian Welk / IndieWire:
Memo: Amazon MGM Studios head Jen Salke is stepping down to start a new production entity; the former NBC Entertainment president joined Amazon in 2018 — No immediate successor will be been named, and film chief Courtenay Valenti and TV head Vernon Sanders will report directly to Prime Video chief Mike Hopkins.
Brady Knox / Washington Examiner:
Kari Lake withdraws the cancellation of RFE/RL's funding and argues RFE/RL's lawsuit is “moot” after a court granted the outlet a temporary restraining order — U.S. Agency for Global Media senior adviser Kari Lake withdrew the Trump administration's cancellation …
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