For the Record

Washington Post Readies Zeus Prime Platform:

The Washington Post will formally launch its Zeus Prime self-service contextual advertising platform in the second quarter after "running more than 100 campaigns for some 50 different brands" on its website during the last six months, Max Willens of Digiday reported Monday. Over the past year, the program has added "about 150" publisher websites (including properties owned by McClatchy, MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing) and is in "active discussions with several lifestyle publishers." Ads will be linked by "a shared taxonomy across all Zeus Performance participants." 

Analysis: Technology Companies Sponsor Beltway Newsletters:

Facebook, Google, Amazon and technology lobbying group American Edge sponsored at least one of 10 major Washington newsletters (including products from Politico, The Hill, Axios and Punchbowl News) on a daily basis throughout the month of February amid antitrust lawsuits against the former two companies, Gilad Edelman of Wired reported Monday. "It's common for a company to sponsor newsletters when they have some sort of pending legislation that they're trying to get, when they're trying to catch the attention of policymakers and Beltway elites," said Michelle Kuppersmith, the executive director of the Campaign for Accountability, which analyzed the sponsorships through its Tech Transparency Project. "But we noticed this because it was so uncommonly heavy handed." According to Edelman, Facebook also has sponsored Washington-based search advertising and "big, above-the-fold banner ads on the homepages of sites like the The New York Times and The Verge."

Trial Begins for Des Moines Register Journalist:

Prosecutors in Iowa began their case Monday against Andrea Sahouri, a public safety reporter for the Des Moines Register who was arrested during last summer's racial justice protests, according to Elahe Izadi of The Washington Post. Sahouri and former boyfriend Spenser Robnett "were charged with failure to disperse and interference with official acts, misdemeanors that could lead to 30 days in jail." In her opening statement, prosecutor Brecklyn Carey "presented the case as a simple one, hinging on whether Sahouri and Robnett complied with an order to disperse and interfered with an arrest," eliding Sahouri's presence as a journalist at the event. "This case is about a reporter who was arrested while doing her job," said former U.S. Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt, who is representing the accused. "She was assaulted."

SimilarWeb: Publisher Traffic Falls in 2021:

According to SimilarWeb traffic analytics data, many major publishers "saw traffic dip more than 20%" in February, with political news consumption declining by 28%, Sara Fischer and Neal Rothschild of Axios reported Sunday. Interest in the presidency also "has taken a steep plunge," with the initial weeks of former President Trump's administration generating three times as many stories as the beginning of the Biden administration. However, February's finance and business coverage consumption trends remained "higher than the average over the last three years" due to the rollout of coronavirus vaccines and the GameStop short squeeze. 

Brooks Resigns From Aspen, Will Remain as Volunteer:

David Brooks "has resigned from his position at the Aspen Institute following reporting [...] about conflicts of interest between the star New York Times columnist and funders of a program he led for the think tank," according to Craig Silverman and Ryan Mac of BuzzFeed News. New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy confirmed the newspaper approved his involvement with the Institute's Weave initiative in 2018, but current editors were unaware that Brooks received a second full-time salary for his work. Brooks will continue to volunteer with the organization. "Going forward, the Times will disclose this unpaid relationship," Murphy said. "We are also in the process of adding disclosures to any earlier columns in which David refers to the work of Weave or its donors." 

Wall Street Journal Embraces Service/SEO Strategy:

For the first time in its history, The Wall Street Journal "has placed a number of service-minded, search-engine-optimized stories in front of its paywall over the past few months," eliciting pushback from veteran staffers who have been asked to work on breaking news stories about the companies they cover, Steven Perlberg of Insider reported Thursday. Past Pulitzer juror and Editor in Chief Matt Murray told Perlberg that the newspaper "doesn't have to sacrifice quality to improve its digital chops," adding: "There's a little tension there, but that’s OK. That comes with change and growth. We can't afford to have our head in the sand and do what we want to do as if it was the year 1990 and we were the leading business news print publication and there was no competition." 

FOIA Release: Pack Paid Millions to Investigate Staff:

According to a Government Accountability Project analysis of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, former U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack approved at least $1.2 million in fees under a no-bid contract with Richmond, Va.-based law firm McGuireWoods as part of an investigation of his staff, David Folkenflik of NPR reported Thursday. During the investigation, which did not utilize federal inspectors general or other civil servants, the McGuireWoods team reviewed social media posts, news articles about Pack and an Office of Inspector General audit of Hillary Clinton's emails. In a letter to congressional committees with oversight of USAGM, Government Accountability Project Senior Counsel David Seide said that the investigation "constitutes gross mismanagement, gross waste of taxpayer dollars and abuse of authority." McGuireWoods confirmed that it provided legal services to USAGM but refused to comment further on its representation.

Facebook Lifts Post-Election Political Advertising Ban:

Facebook will "allow advertisers to resume running political and social issue ads in the U.S. on Thursday" for the first time since the 2020 U.S. presidential election last November, according to Sara Fischer of Axios. In a company update, the platform said that it is hoping to refine its process to avoid future concerns: "Unlike other platforms, we require authorization and transparency not just for political and electoral ads, but also for social issue ads, and our systems do not distinguish between these categories. We’ve heard a lot of feedback about this and learned more about political and electoral ads during this election cycle. As a result, we plan to use the coming months to take a closer look at how these ads work on our service to see where further changes may be merited." Google lifted a similar ban in late February that was reinstated after the Capitol siege.

Trump Administration Generated Record Number of Leak Referrals:

The Trump administration "referred a record number of classified leaks for criminal investigation, totaling at least 334, according to a Justice Department document obtained [...] under the Freedom of Information Act," according to Ken Klippenstein of The Intercept. Klippenstein added that leak crackdowns often are "meant to instill a climate of fear around talking to the press," with the Justice Department frequently "[stressing] how it hopes to 'deter' further leaks" in resulting indictments. Although the Obama administration "prosecuted more than twice as many leakers under the World War I-era Espionage Act as all previous administrations combined," then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asserted to Congress that leak investigations had already increased by 800% under the new administration, ultimately resulting in a 400% uptick in referrals that year.

SoundCloud Introduces 'Fan-Powered Royalties' for Independent Artists:

Music streaming platform SoundCloud "is introducing what it calls 'fan-powered royalties' — its own branding of the user-centric model — which it says will mean 'each [SoundCloud] listener’s subscription or advertising revenue is distributed among the artists that they listen to, rather than their plays being pooled,'" Tim Ingham of Music Business Worldwide reported Tuesday. The policy, which will affect 100,000 independent artists via its SoundCloud Premier, Repost by SoundCloud and Repost Select tiers, contrasts with the current pro-rated system (favored by platforms such as Spotify) in which "all royalties [are] pooled at the end of each payment period, after which recorded music rights-holders are paid according to their market share" of total plays on the platform.