Business of Media
Google to end news access in Canada after bill to pay news publishers passes
Google has announced that it will make good on its threat to remove news links from search results and its other products in Canada once a law that requires tech firms to negotiate deals to pay news publishers for their content goes into effect, reports The Guardian’s Johana Bhuiyan.
Google joins Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc in announcing an end to news access for Canadian users of their platforms after Bill C-18, or the Online News Act, was passed into law last week. The move is just the latest development in the years-long tussle between tech platforms and publishers around the world over whether and how to share advertising revenue from engagement with news articles.
The legislation came after complaints from Canada’s media industry, which wants tighter regulation of tech companies to prevent them from elbowing news businesses out of the online advertising market.
“We have now informed the government that when the law takes effect, we unfortunately will have to remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products in Canada,” Google said in a blogpost.
“We don’t take this decision or its impacts lightly and believe it’s important to be transparent with Canadian publishers and our users as early as possible,” it said.
Twitter’s new chief eases into the hot seat
When Elon Musk announced last month that he had hired Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s chief executive, he said he was “excited” to bring on someone who could “focus primarily on business operations,” report The New York Times’ Ryan Mac, Tiffany Hsu, and Benjamin Mullin.
But just over three weeks into her new job, Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, has been prevented from working on a key component of what she was hired to do: drum up advertising for Twitter.
Yaccarino, 60, has spoken with some of Twitter’s advertisers about unsavory content on the site, four people with knowledge of the conversations said. But she has not engaged in public hobnobbing and hands-on negotiating with advertisers to increase Twitter’s revenue.
That’s because a contractual agreement with NBCUniversal prevented Yaccarino — at least initially — from working on advertising deals that would conflict with the interests of her former employer, three people familiar with the arrangement said.
News Brands
UK media coverage of Titan sub versus migrant boat disaster charted
Two maritime disasters in the space of a few days garnered vastly different amounts of media coverage prompting a debate around news values, reports Press Gazette’s Clara Aberneithie.
Press Gazette looked at the article count for coverage of the Titan sub tragedy, the sinking of a fishing boat packed with migrants and the aborted military coup attempt in Russia.
• The sinking of a fishing boat packed with migrants off the coast of Greece on Wednesday 14 June resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives (the UN estimates up to 500 are missing)
• The Titan submarine, which went missing on Sunday 18 June, was discovered near the wreck of the Titanic on Thursday 22 June
• Yevgeny Prigozhin led a revolt against the Russian military leadership which began on Friday 23 June and was aborted late the following day.
Press Gazette looked at data from Muck Rack, a media database that monitors 600,000 global online media sources, from 14 to 26 June.
According to Muck Rack, estimated global media reports referencing the submarine disaster peaked on Thursday 22 June, with over 35,000 articles. By comparison, articles relating to the fishing boat disaster appear to have peaked at a maximum of 5,000 articles per day.
Articles relating to the Wagner revolt reached almost 32,000 on Saturday 24 June and over 32,000 on Monday 26 June.
National Geographic lays off its last remaining US staff writers
Like one of the endangered species whose impending extinction it has chronicled, National Geographic magazine has been on a relentlessly downward path, struggling for vibrancy in an increasingly unforgiving ecosystem, reports The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi.
On Wednesday, the Washington-based magazine that has surveyed science and the natural world for 135 years reached another difficult passage when it laid off all of its last remaining staff writers.
The cutback — the latest in a series under owner Walt Disney Co. — involves some 19 editorial staffers in all, who were notified in April that these terminations were coming. Article assignments will henceforth be contracted out to freelancers or pieced together by editors. The cuts also eliminated the magazine’s small audio department.
The layoffs were the second over the past nine months, and the fourth since a series of ownership changes began in 2015. In September, Disney removed six top editors in an extraordinary reorganization of the magazine’s editorial operations.
Radio
‘Huge shoes to fill’: Triple J host Ange McCormack quits radio station
Popular radio host Ange McCormack has announced she is stepping away from the microphone at national radio broadcaster Triple J after eight years at the government-funded station, reports News Corp’s Rebecca Borg.
In a heartfelt post to social media, the digital editor revealed her time was up and she would be leaving her role to pursue other adventures.
“Some news! After almost eight life-changing years, I’m leaving Triple J,” she posted alongside a heartbreak emoji.
“Feeling so emotional about farewelling a job I love and a team that have become lifelong mates. Triple J has taught me EVERYTHING I know and I’ve been so lucky to have been supported and invested in for so long.”
She continued by saying she wouldn’t leave her role and her “incredible colleagues” unless the opportunity awaiting her was “huge”.
“I’m stoked to say I’ll be hosting 7am podcast while Ruby Jones takes maternity leave. Huge shoes to fill but I’m excited for the challenge. In your feeds from July 17.”
Television
The 60 Minutes star who became a voice of the far right
The footage is shown before she takes the stage: Lara Logan in a headscarf, addressing the camera from the streets of Mogadishu. Logan ducking for cover as bullets crack overhead in Afghanistan. Logan interrogating a trophy hunter in Texas. Logan walking with Christine Lagarde, Justin Trudeau, Mark Wahlberg, Jane Goodall. It is a tour through Logan’s past life as a journalist for CBS’ 60 Minutes, a glimpse at the various exchanges and explosions that earned her the awards and a “prominent spot,” as her former network once put it, “among the world’s best foreign correspondents,” reports Nine Publishing’s Elaina Plott Calabro.
Then, three minutes and one second later, it is over. Cut to right now, February 27, 2023, in Fredericksburg, Texas: Logan looking out at 200 people gathered in a creaking church auditorium for the inaugural meeting of the Gillespie County chapter of Mums for Liberty.
“If you want to know why it’s called social media,” Logan says, “I’ll tell you why: Because Karl Marx was hired by Henry Rothschild, by the Rothschild family, to develop a system of social control. So when you see social, it is a form of control – that’s all it is. Social media is a form of controlling us all.”
For the next 45 minutes, Logan, wearing a floral wrap dress and a cream-coloured cardigan, lays out what she sees as the true narrative: for instance, that by aiding Ukraine, the US is arming Nazis; that the events of January 6 were not an insurrection at all. Her dress is decorated with two identical navy-blue stickers reading STOP WOKE INDOCTRINATION.
Squid Game, Netflix’s most-watched show, completes casting for second season
Let the do-or-die games begin, again. The South Korean dystopian drama Squid Game announced the cast for its second season, with much riding on a repeat success for Netflix’s most-watched show ever, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Jiyoung Sohn.
On Thursday, Netflix unveiled eight new members of the cast, a mix of locally well-known actors and K-pop singers. The US streaming service didn’t specify when the new season would premiere, but said the full cast gathered for the first table read this week.
Squid Game surprised both Netflix executives and the largely South Korean cast when it became a global phenomenon in the fall of 2021. The show revolves around a competition in which 456 debt-ridden contestants chase a single cash prize of about $40 million by playing traditional Korean children’s games on a secluded island. The dystopian element: Losers die.