Mediagazer: At least 17 firms have marketed surveillance products to law enforcement agencies and oppressive regimes using Twitter's Firehose data (Bloomberg)

9:05 AM ET, October 31, 2016

Top News:

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

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Andy Beckett / Guardian:
Bolstered by Brexit, UK's right-wing tabloids have reclaimed their political influence after years of stagnation and declining readership

Discussion: @dwynne, @venkatananth, @stopfundinghate, @jacobfuredi, @paulwiltshire, @lnbdublin and @timmorton2

Shan Wang / Nieman Lab:
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Facebook:
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Julia M. Klein / Columbia Journalism Review:
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Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
A look at New York magazine's The Strategist, a new shopping recommendations site financed via affiliate sales, and one of the first initiatives of new CEO

Discussion: @swerdle, @niemanlab, @laurahazardowen, @fedecherubini and @niemanlab

Earlier Picks:

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:
Vice launching gaming vertical Waypoint on October 31, edited by Austin Walker, promoted with a 72-hour gaming live-stream on Twitch that starts today 12PM ET

Discussion: Variety, Wall Street Journal, VICE and @withdrake

Sydney Ember / New York Times:
As print ad revenue decline accelerates, biggest newspaper companies in US brace for cost cuts, layoffs

Discussion: @jonsteinberg, @nytimesbusiness, Poynter, @wcronon, @byrontau, @trevortimm, @tim_bousquet, @themediaisdying, @jrnlsm, @sunnysunwords, @mlcalderone, @prashantrao, @marketurbanism, @drsidmukherjee and @ennisnyt

Ben Collins / The Daily Beast:
Profile of Marco Chacon, founder of fake conservative news site RealTrueNews, an initially modest prank whose stories have managed to fool even Fox News

John Gapper / Financial Times:
NYT editor Dean Baquet says that US cable networks have blurred the line between entertainment and news this election season by pandering to partisan viewers

Discussion: Washington Post, @natashabertrand, @brucebartlett, @d08890, @millionsrise, @jessicayellin, @ewerickson, FishbowlDC, @anthony, @davidharsanyi, @jackshafer, The Daily Beast, @dylanbyers, @mattsheffield, @thr, Hollywood Reporter and @mattdpearce

From Techmeme:

Bloomberg:
The Trump administration exempts smartphones, laptops, hard drives, processors, memory chips, and machines used to make semiconductors from reciprocal tariffs

Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple produced $22B worth of iPhones in India in the 12 months ended March 2025, up nearly 60% YoY, and now makes 20% of its iPhones in the country

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working on a lighter and cheaper Vision Pro and a Mac-tethered model with ultra-low latency; iPadOS 19 overhaul will make it more like macOS

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