What We’re Reading

We keep an eye out for the most interesting stories about Labby subjects: digital media, startups, the web, journalism, strategy, and more.

“We don’t see ourselves as something that will end with the end of the war.”

—Zakhar Protsiuk, COO of the Kyiv Independent, on the future of the five-year-old outlet that has chronicled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Journalism UK / Marcela Kunova) —JB

What else we were reading on November 5

TheWrap / Lucas Manfredi

Thanks to Brendan Carr’s FCC, Sinclair wants to acquire even more local TV stations →

“As for the station side of the business, Sinclair executives said that M&A has been ‘very vibrant’ due to the FCC’s regulatory actions and that they continue to evaluate and see an opportunity in larger broadcast combinations.” —JB

Adweek / Mark Stenberg

Anthropic strikes its first publisher licensing deal, with the AP →

“If, by chance, you opened Claude on Election Night and asked it for an update on he latest polling data, you would have been treated to a novel sight: up-the-minute information, provided by and attributed to the Associated Press.” —JB

Press Gazette / Alice Brooker

50 local U.K. news publishers are getting grants to help fill “news deserts” →

“The majority of funding has been awarded to local print and online news outlets and independent local TV and radio stations. Publishers that have been selected for the funding include Mill Media, Byline Times, Leicester Gazette, NN Journal and the Island Echo.” —JB

TheWrap / Alyssa Ray

Trump is appealing a federal judge’s dismissal of his $10 billion defamation suit against Wall Street Journal →

“The legal move came days after Judge Darrin P. Gayles dismissed the defamation lawsuit with prejudice…The U.S. District Judge out of Miami noted in his ruling that Trump’s team was ‘grasping at straws’ while trying to ‘manufacture’ flaws in the initial WSJ report.” —JB

CJR / Joel Simon

Russia has killed its leading independent newspaper, but Novaya Gazeta’s journalism will live on →

“Founded in 2022 as a project of PEN America and Bard College, Kronika has set out to digitally preserve the work of independent media and journalists at risk of being erased by censorship, persecution, or war. For months, it has been working to bring Novaya Gazeta’s entire archive online, from the earliest print newspapers to special sections and regional editions, and to make them searchable in Russian and in English.” —JB

TheWrap / A.J. Katz

The New York Times doesn’t see AI agents as a threat to its subscription model (yet) →

CEO Meredith Kopit Levien “faced questions about Al-powered agents that could automatically cancel subscriptions or help consumers find cheaper alternatives, potentially threatening the recurring revenue that publishers and other subscription businesses depend on. ‘So far, we’re not seeing an impact,’ Levien said when asked whether the technology was affecting cancellations.” —JB