Mornin'! Today's news roundup is brought to you by Chris.

Will publisher investment ever match public hunger for digital local news? — techcrunch.com

Local news in the UK is - to put it mildly - a mug's game. It doesn't get the attention and nor does it have the glamour of national stories. It's as exposed to the predations of competition for revenue as any other legacy media - and as we discussed on this week's episode it's going to take a lot of investment for the majority of the local news industry to get up to par when it comes to presenting news online. It's also incredibly valuable and can't be allowed to disappear.

Which is why it's interesting that the local news app News Break is announcing that it has raised $115 million in new funding. Its founder Jeff Zheng says there’s “strong user demand” for local news but “weak supply.” The startup says it’s currently reaching 12 million daily active users in the US, and has consistently remained in the top news apps on both Apple and Google's stores.

So would a third party app like News Break work in the UK, too? There is, as the TechCrunch article points out, understandable reticence for publishers to put their fates in a third party's hands again. However, if there's a decent revenue share - as Zheng argues there must be for News Break itself to survive - there's every chance that some of the UK local publishers could be tempted into a trial at least. The UK and US are very, very different - but a common solution to local news' doldrums would be very welcome.

What happened between platforms and publishers in 2020? — voices.media

Legislative pressures around the world are set to force the platforms to play nice with publishers. Some are taking pre-emptive steps, with licensing deals putting money back in publisher’s pockets… for now. Esther Kezia Thorpe rounds up 2020 in platforms.

Europe seizes on social media’s purging of Trump to bang the drum for regulation — techcrunch.com

The fallout from the platforms' purge of Trump rumbles on, with Europe using it to push for increased responsibility on behalf of platform owners. Meanwhile, Twitter's stock fell 10% on news of the ban (so worth it), and Parler's unceremonious booting off Amazon on the grounds of lack of moderation has raised eyebrows. Worth keeping an eye on that line of reasoning...

Nothing to see here: How conservative media is moving quickly away from what happened last week — www.poynter.org

Speaking of distancing oneself from Trump, conservative US media is prioritising itself talking about the danger of licensing free speech to third parties. In the UK, however, right-leaning media outlets including The Spectator are quietly and cravenly altering their past articles about Trump. Want to talk about danger? This revisionism is what's really worrying - though depressingly predictable.

This week's podcast:

Axios’ Media Reporter Sara Fischer on crafting informative newsletters and media coverage — voices.media

Sara tells us about her process for writing a thoughtful, informative newsletter, whether Axios’ ‘smart brevity’ model can work for local news, and what lessons she’s taken from covering media companies that she applies to her own work.

Buy The Media Voices Team a coffee — ko-fi.com

We're just 11 days in to 2021 and we've already had to spend our first episode of the year in discussions about Trump, Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg. If you can spare a few quid, ease our headaches with a virtual coffee and keep us powering through to next week.