Thursday 31st March: Are newspapers complicit in Meta's war on TikTok?

March 31, 2022

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris.

Look. We could talk about underhand and shady behaviour from Meta all day. If you add up all the times we've done it on the podcast I bet it would last a day or more. But this one is interesting because of what it says about how Meta sees local media - and the dire straits in which US regional newspapers find themselves.

First the bare facts. Meta is very worried about TikTok. So it has apointed Targeted Victory - a right-of-centre think tank - to push "local operatives" across the country to boost messages calling TikTok a threat to American children. "Dream would be to get stories with headlines like ‘From dances to danger,'" one campaign director said. Subtle!

Targeted Victory (subtle!) has since pushed back against the story, but the WaPo article makes it clear that when it comes to winning over the hearts and minds of the public Facebook isn't the way to go - even for Meta. Instead, the trusted and supposedly independent local newspaper is the path to the public's heart. But should those titles run these stories? Answers on a postcard please (or just reply to this email).

The BBC has been accused by the Tories of being unrepresentative and a route for getting friends and family into work - apparently without irony. It is true, though, that the BBC needs to be more representative... but it's unclear how they'll get to there from here.

In yesterday's newsletter Esther shared a hopeful take on BuzzFeed and its treatment of its news wing. For balance - depressing, depressing balance - I present this from Rachel Sanders: "Much of the News staff has been written off as dead weight on the payroll. What, after all, is a Pulitzer worth on a balance sheet?"

Yandex, a company owned almost entirely by Western investors is still helping sites pushing false Russian claims make thousands of dollars a day through on-site adverts. It's a reminder of the opacity of the digital ad economy - on which so many publications are still reliant.

This week's episode:

This week we hear from The Hustle’s Principle Reporter and Sunday Editor Zachary Crockett. He talks about his career path working across radio, newsletters, journalism and data, how he makes must-read long-form Sunday issues for The Hustle’s business audience, and launching a daily podcast.

Oh em gee! On the evening of Wednesday 27th April, we’ll be celebrating the best podcasts in publishing at a ceremony in Proud Cabaret City in London. I will be drunk by the end. We've just welcomed Affino on board as a Silver sponsor too!

Every time someone shares this newsletter, we see a little lift in subscribers, which makes us very happy (and helps us keep going). If you can take two minutes to recommend The Media Roundup to a colleague or on social media, it really does make a difference. Thank you.