Axios sells for $525 million, to a company that seemed to be getting out of the media business
 |
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
 |
Axios sells for $525 million, to a company that seemed to be getting out of the media businessAtlanta-based Cox Enterprises has spent the past decade selling off most of its media properties as it brings in billions from cable. So why dive back in? By Joshua Benton. |
 |
Canada’s Online News Act shows how other countries are learning from Australia’s news billThe potential here is for democratic governments to evolve their digital policy models based on each other’s experiences. By Taylor Owen Supriya Dwivedi. |
What We’re Reading
The Lever / Andrew Perez
Franklin County did, in fact, respond to Glenn Kessler’s abortion email the day before his column published →
The Washington Post added a correction: “In fact, an email the county spokeswoman sent was inadvertently missed during the reporting. This piece has been updated with her response that the agency was prohibited from sharing information regarding specific cases.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop
What toilets say about the latest Trump news cycle →
“It's also a reminder that, while the disgraceful manner in which Trump left the White House has (again, understandably) dominated coverage of his post-presidency, the policies he pursued while in office still matter, too.”
The Daily Beast / Lachlan Cartwright
Tucker Carlson is “shitting himself” scared that his Alex Jones texts may leak →
“If made public, these sources said, the text messages would be ‘highly embarrassing’ for Carlson.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
The New York Times is planning to “aggressively expand” its advertising business across its bundled products, like games and sports →
“Over the past 10 years, the Times has pivoted its strategy to focus on attracting more consumer revenue via subscriptions. Now that it’s reached a critical mass of subscribers outside of news, it sees an opportunity to build more ad products that cater to those users.”
Bloomberg / Charlie Hancock
Meta's AI chatbot repeats election and anti-Semitic conspiracies →
“Conversations shared on various social media accounts ranged from the humorous to the offensive. BlenderBot 3 told one user its favorite musical was Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats," and described Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as ‘too creepy and manipulative’ to a reporter from Insider. Other conversations showed the chatbot repeating conspiracy theories.”
International News Media Association (INMA) / Erin Lebar
How the Winnipeg Free Press realigned its newsletter strategy based on reader feedback →
“The survey provided the newsletter working group with the answer it was looking for: The topic of gardening landed much higher up on the list than either of the other options previously considered, so that newsletter became prioritised based on the survey responses. Within a month, the Winnipeg Gardener newsletter launched. It now has nearly 4,600 people signed up to receive it.”
Wall Street Journal / Sam Schechner, Miles Kruppa, and Evan Gershkovich
How YouTube keeps broadcasting inside Russia’s digital iron curtain →
“So far, Russia has stopped short of making internet providers block access to YouTube, as it did with Meta Platforms Inc.'s Facebook and Instagram, Twitter Inc. and even Google's own Google News service. Among major non-Russian social platforms that offer broad access to independent news, only the chat app Telegram has similarly avoided being shut off. The result is Russians now live behind a digital iron curtain, albeit one with significant gaps.”
Axios / Sara Fischer
The news startup Column has raised $30 million to expand beyond public notices →
“It’s a rare injection of high-growth capital into a company that services local newspapers … The new capital will be used to expand Column’s offerings to digitize other outdated public information systems, like government procurement officers placing project proposal notices, or trustees placing sheriff sale notices to manage virtual property auctions.” (We wrote about Column last year.)
NPR / Steve Inskeep
Inside a TV news station determined to report facts in the Taliban’s Afghanistan →
“Over the last year, there have been numerous accounts of raids, beatings, and detentions of Afghan journalists across the country who were pursuing stories the authorities did not like, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. None of this has stopped TOLOnews from broadcasting critical voices.”
Vox / Peter Kafka
How Facebook helped Axios sell for $500 million →
“For context: In the second quarter of 2022, Meta, which has been struggling on multiple fronts, generated $6.7 billion in profits. That's more than $70 million a day. But for publishers, even a slice of a slice of tech money is incredibly high-margin and meaningful. Rivals tell me that Axios, for instance, charges $300,000 for a week-long ad campaign that includes multiple placements. Last year, Axios generated a $4 million profit on $87.5 million in sales, and hopes to generate more than $100 million in 2022, the company has told investors.”
Digiday / Sara Guaglione
Publishers are investing in more crypto reporters →
“The recent fluctuations and instability in the world of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain may explain why a number of publishers are hiring reporters to cover the space this summer. In addition to Fortune, Bloomberg, Forbes, Gizmodo and Money are growing their dedicated blockchain and crypto teams.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop
A whiplash week on the Biden media seesaw →
“This isn't to say that Biden should have had a longer media honeymoon, or any media honeymoon at all—it's to say that coverage turning so sharply on perceptions of political standing, particularly when the media has a role in shaping that perception, is unhelpful. Seeing everything primarily as a win or a loss doesn't merely elide policy substance but contributes to a totalizing focus on elections over governing, no matter how far away the next elections may be.”
Reliable Sources / Brian Stelter
How the U.S. media covered the extraordinary FBI search of Mar-a-Lago →
“Some of the initial news alerts about the FBI action were untrue because, true to form, some parts of Trump’s statement were untrue. He said his home was ‘currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,’ but all the reliable reporting indicated that the FBI action had concluded by the time he spoke out.”
Motherboard / Anna Merlan
Conspiracy theories and uncertainty about monkeypox are spreading really, really fast →
"Many of these communities, and the influencers within them, are now acutely aware of the successes of their 'plandemic' disinformation playbook," two ISD analysts wrote, "which sought to delegitimize public health officials, and their institutions."
No comments