Top News:
Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Reddit, Politico, and others mull cutting Google's access to their content for AI as traffic drops; Reddit signed a $60M/year deal with Google in 2024 — Reddit, Politico and others are weighing how—or even if—they can work with the tech company as AI tools supplant traditional searches
Discussion:
New York Post, Melissa Korn on LinkedIn, Barron's Online, Quartz, CNBC, @mikeisaac, @alexbruell, Tech Brew, Techstrong.ai, @ryanmews, @mikeparanzino, Eurogamer.net, Gizmodo, @roshanjnu, TechSpot, @mikeisaac, @jeffjarvis@mastodon.social, Unite.AI, Kotaku, Video Game Town and faisal.com, more at Techmeme »
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Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
How major publishers in the UK are pivoting away from quantity of content towards quality as Google AI changes lead to falling traffic referrals — Hearst UK is publishing less articles but “more effective” content overall by asking journalists to explain why they are producing every piece.
Discussion:
Search Engine Land
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
The European Commission grants conditional approval for Paramount's WBD acquisition as long as Paramount ends its EU distribution deal with Universal Pictures — Paramount Skydance Corp.'s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. won conditional approval from the European Union …
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Variety:
WGA seeks an injunction to bar Paramount and WBD from “closing or consummating” their merger or “taking any steps to integrate or consolidate their operations” — Union's legal move comes after 12 state attorneys general won a temporary restraining order pausing megadeal
Discussion:
The Wrap, @wgaeast.bsky.social, Bloomberg, Deadline, Media Play News, ByteHaven, The Movie Blog and Civil Discourse …
Josh Gerstein / Politico:
A US judge rules that Trump must turn over detailed financial information of 400+ companies owned by a family trust in his defamation suit against the BBC — MIAMI, Florida- A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump must turn over detailed financial information …
Discussion:
BBC, Staff Stories, @crampell.bsky.social, Mirror, The Wrap, The Standard, New York Sun, Benzinga, @sonjawest.bsky.social, @portiamcgonagal.bsky.social, @lolagaylec.bsky.social, @brianstelter, New York Post, GB News, @kvconner.bsky.social, The Guardian, NOTUS, NewsMax.com, Raw Story and Bloomberg
Dan Shanoff / The Athletic:
Nielsen: the 2026 World Cup final drew 38.9M viewers on Fox and 22M+ on Telemundo; taken together, the US audience size rivaled that of NFL playoff games — After a summer of World Cup TV records in the U.S. being reset over and over, the biggest game delivered one final new standard for soccer viewership:
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Sportico, The Hollywood Reporter, MediaPost, Variety, The Ankler, Fox Sports, The Streamable, Inc.com, Sports Media Watch, Reuters, International Business Times, Sports Business Journal, Media Play News, Newser, CNBC, WPXI-TV, @lucas_shaw, The Wrap, @foxsportspr, Barrett Media, Digital Music News, Axios, Awful Announcing, Deadline, NBC Bay Area, Adweek, Variety and Sports Business Journal
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Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Reach reports H1 revenue down 9% YoY to £232.9M, pre-tax profit down 5% to £40.3M, and says it will move “away from volume” to focus on original content — Reach is “moving away from volume” in its editorial output to focus on original content as financial results …
Discussion:
A Media Operator, RTÉ, HoldtheFrontPage and Proactiveinvestors UK
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable:
A US judge dismisses Google's lawsuit against web scraping service SerpApi, saying plain and aggregated search results are not protected under copyright law — Last December, Google sued SerpApi over scraping its search results, and now a court has granted SerpApi's motion to dismiss the case.
Mark Landler / New York Times:
France becomes the first European country to pass a law banning social media access for users under 15, which could go into effect as soon as September 1 — Its new law, the first of its kind enacted by a European country, will ban access to some accounts for anyone under 15.
Max Tani / Semafor:
News Corp sues privacy-focused search engine Brave, alleging it uses masked web crawlers to bypass publishers' restrictions and deliver “verbatim” AI summaries — The Scoop — News Corp, the Murdoch family-owned parent company of The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post …
Discussion:
The Wrap, Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, Cord Cutters News and Bloomberg Law
Oliver Darcy / Status:
Source: Clarissa Ward signed just a one-year CNN extension, not a long-term contract, amid friction with executives and concerns over Bari Weiss taking control — This past spring, Clarissa Ward was locked in contract negotiations with CNN. The star journalist, who currently serves …
Anushka Chourasia / Reuters:
UK publisher Bloomsbury says it is among the beneficiaries of the $1.5B Anthropic settlement; 14,087 of its titles are covered, with ~$3K in compensation each — Britain's Bloomsbury Publishing (BLPU.L) confirmed on Wednesday it was among the beneficiaries of a landmark $1.5 billion settlement …
