Top News:
James Andrew Miller / Vanity Fair:
ESPN President John Skipper takes responsibility for closing Grantland, says he didn't grasp bond between Bill Simmons and staff — Exclusive: ESPN President John Skipper on His Decision to Shutter Grantland — From the outset of its Bill Simmons-backed launch in 2011 …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Business Insider, FishbowlNY, @michele_norris, @jayrosen_nyu, @craigcalcaterra, @ckrewson, @film_girl, @mathewi, @film_girl, @samhempel, @moorehn, @tcarmody, @nycjim, @jayshams and Mashable
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Snapchat says it now has 6B daily video views, up from 4B in September, and 2B in May — Snapchat triples video traffic as it closes the gap with Facebook — Snapchat is closing the gap with Facebook in the social networks' battle for scale in video. The number of videos viewed …
Discussion:
Fortune, Business Insider, Engadget, @blathnaidhealy, AdExchanger, The Next Web, The Verge, Business Pundit and VentureBeat
Politico:
Politico Europe plans to double in size in 2016, announces new London bureau — POLITICO Europe announces expansion plans for 2016 — POLITICO Europe this morning announced plans to double in size in 2016, starting with two significant hires. — Francesco Guerrera has been named Chief …
Discussion:
Digiday, FishbowlNY, @guerreraf72, @jeffjarvis, @raju and @kaminskimk
Roy Greenslade / Guardian:
Study of European newspapers shows that photo of drowned child led to only a brief shift in reporting of refugee crisis before sympathy dwindled again — Images of drowned boy made only a fleeting change to refugee reporting — Newspapers in western Europe became significantly …
Discussion:
European Journalism …, @astroehlein and @onthemedia
New York Times:
Al Jazeera America's general counsel David W. Harleston appears to be unlicensed; network suspends him — General Counsel for Al Jazeera America Appears to Be Unlicensed — David W. Harleston, an executive who serves as general counsel for the media company Al Jazeera America, has had a busy year.
Discussion:
@gabrielmalor and Poynter
Associated Press:
Egyptian journalist Hossam Bahgat under interrogation by military intelligence, may face charges of publishing false information that harms national interests — Egyptian journalist faces accusations by military — CAIRO (AP) — A leading investigative journalist and human rights advocate …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, New York Times, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, Financial Times, Guardian, New York Times, Committee to Protect …, @astroehlein, Telegraph, @hebamorayef, @hebamorayef, Cairo Post, @hebamorayef, TIME, BuzzFeed, @daliaezzat_, @hebamorayef and Yahoo! News
RELATED:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Vox.com hires Matthew Vree, head of programming at PBS Digital Studios, as executive producer of video — Vox.com Hires Matthew Vree From PBS as Part of Video Expansion — Vox.com has hired Matthew Vree as executive producer of video, who joins the digital-news upstart from PBS Digital Studios, where he headed programming.
Discussion:
FishbowlNY
Dustin Kurtz / New Republic:
A visit to Amazon Books reveals Amazon's new retail bookstore is no better than traditional bookstores — My 2.5 Star Trip to Amazon's Bizarre New Bookstore — A former indie bookseller visits the retailer's brick and mortar store — Amazon's new brick and mortar bookstore is wildly banal.
Discussion:
@sriramk, @baekdal, @pmarca, The Digital Reader, The Digital Reader, The Atlantic, Forbes and Vox
Lucia Moses / Digiday:
Referral traffic from Facebook to its top 30 publishers fell 32% between January and October — Facebook's traffic to top publishers fell 32 percent since January — While Facebook makes headlines for cooking up new initiatives with publishers, the actual traffic it's sending those publishers has fallen sharply.
Discussion:
@lauraolin
Richard Johnson / New York Post:
The Wrap lets go of executive editor Joseph Kapsch — The Wrap parts ways with executive editor — MORE FROM: — It's a wrap for Joseph Kapsch at The Wrap. — The executive editor of Sharon Waxman's showbiz Web site was quietly let go a week ago, after mistakenly claiming on Facebook …
Discussion:
FishbowlNY
Alex Spence / Politico:
After lowering the paywall, Rupert Murdoch's The Sun aggressively seeks readers, focusing less on celebrities, more on holding politicians to account — The Sun searches for lost mojo — Murdoch hires Fleet Street's ‘finest’ to revive the fading red-top.
Raphael Minder / New York Times:
Spain's News Media Are Squeezed by Government and Debt — MADRID — Newspapers almost everywhere have struggled to adjust to digital technology and declining advertising revenues. — But in Spain, the rapid restructuring of a shrinking industry — more than 11,000 journalists have lost …