Top News:
Bloomberg:
At least 17 firms have marketed surveillance products to law enforcement agencies and oppressive regimes using Twitter's Firehose data — If you ignore all the self-promotion, ranting, and frog memes, it's possible to see the Twitter that Jack Dorsey likes to talk about.
Discussion:
@rossdawson, @_cypherpunks_ and @matt_cagle
Meg James / Los Angeles Times:
Analysts tepid on AT&T-Time Warner deal after abysmal earlier media mega-mergers like AOL-Time Warner, Vivendi-Universal, and despite success of Comcast-NBCU — AT&T's blockbuster bid for Time Warner Inc. might be a boon for investment bankers, lawyers and lobbyists …
Jane Martinson / Guardian:
Netflix acquires British costume drama The Crown, moving into a genre previously dominated by the BBC, raising questions about how the broadcaster can compete — US company's move into costume drama territory previously occupied by BBC suggests TV viewing will change further in a way few can imagine
Jeff Guo / Washington Post:
Study: Wikipedia has moderating influence on its contributors; articles have become increasingly politically neutral in recent years — The Internet is dotted with cesspools, also known as comments sections. Consider, for instance, the Facebook chatter surrounding a recent New York Times article about Donald Trump:
Discussion:
@wmorein and @paul1kirby
Corey Hutchins / Columbia Journalism Review:
Journalists rethink how they handle internal discussions after a large libel award from a North Carolina jury and the earlier $115M award in Gawker-Hogan case — Journalists across the country are assessing the fallout a week after a North Carolina jury awarded nearly $6 million in libel verdicts …
Discussion:
@cjr and @thomaswheatley
Mădălina Ciobanu / Journalism.co.uk:
Interview with Paul Murphy, founding editor of The Financial Times' Alphaville, on the blog's flexibility in topic coverage plus expansion into audio and video — Paul Murphy, founding editor of Alphaville, explains the blog is still around after 10 years because flexibility is at its core
Rob Harvilla / The Ringer:
Profile of New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz, author of The Borowitz Report, whose popular fake dispatches are sometimes mistaken for real news — Andy Borowitz, the polarizing ‘New Yorker’ columnist, is not trying to trick you. He's just a victim of his own success—and Donald Trump's.
Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:
Parent of Miami local news startup The New Tropic launches a daily email newsletter in Seattle, The Evergrey, led by Monica Guzman and Anika Anand — Miami is a city in flux. Over the past five years, nearly 500,000 people have moved to South Florida, and more than 65 percent …
Discussion:
WhereByUs, @laur_katz, @anikaanand00, @yvonneleow, @moniguzman, @bthewirz and GeekWire
Ken Doctor / Politico:
Sources: Gannett-Tronc deal talks continue; one option is selling part or all of The Los Angeles Times to Patrick Soon-Shiong — As Gannett's deal to buy Tronc unwound in real time Thursday, punctuated by historic one-day share price slides, those in and around the deal struggled for words to describe it.
Discussion:
Baltimore Sun Guild, Bloomberg and FishbowlNY
EUROPE ONLINE:
Turkey shuts down 15 media outlets, including key Kurdish news agencies, by decrees issued Saturday under a state of emergency — - Turkey shuttered 15 media outlets, including key Kurdish news agencies, and fired some 10,000 civil servants and members of the security forces …
Discussion:
@mahirzeynalov and @mahirzeynalov
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Vine struggled to monetize and compete with Instagram and Snapchat amid executive churn, while failing to find strategic benefits for Twitter — Closing the loop — The thing about Vine becoming the internet's premiere tool for making short-form videos is that it happened almost completely by accident.
Discussion:
@mims, CNBC, The Week, Mediakix, SportTechie, MediaFile, @origiful, @nigelbritto, @larakiara, New York Times, Business Insider, Vanity Fair, @melaniehannah, @mekosoff, @seanmcelwee, @mathewi, @pkafka, VatorNews, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, The FADER, @tonymlucero, The New York Observer and NPR
Liz Spayd / New York Times:
The purchase of Wirecutter means The New York Times needs to be transparent about affiliate links, offer explanations to readers, and set clear site-wide rules — The New York Times grabbed a few modest headlines earlier this week when it purchased a popular website called The Wirecutter …
Discussion:
@karaswisher, @harrymccracken and @niemanlab