Happy Friday! We made it (just). Today's roundup brought to you by Chris.

Nextdoor is quietly replacing the small-town paper — onezero.medium.com

A few weeks ago we wrote about the local news app News Break announcing $115 million in new funding. Its founder Jeff Zheng said at the time that there’s “strong user demand” for local news but “weak supply". We asked if local titles in the UK would ever willingly partner up with a third party app to deliver local news and hopefully recoup some of the advertising spend from small and mid-sized regional businesses.

Turns out there might be a bigger roadblock to that proposition: Nextdoor. The local community app - perhaps best known for being a seething hotpot of neighbourly aggression - has smoothly become a real source of local news. The Tow Centre's Emily Bell has stated: "Anecdotally, Nextdoor has gone from being kind of sub-Facebook to actually being the main platform you hear people discussing as a vector for local news and events and discussions".

This breakdown from Will Oremus examines the rise of the platform, and the issues that arise when a relatively small moderation team is suddenly charged with policing news content. The reality is that this change has taken many people unaware - seemingly including Nextdoor itself - and now the local news industry has yet another adjustment to make.

If you don’t cast, you’re last: inside big tech’s podcasting goldrush — www.thedrum.com

A good article and a better headline from The Drum's John McCarthy, in this longread about the big names investing in podcasting. We've discussed it on the podcast many times before, but this is a great snapshot of who is investing - and why.

Dan Wootton leaves News UK for GB News and Mail Online — www.bbc.co.uk

GB News, the totally-not-a-UK-version-of-Fox-News-honest, has hired Dan Wootton. Wootton is best known for being a "controversial" News UK mainstay, and has recently come under fire for an anti-lockdown, anti-science stance on the pandemic. So, nothing at all like Fox News, then.

Rupert Murdoch’s News UK loses ruling to reclaim digital newspaper tax — www.bloomberg.com

More bad news for Murdoch as the Court of Appeal said in a decision that it would be “impermissible” to extend tax relief for newspapers to their online siblings. A ruling the other way would have allowed News UK to claim back millions.

This week's podcast:

Yahoo Lifestyle Southeast Asia Editor in Chief Reta Lee on identifying emerging content trends — voices.media

This week we hear from Yahoo Lifestyle Editor in Chief for Southeast Asia, Reta Lee. We talked about spinning up new content pillars and identifying trends, the opportunity for eCommerce in Asia and collaborating with teams in the US and UK.

Behold the Publisher Podcast Awards 2020 shortlist — publisherpodcastawards.com

Over 100 podcasts made the shortlist for the second annual Publisher Podcast Awards, among them some of the biggest names in global publishing. Check out the full line-up across 18 categories including Best Coronavirus Podcast, Best Launch and Best Commercial Strategy.