Weekly Digest: Facebook Rethinking News Partnerships, Journalists Killed and Missing

Facebook is rethinking its news deals with major publishers, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Three years ago, the company struck deals with various news publishers to pay for their content as Facebook was launching a dedicated news section. The biggest beneficiaries have been The New York Times (over $20 million annually on average), The Washington Post (over $15 million), and The Wall Street Journal (over $10 million).

Now that the contracts are close to expiration, it’s unclear whether they will be renewed. Facebook’s parent company Meta “is re-examining its commitment to paying for news,” WSJ writes.

According to the report, Facebook’s leadership seeks to focus on short-form videos in an attempt to compete with TikTok. Besides, “regulatory efforts around the world looking to force platforms… to pay publishers for any news content available on their platforms… have damped Mr. Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm for making news a bigger part of Facebook’s offerings.”

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Last year, the Netherlands was shocked by the killing of Peter R. de Vries, a prominent and popular investigative reporter. This week, a trial opened in Amsterdam against two alleged perpetrators of the assassination.

22-year-old man known as Delano G is the suspected shooter, while Polish national Kamil E, 36, allegedly assisted in the murder. Prosecutors demand a life sentence for both men; both of them were arrested on the day of the murder. 

Previous press reports tied the murder to prominent Dutch criminal Ridouan Taghi, leader of a gang investigated by the journalist, but Taghi hasn’t been charged with De Vries’ assassination.

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British journalist Dom Phillips went missing in the Amazon, along with Brazilian expert on Indigenous groups Bruno Pereira. They went on a reporting trip in the rainforest and have been missing since the beginning of this week.

As BBC notes, “Mr Pereira recently received threats over his work against illegal fishing.” Although there is hope of finding Phillips and Pereira alive, the authorities say they do not exclude a possibility of the men having been murdered “in a region where drug-trafficking and poaching are rife.”

Dom Phillips is a freelance journalist who has written about threats to the Amazon for The Guardian and The Washington Post, among other outlets. Brazilian security forces are actively searching for Phillips and Pereira, though the chances to find them fade with each day, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said.

Bonus — Five more stories you might want to check out:

• Institute of Mass Information: About 600 people are being held hostage in [Russia-occupied Ukrainian] Kherson region, most of them are journalists and activists
• The Daily Beast: The Washington Post Fires Felicia Sonmez Amid Week of Infighting 
• TechCrunch: India considering appeals panel with power to reverse Facebook, Twitter and YouTube content moderation decisions
• Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: RFE/RL Freelancer Kuznechyk Handed Six-Year Prison Sentence in Belarus, Relatives Say 

Axios: Democrats urge Biden admin to protect Mexican journalists amid killings

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