Monday August 10th: Standard job cuts and conservative bias

Welcome to your week! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Chris.

We wish we didn't have to include this - it goes without saying any media job cuts are terrible news - but the sheer scale of these cuts are notable. Fully one-third of Evening Standard are to face job cuts, and the newspaper intends to cut its 167 newsroom staff by 69.

We've been reporting on the Standard's woes for years now, but the pandemic's impact on commuter footfall and adspend (which had been falling for years) has hit the freesheet worse than most. That's been exacerbated by a muddled approach to transformation, with token or underfunded efforts at closer integration between the print and digital sides of the business.

This is the part where we'd normally blame the failures on the paper's gimmick senior editors and owner Lord Lebedev, but the reality is too depressing. Nobody who will lose their jobs as a result of this deserves to. We sincerely hope the paper rediscovers its purpose sooner - and that everyone involved in the cuts will land on their feet.

People who seek out 'alternative facts' do so because they believe the truth is being concealed. We've known that anecdotally - so it's nice to have this article to back it up.

Speaking of selective truths... it's recently emerged that despite conservatives trying to claim victimhood and censorship on Facebook, the social network was actually giving them an easier ride.

Trump's war on WeChat and TikTok has implications far beyond just preventing the spread of memes. Media businesses, entertainment companies... ownership issues mean many media businesses are now in the firing line.

Every day's a throwback:

In this classic episode, we talk to Christoph Schmitz, Aller Media’s Product Owner for paywalls, login, subscriptions and CRM. Everything you need for digital transformation.

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