Mediagazer: T-Mobile says its deal with Sprint will create a “truly competitive” national pay TV service with lower programming rates, and more affordable video services (Jeff Baumgartner/Multichannel News)

2:50 PM ET, June 21, 2018

Top News:

Wordpress.com owner Automattic buys technology and publishing company Atavist, a deal that includes its CMS, customer base, and the Atavist Magazine — Automattic's deal for Atavist will expand the suite of subscription and membership tools it has to offer

Discussion: The WordPress.com Blog, @tomcritchlow and @peterpham

Katherine Krueger / Splinter:

Twitter temporarily suspended some accounts that simply linked to a Splinter post that shared a phone number for White House adviser Stephen Miller — This morning, Splinter published the personal cell phone number of White House adviser Stephen Miller, an official so monstrous …

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook begins letting Group admins test a feature that charges members $4.99 to $29.99 per month for access to exclusive sub-groups — Facebook is starting to let Group admins charge $4.99 to $29.99 per month for access to special sub-Groups full of exclusive posts.

Discussion: Facebook, Stock Market News …, The Verge, MediaNama, Entrackr, Fast Company, INSIDE, Fortune, Alex Deve, SlashGear, The Next Web, Gizmodo, Android Police, Engadget, MediaPost, @elanazak and Mashable

NBC News:

Thomson Reuters Special Services signed a $6.8M ICE contract in March; spokesperson says news gathering unit is independent of other commercial contracts — The contracts highlight how technology companies are putting their innovations to work with the U.S. government in ways that are often not visible to the public.

Discussion: Talking Biz News and @jaxalemany

Janko Roettgers / Variety:

AT&T unveils 31 TV networks offered in its WatchTV streaming service, which is launching next week for $15/month and is also included in two wireless plans — AT&T announced the launch of its new internet service Watch TV Thursday, revealing both the TV networks included in the service …

Discussion: MediaPost, @reckless, Fast Company, Engadget, Multichannel News, PR Newswire, CNET, 9to5Mac, MacRumors, The Verge and Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Tessa Lyons / Facebook:

Facebook announces updates in effort to fight false news: using more machine learning, expanding fact-checking partnerships, using Claim Review framework, more — Over the last year and half, we have been committed to fighting false news through a combination of technology and human review …

Discussion: Poynter, Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, @billadairduke, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Gizmodo, The Daily Caller, Engadget and @mattnavarra, more at Techmeme »

Jack Morse / Mashable:

Facebook blocks news about policy at a detention center for immigrant children from being boosted with an ad buy, under the cover of “political ads” policy — Having missed the boat completely on fake news, Facebook appears to now be dropping the hammer on the real stuff.

Discussion: Gizmodo, @aliabunimah, @levinecarrie, @costasamaras, @mikeisaac, @profcarroll and @reveal

The New York Times Company:

The New York Times adds Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, as a columnist for its opinion pages starting September — Today The New York Times announced that Michelle Alexander will join the Opinion pages as a columnist in September. — James Bennet, New York Times editorial page editor …

Discussion: @jenparker393, @msshanitarenee, @jamilsmith, Splinter and @parkermolloy

Lea Trusty / The Engaged Journalism Lab:

Research finds gaps in philanthropic support for newsroom diversity, with fewer and smaller grants for ethnic and racial groups, women, and LGBTQI populations — New research released today by Democracy Fund traces half a decade of philanthropic investment in organizations, programming …

Discussion: DemocracyFund

Nilagia McCoy / Shorenstein Center:
Breakdown of $1.8B in media-related grants from 2010-2015: 44% to public media, 5% to magazines, 12% to national nonprofits, 5% to local/state nonprofits

Discussion: @jcstearns, Inside Philanthropy, @facttank and @evanasmith

Taylor Blatchford / Poynter:

Gallup/Knight survey: 77% of Republicans believe news is biased vs. 44% of Democrats and ratings of accuracy and bias diverge especially for Fox, CNN, and MSNBC — Americans believe 39 percent of news in newspapers, on TV or on the radio is misinformation — but their views of social media are even worse.

Discussion: Knight Foundation, @brianstelter, @viacristiano and Trust, Media and Democracy

Lindsay Weinberg / Hollywood Reporter:

Indoor fitness brand SoulCycle hires Vox Media's Angela Bowers, Glamour's Laurel Pinson, and Mashable's Gregory Gittrich to launch a media division — The indoor fitness brand has tapped talent from Vox Media, Glamour and Mashable to lead the strategy. — Attention athletic gurus …

Discussion: @weinberglindsay, @amtomchak, @vivian and Fast Company

Brent Lang / Variety:

SEC filing: MoviePass parent Helios and Matheson Analytics plans to raise up to $164M through a bond sale and by issuing 20K+ shares — MoviePass's parent company has launched a $164 million bond sale as the struggling subscription service tries to find ways to stay afloat and boost its dwindling stock price.

Discussion: Deadline, The Wrap, Wired, The A.V. Club and Mental Floss

Lesley Goldberg / Hollywood Reporter:

MTV launches MTV Studios, which will reboot and reimagine past shows and franchises like Daria and The Real World to shop them to outside networks and streamers — Network president Chris McCarthy wants to mine the youth-focused cable network's vault to revive old hits …

Discussion: Variety, The Verge, The Outline, Consequence of Sound, Gothamist, The A.V. Club and PAPER

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: prosecutors have subpoenaed National Enquirer publisher American Media for records of its 2016 payment to Karen McDougal as part of Michael Cohen probe — Prosecutors eye whether company coordinated with ex-Trump lawyer on payment to bury affair allegation

Discussion: New York Times, Newser, The Guardian, KTLA, CNBC, @marlownyc, The Wrap, Mediaite, @mlcalderone, @rebeccaballhaus and @tedlieu

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This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 2:50 PM ET, June 21, 2018.

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Who's Hiring in Media?

Deputy Ed. - Gen. Assignment Desk, DC — WaPo

EU Technology Reporter, Brussels — Bloomberg

Breaking News Reporter, NY — Guardian US

Harrisburg Reporter, PA — PCBC

Senior Editor - Styles, NY — NYT

Part-time Editor, Remote — Techmeme

Home & Travel Reporter, Ireland — Newsweek

Assistant Digital Editor, MA — Boston Globe

Senior Editor - Visuals (Temporary), DC — NPR

Copy Editor, Remote US — ProPublica

Markets Reporter, NY/CA — Sherwood Media

Staff Writer, MI — Watershed Voice

Food Reporter, CA — SF Standard

Staff Writer, NV — Las Vegas Weekly

Pharma Editor, Remote — Endpoints

Higher Ed. Reporter, Remote CA — EdSource

Politics Reporter, Brussels — Politico

Investigations & Enterprise Ed., WI — Cap Times

Social Strategy Editor, NY — WSJ

Senior Narrative Editor, CA — Cloud Chamber

Editor-in-Chief, NY (flexible) — The 74

Housing Reporter, OK — The Frontier

Writer/AI Content Reviewer, CA — Outlier

Writer/Editor, Remote — Mediaite

Multi Media Reporter, NC — Cardinal & Pine

Afternoon/Night Editor, NH — Keene Sentinel

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State Worker Reporter, CA — Sacramento Bee

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More News:

Jeff Baumgartner / Multichannel News:
T-Mobile says its deal with Sprint will create a “truly competitive” national pay TV service with lower programming rates, and more affordable video services

Discussion: Adweek

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Taiwan-based news startup The News Lens says it raised a $3M-$4M Series C to finance its international expansion and has 9M unique monthly readers

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
The Telegraph, Guardian, and News UK announce a digital ad sales venture, The Ozone Project, to launch in fall, giving direct access to over 39.4M users

Discussion: Adweek, GroupM and Editor & Publisher

Marie C. Baca / Columbia Journalism Review:
Facebooks's local news initiative includes off-the-record dinners with media, persistent pitches, and meetings with govt officials with some reporters left out

Discussion: @profgalloway, @mayvortega, @turnernovak, @sesmith and @usprojectcjr

Debra Birnbaum / Variety:
Apple gives a multi-series order to the nonprofit Sesame Workshop for a slate of live-action and animated children's programs, not including Sesame Street

Discussion: New York Times, MediaPost, MacRumors, @pkafka, Recode, Stock Market News …, Engadget, Broadcasting & Cable, 9to5Mac, Deadline and The Wrap

Earlier Picks:

Jon Levine / The Wrap:
ABC News apologizes after showing a chyron for about five seconds falsely stating Paul Manafort had pleaded guilty to manslaughter

Discussion: Fox News, HuffPost, Mediaite, Broadcasting & Cable, @cotatninetz, @realdonaldtrump, iMediaEthics and @brianstelter

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram debuts IGTV, a hub for high-profile creators, and says it will begin letting users upload videos up to an hour long, up from previous one minute limit

Discussion: Marketing Land, FierceCable, Wired, The Drum, Recode, Tubefilter, MediaNama, Ad Age, TechCrunch, MediaPost, @instagram, Fast Company, Fortune, @theperezhilton, @supersaf, @jonathan_gantt, @joshconstine and @joshconstine

Jon Levine / The Wrap:
Univision issues statement calling on Democrats and Republicans to end practice of separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border

Discussion: CBS News, New York Times, Sean Hannity, Ed Barr, @raniakhalek, @jackposobiec, @bbcjonsopel and Mediaite

Peter Kafka / Recode:
Sources: AT&T plans to acquire Otter Media, the streaming video company it co-owns with The Chernin Group, in a deal expected to close this summer

Discussion: CNBC, The Wrap and Multichannel News

Kevin Loker / Trust, Media and Democracy:
Media Insight Project study: about a third of people in US personally know a journalist or have been interviewed; 80% of those interviewed say coverage was fair

Discussion: American Press Institute

From Techmeme:

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta details Llama 3: 8B- and 70B-parameter models, a focus on reducing false refusals, and an upcoming model trained on 15T+ tokens that has 400B+ parameters

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal:
Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China's cyberspace officials citing national security concerns

Ryan Morrison / Tom's Guide:
Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview

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