Tune into the newest episode of The New Normal today at noon ET. Jill Manoff — editor-in-chief of Glossy, a Digiday property — will talk with her Digiday counterpart Brian Morrissey about the future of the fashion industry, including the pandemic-borne habits that will persist past the crisis. Register here.

Media companies expect political ad dollars to help their businesses recover and the amount of political ad dollars up for grabs surged on Aug. 5. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced his team will spend $220 million on TV ads and $60 million on digital ads between then and election day. However, some media companies say they are leery of opening themselves up too widely to political advertisers that may upset their audiences, employees or other advertisers. Read more below.

• Given the civil unrest over racial injustice, media companies are wary of running ads on their properties that could be considered controversial and likely to upset segments of their audiences or their employees.
• Instagram has announced its TikTok competitor Reels is launching in the U.S. and 50 other markets this week. Though one key differentiator is that there are currently no ad formats available on Reels.
• Unfortunately for TikTok, while its popularity among a wider group of users has grown, media budgets for the platform have plummeted, particularly for mid- and upper-funnel spending.
• News publishers have added their subscribe pages to the long list of things they constantly tinker with in an attempt to drive revenue during challenging times.