Good morning from the team at Press Gazette on Tuesday, 31 March.

🤨 Who knew that underhand SEO tactics could be used to silence reporting about underhand SEO tactics?

Press Gazette’s exposé of parasite SEO firm Clickout Media has been scrubbed from the internet after a copyright takedown request to Google in the US saw it removed from the search giant’s index.

The anonymous request says the Press Gazette article was a copy of a piece written by The Verge in 2024, which was on a similar topic but is clearly a different story.

This is a cynical ploy made by someone seeking to protect Clickout Media’s reputation. Two follow-up pieces written by other titles have also been removed from search using the same tactic.

READ THE FULL STORY

💷 The Daily Star is now making so much money from stories syndicated to web portal MSN that it has a reporter working full time on repurposing content for the site.

Sidebar: some of this now includes videos created completely with AI.

Adam Cailler told us how he learned to please MSN’s automated (and somewhat prudish) editing system.

Stories syndicated to the likes of MSN can make more money for publishers than work published on their own sites.

This is because of the huge audiences on these platforms and because users of portals like MSN and Yahoo are generally signed in so can be targeted with ads sold at a premium.

READ THE FULL STORY

🚨 And the UK Freedom of Information Act is again under attack.

The Government wants to change the rules making it easier for public authorities to reject requests on the grounds they would be too expensive to answer.

The News Media Association (NMA) has written a letter to the Government explaining why publishers are alarmed about this.

Cost limits on answering FOIs have already been effectively cut every year for 20 years because they have never been updated in line with inflation. Further restrictions would keep public interest information locked up.

READ THE FULL STORY

🤏News In Brief

Mark Beard is stepping down as chief executive of Prospect magazine after three years, leaving to join Ireland’s Business Post as CEO. (Press Gazette)

Hearst UK has added three senior hires to its commercial division: Sylvain Foucat as head of revenue optimisation, Joe Grimsdale as head of Hearst global solutions in the UK, and Sarah Newton Boyd as head of partnership solutions in a newly created role.

PA Media has appointed Nick Lester, formerly its chief House of Lords correspondent, to the new role of US editor to re-establish an "on-the-ground presence in the US".

The BBC has been accused of making “propaganda films” for Saudi Arabia and accepting money to produce films for the country’s sovereign wealth fund. (