Top News:
Baljeet Singh / The Twitter Blog:
Twitter acquires Niche, a service that helps connect social media stars with brands — Welcoming Niche to the Twitter team — As we continue to invest in the growing media ecosystem, it's important to provide a wide variety of tools for content creators to distribute and ultimately manage all of their content.
Discussion:
The Niche Project, Crain's New York Business, SocialTimes, Forbes, Gigaom, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, AdAge, Marketing Land, The Next Web, Wall Street Journal and SlashGear
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Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Twitter to pay about $30M for Niche, and possibly up to $60M with earnouts and employment contracts included — Twitter Buys Niche, a Social Media Talent Agency For at Least $30 Million — Twitter has acquired Niche, a small startup that connects advertisers with social media stars …
Discussion:
Business Insider and Mashable
Andrew Tyndall / Tyndall Report:
Unlike on cable, network news anchors are dispensable and separable from their shows — Brian Williams is not the Indispensable Man — For those of you who do not watch NBC Nightly News as closely as I do (by which I mean almost the entire population) let me assure you that the suspension …
Discussion:
Poynter, TVNewser, @mlcalderone, @greenfield64, Bloomberg Business, @tednesi and Variety
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Jeb Lund / Guardian:
Brian Williams will lose his job for giving us what we wanted to hear
Brian Williams will lose his job for giving us what we wanted to hear
Discussion:
@jayrosen_nyu, @mattdpearce and @eyegiene
Al Tompkins / Poynter:
Suspending Brian Williams buys NBC time to consider his replacement at a time when news anchors are losing influence
Suspending Brian Williams buys NBC time to consider his replacement at a time when news anchors are losing influence
Discussion:
Mediaite, TVNewser, Variety, NewsLab, Broadcasting & Cable, FiveThirtyEight, Forbes, @frankrichny, @newsliteracy and @poynter
Dylan Byers / Politico:
NBC: Brian Williams suspended for 6 months without pay
NBC: Brian Williams suspended for 6 months without pay
Discussion:
New York Times, New York Magazine, TIME, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Wall Street Journal, TVNewser, Poynter, CNN, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, press.nbcnews.com, NBC News, New York Times, Talking Points Memo, NPR, @ravisomaiya, Business Insider, The Daily Beast, New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, NY Daily News, Quartz, Page Six, TIME, Washington Post, Newsweek, Capital New York, Business Insider, @awallenstein, @dylanbyers, @dylanbyers, @sivavaid, @davidfolkenflik, @jackmirkinson, @markberman, @ravisomaiya, @davidfolkenflik, @jayrosen_nyu, @ethanklapper, @brianstelter, Denver Westword, Fox News, Deadline, Guardian, Reuters, Politico, Capital New York, Politico, Re/code, Politico, Hot Air, The Huffington Post, WWNO, The Daily Caller, @kennerly, @dylanbyers and The Week
Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Jon Stewart Helped TV Learn to Love the Internet (Because It Didn't Have Any Choice) — Last night lots of people tuned into “The Daily Show” to see Jon Stewart announce that he's leaving “The Daily Show.” — But that's not the way “The Daily Show” normally works.
Discussion:
Washington Post, The New York Observer, @pkafka, @tcarmody, NPR, Guardian, Mashable, The Wrap and Associated Press
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David Carr / New York Times:
Jon Stewart and Brian Williams were both kings of their crafts, with similar backgrounds and divergent futures — Brian Williams's and Jon Stewart's Common Ground — Other than timing, Jon Stewart's triumphant retirement and Brian Williams's public and humbling disenfranchisement would seem to have little in common.
Discussion:
Washington Post, @nomadicnyer, @dangillmor and @nytimesbusiness
Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:
Jon Stewart to sign off ‘Daily Show’
Jon Stewart to sign off ‘Daily Show’
Discussion:
@comedycentral, New York Times, CNNMoney, Wall Street Journal, TIME, The Wrap, /Film, Wall Street Journal, Variety, FishbowlNY, Forbes, @brianstelter, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, @pkafka, TIME, @sisario, @wjcarter, @richbtig, @pewresearch, @adgo, @patcohennyt, @alexweprin, @howardkurtz, Mediaite, Bloomberg Business, Associated Press, Capital New York, Hollywood Reporter, The A.V. Club, The Huffington Post, Vox, Business Insider, Rolling Stone, Ars Technica, The Verge, ABC News, Business Insider, WWNO, The Daily Caller, The Next Web, Talking Points Memo, NPR and @luvvie
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Insider view of Jeff Bezos' involvement in in product development for the Washington Post's Kindle Fire app — How involved has Jeff Bezos been at The Washington Post? Here's one data point — One question that's been asked a lot since Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post is how involved he is in the newspaper's evolution.
Discussion:
Fast Company and @josephjames
Lori Baitarian / Committee to Protect Journalists:
Sudan passes freedom of information law but journalists remain wary — The Sudanese government has boasted that its freedom of information law, passed by parliament at the end of January, will increase transparency by giving citizens the right to access and publish public information.
RELATED:
J.K. Trotter / Gawker:
Mic.com's News Director Jared Keller appears to have plagiarized at least 20 passages from at least eight sources in the past several months — Plagiarist of the Day: Mic News Director Jared Keller — Mic.com, the news and opinion website aimed at millennials, has a very millennial problem …
Discussion:
Politico, Capital New York, Talking Points Memo, @cathyreisenwitz, @gabrielmalor, @ryanlcooper and @existentialfish
Kristen Hare / Poynter:
Report: Online media are more a part of the problem of misinformation ‘than they are the solution’ — On Tuesday evening, Craig Silverman will present his report for the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, where he is a fellow. In the more than 100-page paper entitled …
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, TOWCenter, Gigaom, Globe and Mail, Journalism.co.uk and @brianwhelanhack
Adam Taylor / Washington Post:
A year old story about the Central African Republic has received 80% of its traffic in 2015 — Why a year-old Washington Post article about violence in the Central African Republic went viral — Modern journalism thrives on analytic tools that tell us how often and widely our articles are being read.
NetNewsCheck:
McClatchy Q4: revenue down 5.9% to $317.6M, ad revenue down 10.8% to $209.2M, and digital advertising up 3.4% year-over-year — McClatchy Revenues Down For Q4 And Year — The McClatchy Company on Wednesday reported fourth quarter revenues of $317.6 million, down 5.9% compared to Q4 2013 …
Discussion:
Forbes, Globe and Mail, CNBC, The Charlotte Observer, Sacramento Bee and PR Newswire
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
BitTorrent partners with Rapid Eye Studios for shows exclusive to BitTorrent Bundle for 30 to 60 days — BitTorrent partners with Rapid Eye Studios to produce exclusive TV shows known as BitTorrent Originals — BitTorrent today announced an exclusive partnership with Rapid Eye Studios to launch BitTorrent Originals.
Discussion:
The Official BitTorrent Blog, The Wrap, Variety, The Verge, @epro, TechHive, TechCrunch, CNBC and Mashable
Los Angeles Times:
John Malone joins Lionsgate board in Starz stock swap — Media mogul John Malone is getting into the “Hunger Games” business. — The billionaire media investor will join the board of Lionsgate, the film company behind the “Hunger Games” franchise, in a complicated deal that intertwines …
Discussion:
New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Variety
Margaret Sullivan / New York Times:
The Times and Transgender Issues (Part One of Two): On Pronouns — In August 2013, soon after Chelsea Manning announced that she identified as a woman and no longer wanted to be known as Bradley Manning, The Times made a quick - and I thought appropriate - adjustment.
Discussion:
@kathrynschulz