iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Bron Maher

Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · 28/09/2026

London's Waterloo Bridge faces closure within three years without urgent repairs, deepening concerns over the UK capital's crumbling river crossings. Read more: bloom.bg/4xRZaZ9 📷️: Jason Alden/Bloomberg

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Thank you to the couple who were attacked last year for sharing their story. You can read the story in @thefence.bsky.social the-fence.com/article/hate...

the-fence.com

Hate in Hampstead

Our LGBT dispatches have taken a sadder turn.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I wonder what she would think of dating bisexual men.

A screenshot of a paragraph from a story in The Fence, reading: "Another friend, visiting a pub in a well-to-do part of Hammersmith, recalled platonically sitting on the lap of her (straight, married) female friend, which prompted a woman to walk over and say: ‘I know what you’re doing. I’m from Sweden, we have a lot of those. It’s disgusting.’"

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I don't really have a prescription for this. But I do think, as political parties discuss ending pride celebrations (to say nothing of the tenor of discussion around trans people), it is worth remembering that even in the UK there is a contingent of people who really do hate queers.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

But, two: Asking around, I was surprised how many people I know have experienced homophobic hate incidents. For starters, I've had three, my boyfriend's had two, and so has another close friend.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Two big takeaways: One, it's hard to tell from the stats what's actually happening in hate crime trends. Improvements in police crime recording methodology mean you can't compare data today with data from a decade ago. And hate incidents go notoriously under-reported, besides.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Prompted by a homophobic assault on a couple days before Pride (and in Hampstead village, of all places), The Fence sent me off to follow the justice proceedings and get a sense for how common these sort of attacks are nowadays.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It's easy, perhaps, to imagine that the days of open street homophobia in the UK are a thing of the past. And sure, things aren't as bad as they were even two decades ago, of course. But, as I find in a new piece for @thefence.bsky.social, abject anti-gay hate remains a familiar occurrence.

the-fence.com

Hate in Hampstead

Our LGBT dispatches have taken a sadder turn.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Back in uni I was corrected by a friend who was a (rare?) longtime fan of Mr LeMore and said that this was the correct pronunciation!

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

So far the company's sold 50,000 subscriptions, and it tells me about 1/3 of those have been annual.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Reach will also shortly begin rolling out new, initially free newsletters built atop local brands without a dedicated website, like the Southport Visiter and Ayrshire Post. Its aim is to eventually offer a paid tier on them, potentially adding another layer to any bundles.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

New: Reach is working on launching bundled subscriptions. Since launching its first partial paywall on the MEN in December Reach has added them to another 18 sites. Bundled subs would let a reader buy discounted access to multiple brands.

amediaoperator.com

Months After Launching Subscriptions, Reach plc Wants to Launch Bundles

Reach plc is working on a way to sell bundled subscriptions to its multiple brands, months after launching its first wave of paywalls.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

JMG Media's biggest creditors are HMRC (£1.6m) and other, Irish-based companies in the JOE network (£1.49m). The main JOE website's About Us page still says the brand is "part of JMG Media Limited".

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

"...specifically in the gambling sector after the Autumn Budget, that office has closed. All work is now conducted from our Dublin and Manchester offices. This does not affect the JOE brands or the group's operations."

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Quinlan told me: "The JOE brands are owned and operated by our Irish business. JMG Media Limited was a UK sales entity that operated from a London office. "Following a significant contraction in the UK branded content market...

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

JMG Media Limited, the company identified on the JOE Media website as its publisher, has gone into voluntary liquidation owing ~£3.7 million to creditors - including £213,383 to the group's CEO, John Quinlan. JOE's websites nonetheless continue to publish.

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Reposted by Bron Maher

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Fascinating piece this - the answer is a (slight) corrective for boring trads like me:

economist.com

Does AI stop children from learning?

New data show the peril and promise of the technology

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Much to admire about The Guardian publishing its corrections publicly every day, but I particularly enjoy that the corrections extend to recipes

A recipe for a summer spritz cocktail overstated the amount of elderflower liqueur by some margin: 35ml was the intended measure, not 235ml (The good mixer, 18 July, Feast, p15).

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Reposted by Bron Maher

dr. thrasher, an american writer in ex(archia)(xile) @thrasherxy.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

it was for @us.theguardian.com … for a civil liberties reporter job! does this comport with new york state human rights law?

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

tidbit: FT CEO Jon Slade mentioned in an interview with FT Strategies that they had a team look into whether the brand "should be experimenting with membership." (fwiw FT says it was just investigatory - they're not actively planning a membership product at the moment)

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

(title correction: the job is 'senior writer,' not senior features writer!)

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Job move news: New Statesman deputy editor Will Lloyd is leaving the mag to join the Financial Times as FT Weekend's senior features writer

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Axel Springer says it's completing its acquisition of The Telegraph today after getting all the necessary regulatory approvals. Editor Chris Evans said: "After three, difficult years without owners, we look forward to stoking up the engines and setting forth on a new voyage.”

axelspringer.com

Axel Springer Is Closing Acquisition of Telegraph Media Group

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

They list a tax credit of £140,971 for the year, but I can't see exactly what it relates to. Something to do with a change in deferred taxation

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Company directors said that due to the cost of living crisis "trading continues to be challenging as increasing costs persist in the publishing industry that cannot easily be offset by equivalent increases in revenue." But ultimately they say they're "optimistic" about the company's future.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Private Eye publisher Pressdram Limited has published its accounts for the year up to the end of September: - Revenue was just under £11m, up 2% year-on-year - Operating profit was £133,449, nearly double 2024's - Profit after tax was £308,739 vs a £74,230 loss the year before

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Staff announced a unionisation bid with @wgaeast.bsky.social back in April and, after Springer Nature declined to voluntarily recognise them, carried out a vote on unionising earlier this month. The mag union, @sciamunion.bsky.social, says it's confident it won the election.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

New: The new owners of Scientific American magazine have asked the U.S. National Labor Relations Board to halt a unionisation election count due to go ahead tomorrow. It comes after Canadian publisher LabX Media Group bought the 180-year-old mag from Springer Nature, cutting 15 roles

A copy of Scientific American is seen held in someone's hand in front of a newsstand. It reads: The Unsolvable Problem - A journey into some of the strangest ideas in modern math and physics.

(Picture: dennizn – stock.adobe.com)

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Justin Smith told Puck’s Grill Room podcast back in January that although Semafor's currently chasing the big growth markets in the global economy - the “global south and global east,” in his words - that “we will double back to Europe in 27".

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Asked about rumours Semafor has been tapping up reporters in Brussels, Ben Smith tells me: “We are always talking to great journalists all over the world, and I’ll be in Brussels next month chatting with people” - but says there’s “no plan or timeline for a European launch."

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

omg I've been getting the same, they're everywhere

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

For the avoidance of doubt, here's what he said in full:

Pina’s comments in full
Pina was responding to Le Monde’s chief digital operations officer Lou Grasser, who said that YouTube needs to let publishers “put a video under the paywall, to have a product feature that will help us to engage readers on that.”

He replied: “I mean, the model that we developed, the core model of YouTube, as everybody knows, is an ad-based model—which was, by the way, already the legacy publishing model as well, so we are following the different sets and phases of the evolution of the industry.

“And of course, we put all the priority on ads, because the ads is where typically this industry, generally speaking, monetizes—both the entertainment, as well as news, so why not start with the ads? We have a very sophisticated and very successful ads model, which we do the revenue share for.

“Subscription comes next. We have subscription products already available—we have more than 10 ways of making money on YouTube, but subscription is an important component to it. And it’s already available, paywalls are already available.

“But having a paywall that has a conversation between YouTube and the current paywall of publishers is something that has not yet been developed, but we have product and engineers working on it, thanks to great partners such as Le Monde who pushed us to start developing that solution. So I would expect it to come, and happening very soon.

“It deals with sensitivity around about privacy—there’s no reason why we say no. We are eager to share the ad money with you, and we are eager to share the subscription money as well. It’s just a question of how to handle the data, and how to be incredibly careful and thoughtful about how that data is exchanged—and how to be, of course, law-abiding and privacy-safe, which is a crucial concern that we have.”

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Looks like that exec said something he wasn't meant to: YouTube have been in touch fully walking back the claim they're working on publisher paywall integration. They're not saying he was misquoted - only that "at the moment, there are no plans to launch a paywall integration with news publishers."

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Big news: YouTube is working on integrating its platform with publisher paywalls, according to its vice president for Europe - a move that could fundamentally reshape the news industry’s relationship to the traditionally free-to-air streamer www.amediaoperator.com/news/youtube...

amediaoperator.com

YouTube Exec Says Integration With Publisher Paywalls Coming ‘Very Soon’

stock.adobe.com YouTube is working on integrating its platform with publisher paywalls, a move that could fundamentally reshape the news industry’s

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Notably, given the NYT's AI licensing deal with Amazon, he also questioned how viable publisher AI licensing deals could be long term, whether they were direct or facilitated through pay-per-crawl means: www.amediaoperator.com/news/ag-sulz...

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

In a broader speech to WAN-IFRA in Marseille today Sulzberger decried a "tragedy of the civic commons" being encouraged by major AI companies, who he said had "raided civilization's entire corpus of original works."

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

McTague's strategy involves a lot more scoops, "radical" cover stories and a more granular interest in left politics outside the Labour Party. “We’re trying to be a place that is the natural town square for the British left to thrash out its ideas,” he said.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

It's a year since Tom McTague took over as editor of The New Statesman and it sounds as though things are going well: circulation is up around 10%, he told me, and peers at other outlets agreed the mag is doing more to set the news agenda. www.amediaoperator.com/news/the-new...

A picture of The New Statesman on some grass. The cover reads "What Britain Won't Face" and depicts Britannia, the personification of Britain, crouched on the beach with her head in the sand as a tidal wave approaches.

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Reposted by Bron Maher

Press Gazette @pressgazette.co.uk · 20/05/2026

Google has unveiled an AI-powered overhaul of Search that will see the end of the "ten blue links". Instead of returning a list of links, Search will centre around a reimagined “intelligent search box”, dropping users into AI-powered experiences techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/g...

techcrunch.com

Google Search as you know it is over | TechCrunch

Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and interactive interfaces — a shift that could further reduce…

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Christiane Amanpour: "Clearly I'm concerned" about what might be coming if CNN comes under ownership of the Ellisons. "I'm concerned based on what's happened [for example at] CBS. I mean, do I have to list what's happening there? Haemorrhaging viewers [and] probably money"

Christiane Amanpour on stage at the Sir Harry Evans Truth Tellers Summit in London in 2026

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Reposted by Bron Maher

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

This continues to be a hugely expensive problem for me. And it's all down to a major lie at the heart of Substack's promise that writers on Substack can leave and take their subscriber list with them at any time. substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

An Explanation (Which I Would Be Very Grateful If You Took The Time To Read)

What follows is a minor modern horror story.

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Come for the discussion of Alphaville's strategic role within the FT's portfolio, stay for Lionel Barber repeatedly calling its audience nerds (lovingly)

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Bron Maher @bronmaher.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Axel Springer says it's received approval from DCMS to proceed with its acquisition of The Telegraph. The deal "remains subject to outstanding regulatory approvals in Ireland and Austria, with completion expected within calendar Q2 2026"

axelspringer.com

Axel Springer Receives UK Government Approval for Acquisition of Telegraph Media Group

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