Drum roll, please. "The moment the media and technology industries have been expecting for years may finally be arriving: Apple is exploring getting into the original programming business." Variety broke word that Apple's had "preliminary conversations in recent weeks" about producing entertainment content. Imagine if it really set its mind, and treasury, to go after Netflix, Amazon and others. It's dipped its tootsies into content via Apple Music. And, oh, it's got about $200 billion in cash on its balance sheet. That's billion. Or a lot more than beer and tipping money even in Beverly Hills. (Variety)

The New York Post was right earlier in the month when reporting that the financial news giant would make big cuts, including in its huge, talented and at times rudderless Washington bureau. (Poynter) It will cut about 80 journalists in various areas "in a rare retrenchment for the high-flying company." (The Washington Post) It remains huge, with 2,400 in 150 bureaus, but it's a seeming scaling back of ambition. The devil will be in the details of who goes, including how this impacts general interest politics and government coverage. The company has made high profile, expensive and, so far, not impactful moves to be a player in the very competitive politics arena.

David Muir moderated a "virtual audience" with Pope Francis at the Vatican, with groups in Chicago, Los Angeles and McAllen, Texas. A former Fox News correspondent, who works in the press office there, apparently helped cut the deal in advance of a papal U.S. visit. A Chicago student and bullying victim even sang for him. (ABC News) The Argentine pope has apparently not watched television in 25 years. (Adweek). That may say something about the Catholic Church's immersion into the world of its own declining adherents. Then, again, it may guarantee that he's missed Jerry Springer, Al Sharpton, "Baywatch," Chris Berman and "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire." Pax vobiscum.

A team of rivals, including the Sun, Mirror, Mail, Telegraph and Guardian are pushing the power of news brands in a multimillion-pound campaign. It will be in print and digital, including a 40-second video, with an overall theme of "Nothing works like news works." Another mantra concedes the oddity of the union: "Divided loyalties perhaps. Undivided attention for sure." It comes amid a bad summer of declining ad revenues for the industry. (The Guardian) Presumably they know that America's newspaper publishers have tried similar gambits to little avail, some pumping the benefits to literacy of reading a paper. Been there, done that, but good luck, anyway.

If you misplaced your course guide, The New School in New York City offers a startup Journalism + Design undergrad program "framed around the concept of design thinking." It's not about skills so much as "dispositions," says its boss. "Are we helping people be able to learn really fast, so when things do change they can move with it without completely freaking out?" It's got 240 students for the fall and started without tenured faculty who insisted on doing things their way. "When we think about audience engagement and wanting to know our audience, design as a discipline can really help us…Nobody knows how people will consume news as we move forward." (NiemanLab)

It could be the title of a jaunty Harvard Kennedy School symposium on American popular culture. But, no, it was the chyron across the bottom of the screen on CNBC yesterday as the usual bunch of intense, mostly white males hyperventilated over "volatility" in the oil market. "Good often gets washed out by bad" was another expert's analysis. We're dealing with an "unhinged market," with silly scraps of news able to move it, he cautioned. Somebody said we shouldn't "indict the global economy." Boy, that's a profound thought. We probably should leave that to the Revolutionary Court in Tehran and one of its well-practiced secret trials, anyway.

Iran has no monopoly on frequently dubious law enforcement actions. Two VICE journalists were charged with working for a terrorist organization, a move derided as total baloney by their employer, human rights groups and media organizations. (Poynter) It's a tale of both Turkish government intolerance of media and its fear of Kurds who are now fighting ISIS but want an independent state. In addition, "Vice's coverage of ISIS has demonstrated that whatever other charges may be levied at Vice, it is taking foreign coverage more seriously these days. Yes, there's sometimes an exaggerated, performative bad-assery to Vice productions, but their reporting from the Middle East has been essential." (The Atlantic)

It's video of an Israeli soldier trying to arrest a 12-year-old Palestinian boy for allegedly throwing stones.The boy resists and the masked soldier is besieged by furious women. "The Palestinians saw righteous resistance. The Israeli right saw weakness." (The Washington Post) A left-wing Israeli daily tagged it "a perfect picture of the occupation." A right-wing online outlet proclaimed, "Horrifying Viral Video Shows IDF Soldier Beaten by Mob of Palestinian Women, Children." The occupation of Palestinian land is now 48 years old. Only the means of communicating the mess have changed slightly.

It's pretty heady being a darling of the venture capital crowd that recently received $200 million from NBCUniversal. "The rising digital media star is in discussions to lease a century-old former Ford auto factory on the southeastern edge of Los Angeles' downtown, according to people familiar with the talks. "The 250,000-square-foot potential lease suggests large West Coast ambitions for the company, which is hot off a $200 million investment from NBCUniversal that valued it at around $1.5 billion. BuzzFeed is considering multiple options in addition to the former Ford factory, according to a person familiar with the negotiations." (The Wall Street Journal)

Dating back to the Monica Lewinsky mess, journalist-author Sidney Blumenthal has been a loyally combative Hillary Clinton ally. As Monday's release of more State Department emails leaves no doubt, he was "an inescapable presence in the former secretary of state's digital life during her years at Foggy Bottom." (POLITICO) And while he touched on foreign affairs and purported domestic frailties (like House Speaker John Boehner's drinking), the Chicago native urged her to somehow rein in David Axelrod, the Obama political strategist who remained a top West Wing adviser to the president in the early going. "Axelrod should not be a foreign policy spokesman on any issue or area ... Many people in the press feel he's out of his lane and resent being lectured by him on foreign policy." If you covered the Bill Clinton years, that's the pot calling the kettle black.

Derek Blasberg has been named "Our Man on the Street" at Vanity Fair. Previously, he was editor-at-large of Harper's Bazaar. (Email) | Justin Moore is now a multimedia journalist and reporter at WKBW in Buffalo. Previously, he worked at WABG in Greenwood, Mississippi. (TV Spy) | James Gaddy is now deputy editor at Bloomberg Pursuits. Previously, he was a deputy editor at The Wall Street Journal. (WWD) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.