Mediagazer: The Biden-Harris administration launches a White House account on Reddit for news and info about federal government work; the first posts cover Hurricane Helene (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

8:05 PM ET, October 8, 2024

Top News:

The Independent's US editorial team increased by 40% in 2023 to about 50 journalists as it beefed up before the US election, and US visitor numbers rose by 20% — US plans follow acquisition of Buzzfeed's UK operations earlier this year — The Independent, the London-based media group …

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

The Independent's operating profit rose to £3.5M for a new 15-month reporting period, vs. £1.9M for a 2022 12-month period; 2023 revenue fell by 0.3% YoY — CEO Christian Broughton and chairman John Paton explain The Independent's five key growth areas.

Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:

Channel 4 reports 2023 revenue down 10.5% YoY to £1.02B and a pre-tax deficit of £52M, from a pre-tax £20M surplus in 2022, citing a “prolonged” UK ad downturn — CEO Alex Mahon lauded gains on YouTube and beyond as the U.K. broadcaster posted its annual report …

Discussion: The Guardian, Broadband TV News, The Media Leader, CampaignUK, Financial Times, Channel 4, Variety, Telegraph, Radio News Hub, The Guardian, Deadline, WORLD SCREEN and Telegraph

Jake Kanter / Deadline:
Channel 4 announces its first overnight US election coverage in 32 years, with guests including Boris Johnson and Stormy Daniels, and a partnership with CNN

Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:

European streamer SkyShowtime unveils a premium plan that lets users stream on up to five devices simultaneously, starting at €8.99 per month on October 29 — With pricing starting at €8.99 per month, the Premium plan provides the ability to stream on up to five devices simultaneously …

Discussion: Advanced Television, Liz Spaulding on LinkedIn, Roberto Soto on LinkedIn, @skyshowtime, SkyShowtime press releases, Broadband TV News, FlatpanelsHD, Media Play News, TVNewsCheck and The Desk

Gabrielle Russon / Florida Politics:

Florida's Department of Health sends a cease-and-desist letter to TV stations airing an ad supporting a pro-abortion amendment, calling it “false advertisement” — ‘Here, the Department is threatening the station with criminal prosecution if it does not cease running the Advertisement.’

Discussion: CNN, Adweek, @eramshaw@threads.net, Talking Points Memo, Rolling Stone, HuffPost, @matthew_d_green, The 19th, @sonnymarchbanks, @kennysmith.bsky.social, Above the Law, Digby's Hullabaloo, @patdennis, MSNBC, @matthew_d_green, Tv Technology, The Independent and Boing Boing

Pew Research Center:

US adults on TikTok follow influencers and creators popular on social media but very few politicians, civic actors, or traditional media outlets and journalists — Adult TikTok users in the U.S. use the platform to follow pop culture and entertainment accounts much more than news and politics

Discussion: TechCrunch, @sippey.com and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Survey: across the UK's biggest news shows, there was an average of 1.97 men for every one woman expert between November and April, compared to 4.1 in 2014 — Men still outnumber women in terms of broadcast newsreaders and quoted experts. — Double the number of men are being quoted …

Michael Leidig / Press Gazette:

RT revoices a series of Putin's key speeches using AI to show him delivering them in English, likely a bid to undermine Western translations — Putin Speaks project offers counter to Western Putin translations. — Russia's state-controlled TV news network has revoiced a series …

Discussion: Press Gazette on LinkedIn and HuffPost

Bloomberg:

Brazil's Supreme Court authorizes the return of X after the company complied with its demands, including taking down some accounts and appointing a legal rep — - Court banned platform in August as billionaire defied orders — Social network had 22 million users in South American country

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

The Biden-Harris administration launches a White House account on Reddit for news and info about federal government work; the first posts cover Hurricane Helene — VP Kamala Harris is on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, FEMA has a page dedicated to fighting the rumors circulating on social media …

Discussion: The Verge, @megancoyne46, @elizlanders, @hadas_gold, @liahaberman, Deadline, The Hill, @coachfinstock.bsky.social, r/Georgia and r/NorthCarolina, more at Techmeme »

Abid Rahman / The Hollywood Reporter:

In a podcast trailer, Ta-Nehisi Coates says CBS' Tony Dokoupil commandeered the Israel-Hamas war interview and “I don't think he did Nate and Gayle a service” — In the trailer for the next episode of ‘What Now? with Trevor Noah’ podcast Coates offered more thoughts on the much-talked about ‘CBS Mornings’ interview.

Discussion: Breitbart, Media Nation, What Now? with Trevor Noah on YouTube, @jeremymbarr, @scottsloofman and @heerjeet

Dylan Byers / @dylanbyers:
[Thread] CBS News leaders told staff that Tony Dokoupil's interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates about the Israel-Hamas war did not meet impartiality standards

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Fox News Media plans to launch a daily Spanish-language news show on Fox Deportes on October 15 and debuts a machine-translated Spanish version of its site — - There have been a few conservative news startups launched since 2020, including Americano Media and Voz Media …

Discussion: The Desk, RedState, The Hill, The Daily Beast, Deadline, Kansas Reflector, Newsbusters, Mediaite, Variety, Fox News, TVNewsCheck and NewscastStudio

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Snap says it is testing two new advertising placements on Snapchat: Sponsored Snaps in the Chat tab and Promoted Places on Snap Map — Snapchat is bringing ads to the app's main Chat tab, the company announced on Tuesday. Up until now, Snapchat has kept the Chat tab free from ads …

Discussion: Snap Newsroom, MediaPost and Adweek, more at Techmeme »

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 8:05 PM ET, October 8, 2024.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Energy & Commodities Editor, Tokyo — Bloomberg

Politics Reporter, TX — Texas Tribune

Consumer Brands Reporter, GA — AJC

Deputy Editor - Health Care, VA — Politico

Product Editor, CA — CalMatters

Indigenous Affairs Editor, Sydney — Guardian US

China Markets Correspondent, Shanghai — Reuters

Bangor Reporter, ME — Bangor Daily News

Commerce Editor - Health, Remote US — Yahoo

Sports Editor, MI — Detroit News

Managing Editor, Remote US — Velo

Lex Writer, London — FT

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:

Sara Fischer / Axios:
OpenAI signs a content deal with Hearst to use content from 40+ local newspapers and 20+ magazines in its products, after Condé Nast and Dotdash Meredith deals

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, OpenAI, Capital Brief, San Francisco Chronicle, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, MediaPost and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
Meta begins rolling out new AI tools that let advertisers expand the aspect ratio of their videos and generate an Instagram Reel video ad from a static image

Discussion: AdExchanger, MediaPost, The Verge, Facebook, Adweek, MarTech, Bloomberg and TVBEurope, more at Techmeme »

Semafor:
The New York Times is beta testing Zorse, a “phrase guessing game where every puzzle is a mash-up of two phrases”, with subscribers in Canada

Discussion: TechCrunch, The New York Times Company, @pabloreports, The Verge, @saksappeal and Jeff Petriello on LinkedIn

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adobe launches a Content Authenticity web app to let creators use its Content Credentials “nutrition labels” to apply attribution and opt out of AI training

Discussion: TechCrunch, Adobe Newsroom, Digital Trends, AIM, CNET, Fast Company, Reuters, TechRadar, Hindustan Times, Axios, PCMag, The Indian Express, PetaPixel and MIT Technology Review, more at Techmeme »

Earlier Picks:

Washington Post:
Analysis: Democrats are vastly outspending Republicans on election ads on Facebook and Google, but not on X, where Trump is the biggest political ad buyer

Discussion: Techdirt, The Texas Tribune, TVNewsCheck, The Root and Forbes

Neel Dhanesha / Nieman Lab:
Q&A with S-Town creator Brian Reed on his new Question Everything podcast about journalism, the lawsuit against S-Town, the Trojan Horse Affair podcast, more

CBS News:
60 Minutes says Trump backed out of an interview last week because it planned to fact check and Trump needed an apology for his 2020 interview with Lesley Stahl

From Techmeme:

Bloomberg:
The Trump administration exempts smartphones, laptops, hard drives, processors, memory chips, and machines used to make semiconductors from reciprocal tariffs

Martine Paris / Forbes:
Sam Altman says ChatGPT users had doubled in the past few weeks and that “10% of the world uses our systems”, which would peg the number closer to 800M users

Washington Post:
Arguments start Monday in the FTC's antitrust suit targeting Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, amid reports Zuckerberg asked Trump to intervene

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