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| David Dinsmore |
News UK chief operations officer David Dinsmore joins the UK government as director of communications at permanent secretary level, a newly created position, effective in November. In that position, Dinsmore will lead the Government Communication Service, the professional body that oversees communications activity across the government. Dinsmore served as editor of News UK’s The Sun before ascending to the COO spot at the media platform in 2015. News UK is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. According to The Guardian, Dinsmore was chosen from a short list of two that included Portland founder Tim Allan, who was an advisor to former Prime Minister Tony Blair. UK Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald said that “under David’s leadership the Government Communication Service will take advantage of the rapidly evolving media landscape and go from strength to strength.” Some members of the UK Labour Party had a less positive reaction to Dinsmore’s hiring. The Guardian noted that three Liverpool MPs sent a letter to PM Keir Starmer expressing their concern about Dinsmore’s appointment.
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Gannett reaches a deal with AI-powered answer engine Perplexity to license content from USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. As part of the agreement, Gannett joins the Perplexity Publisher Program. The content and journalism from USA TODAY and local USA TODAY Network publications will be integrated into Perplexity’s search experiences, including its newly released agentic web browser, Comet. Gannett will have access to Perplexity technology including Perplexity’s Sonar API and Perplexity Enterprise Pro for all employees. “This deal allows us to further accelerate AI opportunities as we share advertising revenue and leverage data to deliver shareholder value while providing credible content for users of the Perplexity platform,” said Gannett chairman and CEO Michael Reed.
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YouTube is introducing “age-estimation technology," which aims to identify teen users, in the US on August 13. When a YouTube user is identified as a teen, the platform introduces such protective features as disabling personalized advertising, limiting repeat viewing of certain types of content, and enabling digital well-being tools such as screen time and bedtime reminders. While the protections are already in place on the platform, they are only applied to those who verified themselves as teens, not those who may have withheld their real age. YouTube will use a range of signals to determine a user’s possible age, regardless of the birthday that user listed when signing up for an account. Users who contest the technology’s age estimates, will have the option to verify their age through government ID, selfie or a credit card.
Symbolic.ai forms a partnership with News Corp to begin using the company’s AI-native publisher platform in the newsrooms of News Corp publications to augment research, writing and publishing... Mediaite launches a newsletter that promises to give readers a summary of—media newsletters... The Fund for American Studies launches the Journalism Excellence Fellowship, a program that will provide promising young journalists the opportunity to work alongside top writers, reporters, and media professionals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
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.
