Mediagazer: How Verizon is pivoting its publishing strategy to focus on commerce by investing in original shopping-focused video and a new content management system (Max Willens/Digiday)

3:25 PM ET, October 21, 2019

Top News:

Facebook says it will more prominently label content that fact-checkers deem false on Facebook and Instagram, will ban ads suggesting voting is pointless — By Guy Rosen, VP of Integrity; Katie Harbath, Public Policy Director, Global Elections; Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Fast Company, NBC News, Variety, @drewharwell, The Week, Engadget, @natijomartinez, The Verge and The Guardian, more at Techmeme »

Tony Romm / Washington Post:

Facebook now requires some page owners to disclose the orgs running them and if they're tied to state-owned media, will add labels to pages run by state media — The new efforts are meant to bolster its defenses ahead of the upcoming 2020 presidential election but are unlikely to end the growing dispute over political ads.

Discussion: New York Times, Facebook, CNN, Facebook, Vox and @hadas_gold, more at Techmeme »

Max Willens / Digiday:

How Verizon is pivoting its publishing strategy to focus on commerce by investing in original shopping-focused video and a new content management system — Verizon Media Group has long styled itself as an advertising platform. Now it wants to act like one that helps brands and retailers drive sales.

Discussion: MediaPost

Matthew Doran / ABC:

Major Australian newspapers black out text on their front pages Monday to protest secrecy laws passed over past two years, after raids of journalists in June — The nation's media companies have redacted their front pages to highlight the constraints on media organisations under strict national security legislation.

Discussion: The Guardian, Herald Sun, Financial Times, Sky News, CNN, @mikejanda, @withmeaa, @jpwarren, @studio10au, The Week, @dobes, @supriya23bh, @julieposetti, The Age, Reuters and Sydney Morning Herald

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

UK's Global Radio to launch a new 24-hour LBC spin-off “pure news” station, without opinion or debate, from next Monday — Global Radio is launching a new 24-hour LBC spin-off station to create a dedicated space for “pure news” - without opinion or debate.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Nielsen's SVOD Content Ratings now tracks Amazon Prime Video, two years after launching with ratings for Netflix — Nielsen announced this morning it will now be able to measure the viewing taking place on Amazon Prime Video, through its Subscription Video on Demand Content Ratings solution.

Discussion: MediaPost and The Wrap, more at Techmeme »

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Three weekly newspapers in Wales shut down after their publisher Herald News UK ceases operations, six months after announcing plans to invest £1.5M — Three Welsh weekly newspapers have been forced to close as their publisher suddenly ceased operations, putting 24 jobs at risk.

Laurie Sullivan / MediaPost:

Facebook opens ads in search results, which appear in news feeds and across its marketplace, to all advertisers for a select group of topics — Ads in Facebook Search Results are now open to all marketers for a select group of topics. The ad unit, which appears in Facebook News Feeds …

Discussion: Adweek

Financial Times:

Sources: Thomson Reuters hired an executive search firm to draw up a shortlist of internal and external candidates to succeed the current CEO Jim Smith — Thomson Reuters has begun the search for a chief executive to succeed Jim Smith, who has led the $34bn professional information group since 2012.

Discussion: Reuters, American Press Institute, Thomson Reuters and @arashmassoudi

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

On the tenth anniversary of Stylist, Q&A with EIC Lisa Smosarski on how the free, ad-backed magazine stayed “eternally stable”, putting out 400K+ copies/week — Women's magazine Stylist has a “long lifespan” in print yet, its editor-in-chief believes, as the free title celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.

Isaac Alter / Center for Journalism Ethics:

Interview with Joel Christopher, executive editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, on how to report on extremism without spreading hateful messages — Journalists have always had to grapple with how to cover extremists and hate-filled ideologies. But in today's digital world …

Discussion: @niemanreports and @spj_tweets

International Center for Journalists:

ICFJ global study: ~33% of newsrooms have fact-checkers, ~66% distribute content in at least four formats, 50%+ of journalists use digital fact-checking tools — Journalists are increasingly turning to digital technology to help address daunting challenges such as the spread of misinformation …

Discussion: @mediacareerngr, @justinarenstein, @justinarenstein and @hrvenkatesh