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Facebook is planning to make a $300 million investment in local news coverage. The investment is expected to include more than $20 million to expand Facebook’s Accelerator program, which is intended to assist local publishers with their membership and subscription models. It also will fund such initiatives as the U.K.-based Community News Project, a program that will recruit trainee “community journalists” and place them in local newsrooms, the Pulitzer Center and the Local Media Association and Local Media Consortium. Facebook’s new efforts will not be tied to Facebook-related products, recipients of the investments told Reuters. Facebook vice president of global news partnerships Campbell Brown said the investments are part of the company’s “responsibility to help local news organizations grow and thrive.” The move follows recent criticism of Facebook, claiming that it offers a platform for hate speech, misinformation and meddling in politics.
 Adam Moss |
Adam Moss is leaving the editor-in-chief spot at New York magazine, a position he has held since 2004. Both Moss and New York Media chief executive Pamela Wasserstein said that it was Moss’s decision to step down. Moss, who was editor of the New York Times Magazine and the late 1980s weekly 7 Days, was one of several people considered to take over at Vanity Fair when Graydon Carter stepped down as editor in 2017. At New York, Moss was credited with maintaining the tone of the publication, while successfully steering it into the digital age. “Adam showed the world that a legacy print publisher could lead invention in digital products,” Wasserman said in a statement. “He leaves the company in an enviable position—reaching the largest, most engaged audience in our history.” In November, Moss oversaw the implementation of a pay wall for the company’s websites. According to the New York Times, Wasserstein is expected to announce a successor in the coming days.
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Netflix is looking to subscribers to help foot its ever increasing bill for original content and finance its substantial debt. The company’s most popular streaming plan will see its price tag go up from $11 per month to $13, while its basic plan will rise from $8 per month to $9. The increases are the largest since the company started its streaming service 12 years ago. Wall Street seemed to approve of the move, with Netflix’s stock up by $20.91 (6 percent) on Tuesday morning. The price hike still makes Netflix less expensive than HBO, whose streaming service runs $15 per month. Amazon’s streaming services comes as part of its $13 per month Prime shipping service, while Hulu’s ad-free service is $12 per month. The move comes as a slew of competing streaming services—from Apple, Walt Disney and NBCUniversal, among others—prepare to launch.
McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers across 14 states (including The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star), launches a wave of layoffs that extends to at least 13 of those papers... The Toledo Blade, which was founded in 1835, is set to shut down on Dec. 31, unless owner Block Communications manages to find a buyer for it... A bill awaiting approval by California governor Gavin Newsom would give local newsrooms a boost. 
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
