More Media News

• The News Media Alliance has a post here on the Communications Decency Act, housing  Section 230, and liability protection for Big Tech. “Facebook, Google and other digital platforms continue to be shielded by laws that are over two decades removed from the rapidly advancing technology, and we are seeing the disastrous effects from years of inaction to correct this oversight in the law,” it says.

• The New York Times is pulling out of Apple News, the paper writes.

• Starting Aug. 8, the Fulton Sun (Missouri) will go to seven days of digital and a one-day printed paper, the paper announced. WEHCO Media owns the paper. Readers who don't have a tablet to read the digital edition can rent an iPad from the company for $9.95 monthly. WEHCO has similar models at several papers in Arkansas. WEHCO's  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock) launched a recent program to give iPads to subscribers.  

• The Press & Journal (Middleton, Pennsylvania) will publish its last edition July 1, the family-owned newspaper announced. “Within weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, our advertising revenue plummeted. Ironically, our readership soared,” wrote owners Joe and Louise Sukle in a goodbye note. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to save the paper.

• The Mesabi Daily News and Hibbing Daily Tribune (Minnesota) are combining into one six-day paper, the Mesabi Tribune, on July 8. Adams Publishing Group owns the papers.

• The GrenadaStar (Mississippi) is set to have new ownership July 1, the paper says. Publisher Joseph B. Lee III and co-owner Brenda R. Lee are selling the paper to Wyatt Emmerich of Emmerich Newspapers.

• The UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media (CISLM) has released its latest report on the state of local news in the U.S. “News Deserts and Ghost Newspapers: Will Local News Survive?” is the fourth such report from Penelope Muse Abernathy, Knight Chair of Journalism and Digital Media Economics at UNC Hussman. 

• Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications has been awarded $1 million by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation for a new program to bolster local news in Chicago.

News and Tech