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Amazon has plans to launch a free, advertising-supported video service for its Fire TV streaming video devices, according to a report on tech-focused website The Information. The service, which is expected to be called Free Dive, will not be part of Amazon’s ad-free Prime Video service. Amazon is allegedly in talks with major studios to license older TV shows, which have already aired on TV networks, for the new service. The company currently programs ad-supported shows on its IMDB vertical, and runs ads on NFL games on Prime Video. Amazon competitor Roku says its Roku Channel, an ad-supported app that runs on its devices as well as on smart TVs, brought in $90 million last quarter. YouTube and Facebook have also started up ad-supported services. Amazon generated $2.03 billion in advertising revenue in the first quarter of this year.
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Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has made a $1 million gift to left-leaning news and commentary magazine Mother Jones. The gift comes with no guidelines about how it should be used. The magazine launched a fundraising initiative called “Moment for Mother Jones” in 2016, and says it has raised almost $20 million in gifts and pledges toward its goal of $25 million. The magazine says that the money will be earmarked for areas such as improving its investigative reporting, covering disinformation and investing in audience engagement. ProPublica and the Columbia Journalsm Review are among the other organizations that have received donations from Newmark. “We’re in the middle of an online information war, and the stakes are a free press, an informed public and strong democratic institutions,” Newmark said in a piece posted on the magazine’s website.
 Jemele Hill |
Jemele Hill, the ESPN on-air personality who started up a controversy when she called president Trump “a white supremacist” on Twitter, will be leaving Aug. 31, according to a report in the New York Post. Hill's exit comes as ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro works to remove political commentary from the network’s programming. “I have been very, very clear with employees here that it is not our job to cover politics,” Pitaro said. Hill, who joined ESPN in 2006 as a national columnist for ESPN.com, was one of the anchors of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” prior to the Trump dustup, at which point she was taken off the program. Since January, she has been chief correspondent and senior columnist for The Undefeated, ESPN’s content initiative covering sports, race and culture. She is now developing Lodge Freeway Media, an independent media company, in collaboration with Undefeated writer Kelley Carter.
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
Michael Kaminer, who was responsible for the Observer’s “Power List” for the past 13 years, has cut ties with the publication... The New York Times Company continues the march toward its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is providing more than $6 million in funding to eight organizations working to address the challenges local news and information environments face along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Conservative outlets Fox News, Newsmax and the Daily Caller are holding back from signing Pete Hegseth’s edict restricting press access in the Pentagon... CBS News sees the first executive departure of the Bari Weiss era as head of standards and practices Claudia Milne exits... Indiana University shuts down the print version of The Indiana Daily Student.
Rothschild family plans to unload 26.7 percent stake in The Economist... STAT, a digital media company that focuses the life sciences, brings back Damian Garde, who anchored its biotech newsletter and podcast from 2016 to 2024... High Times officially resumes print publication (following its 2024 shutdown) with the release of a limited-edition, collectible 50th anniversary issue. 
CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her site for $155M... C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence... A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low.
