Top News:
Peter Sterne / Politico:
Experts: expansion of prosecutions using Espionage Act, started under Obama, could be a larger threat to media during Trump's presidency than libel law changes — Worry about the Espionage Act, not libel laws. — Anyone who doubts that Donald Trump could use the levers of the presidency …
Discussion:
@jayrosen_nyu, Twitter, ThinkProgress, @sulliview, @arishapiro, @penamerican, @pierre, @dankennedy_nu, @honey17011, @jayrosen_nyu, @kendallmire, @jayrosen_nyu, @mlcalderone and @yehudahmirsky
Jim Rutenberg / New York Times:
The persistent questioning by CNN's Jake Tapper of Mike Pence should be the rule on TV news, not the exception, as false assertions and deflections grow — Too often television news, especially on cable, serves as a megaphone for politicians who use it to forward lies and propaganda …
Discussion:
New York Times, @owillis, @senatorshoshana, @ktumulty, @blakehounshell, @philiprucker, @senatorshoshana, @jsteinbeck1939 and @pkafka
Aja Romano / Vox:
Twitter reinstates and re-verifies white nationalist Richard Spencer 's personal account, says his accounts were banned for violating multiple accounts rule — Twitter banned Richard Spencer because he had too many accounts — not because those accounts promoted racism.
Discussion:
BuzzFeed, @richardbspencer, Business Insider, @john_overholt, @lisadep, @kfile, Washington Post, Media Matters for America, @cwarzel, Mashable, The Guardian and Salon
Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
Sources: Politico's Chief Political Correspondent Glenn Thrush is joining the NYT to cover the White House; Thrush's roots are in tabloid journalism — The political journalist wil be reunited with former Politico stars Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.
Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic:
News outlets have simultaneously lost cultural power and the public's trust, which represents both a cause and an effect of the fake-news problem — For a term that is suddenly everywhere, “fake news” is fairly slippery. — Is “fake news” a reference to government propaganda designed to look like independent journalism?
Discussion:
Forbes, @realdonaldtrump, TVNewser and @daviduberti
Tara Palmeri / Politico:
Under a US government bill, the bipartisan board overseeing Voice of America will be disbanded, replaced by a CEO, sparking fears VOA will become “Trump TV” — A provision tucked into the defense bill guts the Voice of America board, stoking fears that Trump could wield a powerful propaganda arm.
Discussion:
@anthony and @michikokakutani
Ken Kurson / Observer:
Bloomberg poaches business writer Joe Nocera from The New York Times to write magazine stories and columns — Mike Bloomberg personally intervenes to hire biz legend who'd been exiled to sports — Even billionaires covet that which they cannot possess. The Observer has learned that former …
Discussion:
FishbowlNY, @joepompeo, @bookgirl96 and @nycjamescobb
Jake Romm / The Forward:
Deconstructing the color, pose, and chair in Time's Trump photo, a layered field of references that place the image among the magazine's greatest covers — Time Magazine's annual “Person of the Year” announcement is, year after year, grossly misunderstood.
Discussion:
@alisonloat, @shashitharoor, @metasynthie, @jdforward and @caitlin__kelly
Washington Post:
An anatomy of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, as it mutated from an online rumor to a hashtag on social media to actual gunfire in Washington, DC — What was finally real was Edgar Welch, driving from North Carolina to Washington to rescue sexually abused children he believed were hidden …
Discussion:
Mother Jones
Jane Martinson / The Guardian:
UK Culture Secretary Karen Bradley faces questioning in Parliament over Murdoch's bid for Sky, as the deal faces mounting scrutiny — Karen Bradley forced to appear before MPs as concern mounts over media mogul's bid to take full control of satellite broadaster
Discussion:
Observer and The Guardian
Thomas E. Patterson / Shorenstein Center:
Harvard report finds news coverage of both Clinton and Trump during 2016 election was negative in tone and light on policy — A new report from Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzes news coverage during the 2016 general election …
Discussion:
Business Insider
Carole Cadwalladr / The Guardian:
Google's first search result for “Did the Holocaust happen?” is a post from neo-Nazi site Stormfront, showing how Google's algorithm is helping disseminate hate — Last week, we reported how extremist sites ‘game’ the search engine, boosting their propaganda.
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