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MARKETS

• U.S. markets: The Dow clinched its fourth-straight day in the green, but...things could’ve been better. The blue-chip index was dragged down by continued losses from Boeing, its most influential member.
• Energy: U.S. crude climbed to a four-month high on the promise of prolonged OPEC-led supply cuts.

MEDIA

The Facebook Post

Last year, Facebook released Today In, an initiative to highlight local news stories. Yesterday, Facebook launched This Is Actually Terrible, showing that in many places in the U.S., there isn’t enough local news to fuel Today In.

The report: Facebook (-3.32%) teamed up with academic researchers to measure news deserts, or “communities with little or no local reporting.” Here’s what they found:

• About one-third of Facebook’s U.S. users live in areas that do not have sufficient local reporting to support Today In.
• There’s not much regional bias, either. 26% of users in the West and 35% in the Midwest, Northeast, and South suffer from a lack of local news.

This map does a good job of illustrating the problem. The more green, the more local news. The less green...the less you know of the delights of reading a small town police blotter.

Taking a closer look at the state of local news

• More than one in five papers has shut down over the past 15 years, according to research from UNC. That comes to a net loss of nearly 1,800 papers.
• Half of U.S. counties have only one newspaper, and almost 200 counties in the U.S. have no newspaper.

The irony isn’t lost on anyone. Big Tech platforms like Facebook and Google gobbled up much of the advertising revenue local publishers built their business models around. Last year, the duo brought in 60% of all digital ad spend in the U.S.

Now, Facebook says it wants to revive local news. It pledged $300 million to journalism causes in January and announced more new grants yesterday. But it’s not clear whether that’s going to fix a problem that extends beyond the News Feed.

OBIT

Princeton Economist Alan Krueger Has Died

Alan Krueger—noted Princeton University economist, labor market expert, and one of D.C.’s most in-demand aides—died over the weekend at 58. His family identified the cause as suicide.

Krueger had trouble fitting his résumé on one page. He was chief economist at the Labor Department from 1994-1995 under President Clinton, served in the Obama administration as assistant secretary of the Treasury from 2009-2010, and was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2011-2013.

When was the last time you heard of a classically trained labor economist who dabbled in concert revenue structures? Some of Krueger’s research highlights...

• He argued in the 1990s that minimum wage hikes didn’t necessarily lead to job losses.
• More recently, Krueger explained how the opioid epidemic among men of prime working ages hamstrung participation rates.
• He also had an ear for the music biz, showing in the early 2000s how concert tickets would generate more money for artists than CD sales.

RIDE-HAILING

Lyft Challenges You to a Dual

In its much-hyped $2.1 billion IPO, Lyft has proposed a dual-class stock structure—meaning the ride-hailer’s founders, execs, and lucky VIPs will own shares that give them 20x the voting power of regular ol’ plebeian stockholders.

Not everyone is a fan of dual-class setups. A group of Lyft investors has called on the board to scrap that structure, per the FT, arguing that it disadvantages regular shareholders. Every Alexander Hamilton has his Aaron Burr.

Activists also take issue with just how much a dual-class listing would benefit Lyft’s founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, who could secure hundreds of millions of dollars each in the IPO.

• They’ll also retain control of Lyft, since they’ll own supervoting shares. Per the NYT, the two will own less than 5% of outstanding stock once Lyft is public...but control nearly 49% of Lyft’s voting shares.

Still, dual-class listings are common among IPOs of founder-led tech firms, the NYT writes. Facebook and Snap used the same setup to make sure their top brass kept a stranglehold on their companies.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Does MySpace Have an Undo Button?

MySpace—which definitely still exists—may have lost 12 years’ worth of music files uploaded to the site. Rough, but it's probably better you didn't hear our body of work before we started writing newsletters.

MySpace said recently that photos, videos, and audio files uploaded from 2003-2015 “may no longer be available” thanks to a “server migration project.” It also apologized “for the inconvenience.”

Inconvenience might be putting it lightly. MySpace was known as a launchpad for new musicians seeking new audiences—after all, it was the most visited internet site in the U.S. in 2006. Ever heard of Calvin Harris? Lily Allen? The Arctic Monkeys? They were on MySpace before they were on Spotify.

Throughout its nearly 16-year history, MySpace has hosted 53 million songs from 14.2 million artists.

• And according to The Guardian, there might not be much left. This mishap may have cost MySpace 50 million tracks from 14 million artists.

+ Not everyone is buying the server story, including Andy Baio, the ex-CTO of Kickstarter.

TECH

Let’s Hang With Andrew Yang

Morning Brew’s emerging tech writer Ryan Duffy caught up with entrepreneur and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who’s known for his progressive economic policy ideas and #deepthoughts.

RD: You’ve proposed The Freedom Dividend...what is it?

AY: “The Freedom Dividend is [universal basic income] that would put $1,000 a month into the hands of every adult American starting at age 18 in order for them to better prepare for the 21st century economy.”

What did you learn from Martin Ford’s book, Rise of the Robots?

“Martin’s book is a very compelling look at just how much technology could potentially take over various tasks and jobs. The major takeaway was that this isn’t around the corner, it’s already started to happen.” Here's the book.

Do you think you could outdebate an AI?

“I could debate an AI. And even if I lost, I still would’ve won, because that’s kinda the point.”

+ You can read the rest of the interview in our Emerging Tech newsletter, which comes out this afternoon.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• FIS (-0.72%) is buying Worldpay (+9.96%) for around $35 billion in the biggest deal in the international payments sector’s history.
• Apple (+1.02%) released new versions of its iPad Air and iPad mini.
  Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara is out following allegations he had a sexual relationship with an actress he helped promote.
• The Department of Energy unveiled Aurora, a $500 million supercomputer being built by Intel and Cray. It’ll be fully operational by the end of 2021.
• Foxconn said it’ll start producing screen displays at its Wisconsin facility by the end of next year.

BREAKROOM

Real Estate Appraiser
The California town of Hillsborough filed a complaint against the owner of this house, which, as you can see, is Flintstone-themed.

The town is arguing that various home improvements by the owner were installed without the correct permits and create a “highly visible eyesore...out of keeping with community standards.” The new additions include dinosaur sculptures and a “Yabba Dabba Doo” sign.

So here’s the question: The owner bought the property in 2017. How much did this “Flintstone House” cost? (Disregard inflation from the Stone Age.)

Breakroom Answers