Apple News loses its director of monetization
Publishers hoping to make money off Apple News can’t be cheered by this: David Kang, who became senior director of Apple News monetization and strategy in November 2017, is leaving after a year in the position. It’s unclear why Kang is leaving the Apple News role, but it can’t be easy running monetization at a company that’s been notoriously indifferent, if not hostile, to advertising, given that it makes most of its money selling phones and prizes its users’ privacy. Publishers have spoken highly of the publishing team at Apple News, which they say has sent them a lot of traffic and helped expose the publishers’ content to new audiences, given the news app comes installed on Apple mobile devices. But monetization is a big source of frustration for publishers, which once looked to Apple to be a counterweight to Facebook’s and Google’s dominance of digital advertising. Apple has made moves to help publishers monetize their content through ads, enabling them to have comScore count the...