Axios

Facebook is investing $1 billion in video content through 2018, The Wall Street Journal reports. Sources told the The New York Times two weeks ago that Facebook plans to spend $3 million per episode on a drama.

Why it matters: The investment matches the reported $1 billion content investment from rival Apple, as well as the billions invested by other major tech companies like Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon. It shows Facebook's commitment to being a video-first company, a mission that has been reiterated to investors by executives continuously during Facebook's earnings calls this year.

Facebook officially launched "Watch," it's video platform this week, with dozens of shows planned from digital media companies, newspaper companies and TV companies. It has also been competing for lucrative live-streaming contracts. It recently lost a major bid to livestream cricket in India to 21st Century Fox but has signed deals to stream MLB and ESL (e-sports) games.

Fox News confirmed today that it was parting ways with host Eric Bolling, per HuffPost. The network suspended him last month after HuffPost reported that he had sent unsolicited lewd photos to female coworkers.

It's yet another departure by a longtime host following sexual harassment allegations as Fox News continues to attempt to clean up the culture instituted by former chairman Roger Ailes.

The Fox News statement: "Eric Bolling and Fox have agreed to part ways amicably. We thank Eric for his ten years of service to our loyal viewers and wish him the best of luck."

Equifax stock plunged 14% this morning from its height yesterday after news broke that the credit reporting agency was the subject of a cybersecurity breach that might have compromised the personal information of 143 million Americans.

Adding fuel to the fire: Three major Equifax managers sold almost $2 million in the company's stock just days after they became aware of the incident, per Bloomberg.

Two-thirds (67%) of U.S. adults get news from social media sites, up from last year's figure of 62%, according to a Pew Research Center study out today. But not all platforms are equal in delivering news to users:

• Facebook still beats out every other social media site as the top news bearer among social media sites, with 45% of Americans reporting getting news from Facebook. That's indicative of the fact that a larger percentage of Americans (66%) use Facebook than the other social media sites in the survey.
• For Twitter, 74% of its users get news there (up 15 percentage points from last year). 29% of Snapchat users get news on the platform (up 12 percentage points from last year).
• For YouTube, 32% of its users get news there (up 21 percentage points from last year).

Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, announced today that he'll step down from his post at the influential magazine's helm at the end of the year.

• From the press release announcing his departure: "I've loved every moment of my time here and I've pretty much accomplished everything I've ever wanted to do. I'm now eager to try out this 'third act' thing that my contemporaries have been telling me about, and I figure I'd better get a jump on it."
• Think back: Carter started the "tiny hands" meme against President Trump years ago after branding him a "short-fingered vulgarian" in the pages of Spy, causing him to become a frequent target of Trump's ire.
• Why it matters: As Michael Grynbaum pointed out on Twitter, Carter is one of the last celebrity editors in American publishing, so his departure marks the end of an era.

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is cutting 3,500 jobs, or more than 8% of its entire workforce, to put more money toward developing new drugs and to "improve its cost structure," the company said Thursday. Most of the job cuts, expected to save $500 million, will come from early retirement buyouts.

• Another major reason for the job cuts: Drugs losing patent protection. Cialis, Lilly's erectile dysfunction drug, which had $2.5 billion in worldwide sales last year, loses its patent in November. Patents on the diabetes drugs Humalog and Humulin have already expired, but they are biologic drugs without generic competitors.
• Yes, but: Lilly had a 17% profit margin in the latest quarter. The company is not hurting for cash.