Mediagazer: OpenWeb, formerly Spot.IM, used by 1,000+ publishers to manage comments and user interactions, raises a $150M Series E with NYT investing, valuing it at $1.1B (Sara Fischer/Axios)

11:45 AM ET, November 9, 2021

Top News:

Sara Fischer / Axios:

OpenWeb, formerly Spot.IM, used by 1,000+ publishers to manage comments and user interactions, raises a $150M Series E with NYT investing, valuing it at $1.1B — OpenWeb, a platform used by publishers to manage comments and user interactions, has raised $150 million in a series E financing round …

Discussion: @openwebhq

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:

Wirecutter staff to strike around Black Friday, the site's busiest time of the year, to protest NYT's refusal to agree to significant guaranteed wage raises — Journalists at the New York Times Co.'s Wirecutter unit plan to strike during the product review website's peak traffic period around Black Friday …

Maria Verza / Associated Press:

Mexican prosecutors say they've arrested a businessman on charges of using Pegasus spyware to spy on a journalist — MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican prosecutors said Monday they have arrested a businessman on charges he used the Pegasus spyware to spy on a journalist.

Jennifer Schuessler / New York Times:

PEN America: 11 proposed state bills this year restricting the teaching of critical race theory explicitly ban lessons based on The New York Times' 1619 Project — A report by PEN America, which surveys more than 50 bills proposed across the country, appeals to a principle that has lost its luster for many on the left and right.

Discussion: PEN America, Mediaite, The Hill, Popular Information, @summerelopez, @wagesofwins, @penamerica, @nytimes, @nhannahjones, @jzfriedman and @penamerica

Tim Marchman / VICE:

Ben Smith's latest column is at least his fourth article mentioning NewsGuild without noting that it represents BuzzFeed workers against whom Smith negotiated — Ben Smith covers the NewsGuild a lot without mentioning his past with it or his financial interest in BuzzFeed, whose workers it represents.

Discussion: Poynter, @lainnafader, @timmarchman and @niemanlab

Ben Smith / New York Times:

The labor beat is hot again, both at legacy news outlets and at mission-driven ones like NY-focused The Chief-Leader, whose new owner plans to double staff — At a moment of political turmoil, economic change and a pandemic-driven focus on how we work, labor has become a hot news beat.

Max Goldbart / Deadline:

Report: the BBC's license fee could be frozen for 2022 and 2023 to stop it from rising with inflation, hurting the BBC's ability to compete with big streamers — The BBC looks set to have its funding frozen for the next two years in a major blow to the corporation's ability to compete with the big players.

Discussion: Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun, Metro.co.uk, Realscreen, The Times, @michellemanafy, Daily Express and Digital TV Europe

Tom McGeveran / What's New:

Ohio Local News Initiative raises $5.8M and announces plans to launch its first local nonprofit newsroom in 2022 in Cleveland with an expected staff of 25 — Independent newsroom in Cleveland to launch in 2022, producing daily, high-quality, community-oriented journalism as part of a new statewide network of newsrooms across Ohio

Discussion: Daily Herald, @jcstearns, @jasonalcorn and @henryjgomez

Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:

Clubhouse rolls out Replay on iOS and Android, letting users record live rooms and share them as a podcast or a clip on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok — Clubhouse hosts and moderators will have a fresh tool in their kit today. The company is pushing a new feature live on both its iOS …

Discussion: Clubhouse Blog, Podcast Movement and @justiacom, more at Techmeme »

Hanaa' Tameez / Nieman Lab:

Interview with Vox's new EIC Swati Sharma about revamping its editorial strategy to redefine “Voxxy” as the publication eliminates its Identities section — Last month, Vox.com eliminated its Identities section, which covered a range of topics, including criminal justice, race, religion, gender, and drugs.

Discussion: @voxmedia and @niemanlab

Illia Ponomarenko / @iaponomarenko:

Kyiv Post, Ukraine's only major newspaper in English, closes; staff say they were all fired after resisting attempts to infringe on editorial independence — BREAKING! @KyivPost has been killed. As simple as that. Today is officially the last day of Ukraine's only major English-language newspaper. We are all fired. This is what we all have to say about this situation. Please, please share to spread the word arond. https://twitter.com/...

Sarah Rappaport / Bloomberg:

Saudi Arabia, which lifted a ban on cinemas in 2018, is investing $64B in its entertainment industry and wants to become a destination for Hollywood filmmakers — The desert kingdom's becoming a destination for film makers after ending a decades-long ban on cinema.

Discussion: @prof_chadwick and @viviannereim

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 11:45 AM ET, November 9, 2021.

View the current page or another snapshot:

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

Education Lab Editor, WA — Seattle Times

Senior Editor, Remote US — PCWorld

State Worker Reporter, CA — Sacramento Bee

Executive Editor, NM — Searchlight

News Assistant, NY — Quanta Magazine

Local Editor, NJ (Remote) — Patch

News Writer, CA — Hollywood Reporter

News Editor/Reporter, KS — Blade-Empire

Add your company here

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

Bloomberg:
Netflix for iOS is rolling out Kids Clips, a TikTok-like feature that shows new daily short videos from its children's library

Discussion: TechCrunch, @sarthakgh, New York Post, 9to5Mac, Waivly, The Verge and Insider, more at Techmeme »

Patrick Frater / Variety:
Tencent Music reports Q3 net profit of $122M, down from ~$180M last year, and revenue of $1.21B, up 3% YoY; paying users grew to 71.2M, up 37% YoY

Discussion: Billboard and Reuters

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
Indictment of Steele dossier source doubles as a critique of Rachel Maddow and media outlets like WSJ, whose initial scoop cited a single anonymous source

Discussion: @erikwemple, @erikwemple, New York Post, Ineptocracy Chronicles, @kenvogel, @davidfolkenflik and @barrymeier

Max Willens / Digiday:
McClatchy, which began placing audio versions of its articles at the top of stories in September, reports 1%-5% clickthrough rates on the audio player

Discussion: @johnkunza, @simonowens and @beyondbylines

Robert Booth / The Guardian:
FOIA docs: UK's public appointments watchdog asked interview panelists to find chairs for BBC and BFI to be replaced as they were “not sufficiently independent”

Discussion: Jonathan's Newsletter and @lordcfalconer

Earlier Picks:

Barbara Allen / Poynter:
A 148-year-old Georgia weekly was about to close so its publisher could retire, but UGA's journalism school is taking it over and making it a capstone class

Discussion: @timhanlon, Editor and Publisher, @journalalyssa, @jrehnj, @jeremyreesnz, Мед …, @poynter, @roscoebarnes3, @cislmunc, @pr_johnson, @michellemanafy, @janebsinger, @bluemediagrad, @poynter, @jaclyncosgrove and @damianradcliffe

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Netflix faces more active libel suits than any major news outlet, partly due to its nonfiction fare, often unsuccessfully arguing that it is just a distributor

Discussion: @miagaluppo, Financial Times, @michellemanafy and The Signal

Irena Hwang / ProPublica:
How a ProPublica data journalist with a bioinformatics background used public genomic sequencing data to track a salmonella outbreak in the US chicken industry

Discussion: @irenatfh, @tomthuang, @dmaccannell, @propublica, @michaelgrabell, @clancynewyork, @dicktofel, @bmyeung, @chrishendel, @camfassett, @smmills1960, @emsimani, @propublica, @propublica and @niemanlab

Leyland Cecco / The Guardian:
A look at the messy public feud inside Canada's Rogers Communications between mother and son, as questions linger over who in the Rogers family should take over

Discussion: @michellemanafy, @rufus_hickok, @peterinexile, @researchnick, @martinxhodgson, @westmountgal, @cowstheory and @albacon4

Sarah Gooding / WP Tavern:
A recently unredacted antitrust complaint says AMP pages brought 40% less revenue to publishers, partly due to Google throttling load times of non-AMP ads

Discussion: What's New in Publishing, TechCrunch, Picking Trails, @carnage4life, @vasiliyzukanov, @triblondon, @lehors, @jameshercher and @robinberjon

From Techmeme:

Wall Street Journal:
Apple removes WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram from its App Store in China, after orders from the country's regulators citing national security concerns

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Sources: EU may accept Apple's proposal to open its NFC payments tech to rivals, and may close its antitrust probe in May, letting Apple avoid hefty fines

Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Telegram partners with Tether to let the messaging app's ~900M users send USDT to each other through The Open Network blockchain

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page