Top News:


Ex-Facebook news curators describe suppressing conservative news, being instructed to include non-trending stories, removing news about Facebook itself — Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network's influential “trending” …
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FishbowlNY, The Daily Caller, @brindelle, @ggreenwald, @juliacarriew, @rudepundit, Re/code, @mckaycoppins, @timkmak, @alecmacgillis, @dkthomp, @bubbaprog, @pkafka, @agolis, @buzzfeedben, @sethamandel, The Week and @felixsalmon


BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and team expelled from North Korea — BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team are being expelled from North Korea after being detained over their reporting. — Our correspondent, producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard were stopped …
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CNN, The Huffington Post, Deadline, Telegraph, AOL, The Week, Newser, Reuters, @facklernyt, TheJournal.ie, @passantino, The Telegraph, Telegraph, @gadyepstein, International Business Times and Al Jazeera English


Spotify expands its video offerings, unveils slate of 12 original series which will be available to both free and paid users in the U.S., 3 other countries — Russell Simmons, Tim Robbins to produce programs for Spotify — Videos will help Spotify compete with YouTube, Apple
Discussion:
MacRumors, Business Insider, The Verge and @thestalwart

Artist manager Irving Azoff writes open letter to YouTube, criticising Google for not letting artists opt out of it, says company hides behind safe harbor law — “You have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn't work well for artists," says the legendary artists' manager.


Business news streaming startup Cheddar launching premium $6.99/mo service powered by Vimeo — Streaming video site from former BuzzFeed executive Jon Steinberg will start charging $6.99 a month — Former BuzzFeed executive Jon Steinberg's effort to create a Web-based “CNBC for millennials” is going behind a paywall.
Discussion:
Media Wire Daily, @conorsen, @myurow, @shaliniwsj and Talking Biz News


SEC filing: Time Inc paid $87M to acquire certain assets of Viant, parent company of MySpace — Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp Expects Viant to Contribute More Than $100 Million in Revenue This Year — Marketing Fact Pack — According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday …


Blogger who faked cancer and recovery faces legal action from consumer watchdog in Australia; Penguin fined $30K for publishing her book without fact-checking — Consumer Affairs Victoria has commenced legal proceedings against founder of recipe and lifestyle app The Whole Pantry
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Consumer Affairs Victoria, @robyn_drury, @foodycatalicia, @roybutlin, @jameselwynb, @hearthstoker, Metro.co.uk, Sky News, Mirror.co.uk, Irish Examiner, The Daily Dot, Telegraph, Independent.ie, Sydney Morning Herald, International Business Times, TIME, The Age, Daily Mail, NEWS.com.au, The Nation News and BBC


Tribune adopts shareholder rights plan, known as a “poison pill”, to foil any hostile takeover attempts by Gannett — Also known as a shareholder rights plan, the measure is designed to protect a company and investors from hostile takeovers. Tribune Publishing …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Associated Press and Poynter


Die Welt measures story quality for newsroom feedback using five criteria: bounce rate, pageviews, social shares, time spent on page and video views — German daily Die Welt's internal grading system for its online articles sounds a little nerve-wracking. All published pieces are assigned …


Sources: To combat ad-blockers, Google said to be exploring an ‘acceptable’ ads policy — Google is reportedly jumping deeper into the ad blocking issue by exploring an acceptable ads policy, publisher and industry sources say. — Google, together with Facebook, controlled 64 percent of the digital ad market last year.


Investment in equipment and personnel for video at Mashable Studios sent Mashable's costs soaring to $4M-$5M/month — As this week's Newfront digital video ad presentations in New York highlight, most news sites have been building up video production in the past couple of years.
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@cityofthetown, @theinformation, @readdanwrite, @jessicalessin, @jbenton and @eringriffith


The Sunday Times now lets subscribers share stories with non-subscribers on Facebook and Twitter, and is posting occasional stories outside paywall — The Times has no plans for relaxing its paywall. But that doesn't stop the publisher from recognizing the need to experiment with reaching beyond its subscription audiences.
Discussion:
@digiday