Welcome to Friday! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris. The Earlybird Discount for tickets to the Publisher Podcast Summit expires TODAY - scroll down to get the code, and read about what we're aiming to achieve with it in our second story today.

Meta officially cuts funding for U.S. news publishers — www.axios.com

We've known this is coming for a while - but that doesn't mean speculating about what comes next is any less interesting! As a brief explanation, Facebook has been moving away from news content for some time, both from a partnership point of view and in terms of including it in the news feed. Now, as Sara Fischer reports, its official tie-up with some publishers is coming to an end.

"A lot has changed since we signed deals three years ago to test bringing additional news links to Facebook News in the U.S. Most people do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn't make sense to over-invest in areas that don't align with user preferences," a Facebook spokesperson told Axios.

So, what now for the relationship between Facebook and publishers? My guess is that including news content in any form is becoming just too much hassle for a company facing harsh headwinds. Between regulatory pressures to force the company to pay for news and issues around moderation, I can see this being a step along the road to full-on divorce. It'll take a while yet, so I can also see publishers trying to make hay while the sun shines.

The first-ever conference dedicated to publisher podcasts is launched: Behind the scenes — whatsnewinpublishing.com

Esther's written up our goals and plans for the Publisher Podcast Summit for WNIP: "Our four focus areas for the agenda – editorial, marketing, sound & production, and monetisation – have been carefully crafted with input from professionals just like you" - so if you want to get involved, scroll on down for an exclusive code.

Is consulting the next revenue stream for publishers? — digitalcontentnext.org

For DCN, our very own Peter is asking whether consulting is a long-ignored revenue source for publishers in need of diversification. As he points out, "Building on your own company’s expertise is a strong foundation for a consulting business that’s tightly focused on your niche. The people that helped drive your success should be able to look at similar problems in other companies and develop practical solutions."

We need your help to shape the future of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism — www.surveymonkey.co.uk

The Bureau has been a shining light of collaborative investigative journalism over the last few years, particularly as resource gets taken out of the local news ecosystem in general. Here you can lend them a hand by telling them what you want to see (and also get a look under the hood of what they want to know, too).

This week's podcast:

Medium VP of Content Scott Lamb on the platform’s evolution and vision for the future — voices.media

In our final episode of the season, we hear from Medium’s VP of Content Scott Lamb. Scott leads the content and creator relations teams at the platform, so we talked about Medium’s famous pivots, the importance of putting creators at the core, competing with Substack, and Ev Williams’ departure.

Save on tickets to our Publisher Podcast Summit with your exclusive discount. Expires TODAY! — publisherpodcastsummit.com

Tickets to the inaugural Publisher Podcast Summit on 5th October are on sale! Take advantage of an exclusive pre-agenda discount code just for our newsletter subscribers: enter MVNL20 at checkout for 20% off all ticket types. We'll be releasing some speaker details over the coming weeks, so keep an eye on @mediavoicespod or @pubpodawards for more.