Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced new legislation today that aims to finally hold tech companies responsible for allowing misinformation about vaccines and other health issues to spread online. more

Shani Hilton has been appointed to the newly-created role of managing editor for new initiatives at the Los Angeles Times, effective immediately. She will be responsible for driving the L.A. Times’ efforts to expand its journalism and to foster a newsroom culture of aggressive, organic experimentation with form and approach. more

President Joe Biden is understandably sick of bogus COVID-19 information circulating on Facebook. Most of us are fed up with it.  But Biden’s recent attacks on Facebook, including his accusation that it’s “killing people,” which he walked back slightly on Monday, won’t fix the problem. more

A state journalism commission (in Massachusetts), created to study the effects of “news deserts” and how to support local news outlets, is expected to have its deadline extended a full year to accommodate for challenges presented by the pandemic. more

Indian tax authorities on Thursday raided one of the country's most prominent newspapers in what journalists and the political opposition denounced as retaliation for the outlet's hard-nosed coverage of the government's pandemic response. more

The FTC’s quest to break up Facebook has to get past one looming question in the next few days: Does its new progressive trustbuster chair get a vote? more

Hong Kong police charged two top editors and two editorial writers at Apple Daily with collusion weeks after the city’s largest pro-democracy newspaper was forced to cease publication and its assets were frozen. more

Katherine Boo, Washington, D.C.-based author and journalist, Gail Collins, opinion columnist for The New York Times, and John Daniszewski, vice president and editor-at-large for standards for The Associated Press, have been elected as co-chairs of the Pulitzer Prize Board. The trio succeeds ProPublica Editor-in-Chief Stephen Engelberg and Simon & Schuster Vice President and Executive Editor Mindy Marqués González, who shared the post during 2020-2021. more

Hearst has announced that Maria Reeve, managing editor of the Houston Chronicle, has been named executive editor. Reeve, who will be the first journalist of color to lead the Houston Chronicle newsroom, fills the role vacated by Steve Riley, who announced in March that he will be retiring later this year. more

Afghans who helped American news companies report on the war are in danger and should be able to apply for emergency U.S. visas, media organizations said in a letter to the Biden administration. more

One year later, Clubhouse is finally out of beta. The company announced Wednesday that it would end its waitlist and invite system, opening up to everybody. Now, anybody can follow Clubhouse links, hop into a creator’s community or join any public event. more

It’s summer, and that means it’s intern season, and that means you might be lucky enough to feel a little extra hope for our industry if you’re spending any time with brand new journalists. A case study out this summer suggests there deserves to be more than just a bit of hope, though. more

Recognizing the impact of technology on our democracy, the Knight Foundation is announcing a $5.5 million set of new investments today that will help advance research of issues such as online content moderation, mis- and disinformation online, freedom of expression across digital platforms and liability for content posted online. The investments include a $1.5-million open call for proposals for new research that can lead to effective interventions to mitigate the effects of racialized disinformation or targeted manipulation of communities of color. more

Founded in 1975 by Martha Cichelli, Software Consulting Services, LLC (SCS) has been providing software solutions to publishers and publishing groups. Martha's husband, Richard Cichelli, joined SCS in 1983 after working for the ANPA Research Institute. Richard and Martha have decided, after 45 years, to retire from active participation in SCS, and Kurt Jackson, SCS's vice president and general manager, has agreed to purchase the company. more

A few weeks ago, Column was honored to win the Wyncubator Pitch Competition, hosted at the Wynwood Walls by Goldman Properties, OnDeck and Mayor Francis Suarez. Column competed with four other finalists to win one year of free office space in Miami. more

He’s been a publisher, an advertising director and a columnist at daily and weekly newspapers — and now works for a publishing company owned by his son. Throughout his long career in journalism, John Speck has always included Kid Scoop in newspapers in California, Texas and Arkansas for more than 25 years. In Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he and his son, Adam, started The Fort Report, a “good news” monthly newspaper in 2020, the owner of the local Burger King franchise told Speck, “We’ll never stop advertising! We get hundreds of the coupons for a free ice cream cone back to us every month.” more

The challenges facing news organizations demonstrate why it is important for publishers to utilize a robust combined revenue strategy that harmonizes subscription and advertising data collection and profit conversions. Beyond the strategy, however, publishers must also ensure they have updated systems and tactical processes to streamline their relationships with advertisers. In an era where the publisher-advertiser relationship is crucially co-dependent for financial success, Lineup’s Pay4Media offers one tech tool that can contribute to a frictionless experience that strengthens that relationship and its profit outcomes. more

At the recent Great Western Audience Development Summit, AAM’s Kevin Rehberg shared an update on digital ad fraud, and the steps publishers can take to stand out to advertisers and earn more digital ad revenue. Here are the highlights of that presentation and ideas on how publishers can demonstrate their commitment to creating a quality digital advertising environment. more

Since the program launched with a pilot group of 114 schools, 10,000 local readers have discovered newspaper obituaries for former classmates, teachers and administrators. To meet demand, Legacy will release 3,850 more high school pages by July 31. Read more about the program and add a local high school to the priority launch list. more

The Yakima Herald-Republic and Walla Walla Union-Bulletin have selected Layout-8000 and SCS/ClassPag from SCS. Owned by The Seattle Times Co., the Washington-based daily newspapers will be running the systems in the SCS cloud with a "go live" planned for Sept.  1. more