Top News:
NorthJersey.com:
NJ newspapers could lose $20M a year if bill passes allowing local governments to forego publishing legal notices in print and instead post them online — A fast-tracked bill that would allow governments to forgo publishing budgets, bids for services and other public records in newspapers …
Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
Memo: Politico ends Julia Ioffe's contract after she sends vulgar tweet about Trump, reiterates that its journalists should not share opinion on any platform — Politico has terminated its contract with magazine writer Julia Ioffe after she sent a tweet that referenced a possible incestuous …
Discussion:
FishbowlNY, @juliaioffe, @juliaioffe, @elenzner, Infowars, Mediaite, @erikwemple, @sarahkendzior, The Gateway Pundit, @juliaioffe, @craigipedia, @andizeisler, @daveweigel, New York Magazine, @dwdavison9318, @nataliaantonova, iMediaEthics, @shashj, @susan_hennessey, @mattyglesias and The Daily Caller
Marina Fang / The Huffington Post:
Mike Flynn, Trump's pick for national security adviser, has deleted a tweet that linked to a fake news story about Hillary Clinton — Gen. Mike Flynn quietly deleted a tweet that promoted a baseless story about Hillary Clinton's “sex crimes.” — Associate Politics Editor, The Huffington Post
Discussion:
CNN, Talking Points Memo and The Hill
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Reuters:
21st Century Fox says it has agreed to buy Sky for $14.6B despite complaints from some investors; the acquisition is expected to complete before the end of 2017 — Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA.O) said on Thursday it had agreed to buy European pay-TV firm Sky (SKYB.L) …
Discussion:
21st Century Fox, Bloomberg, BBC, @skynewsbreak and Engadget
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Politico:
Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says he will resign on January 20, which will allow a new Republican majority to begin dismantling Obama-era regulations — Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said today he would resign, ending months of will-he or won't-he speculation about his plans.
Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:
Twitter's rule against inciting harassment means it could ban President-Elect Trump, but free speech advocates argue his tweets have value — If Twitter wanted to, it would be well within its rights to suspend Donald J. Trump's account. — After the president-elect used Twitter last week …
Natt Garun / The Verge:
Instagram doubles its monthly active user base in two years to 600M, adding 100M in six months — That's 600 million Instagrammers, and a whole lotta brunch pics — It appears that the rise of Snapchat and all its Spectacles fun have yet to slow Instagram's growth: the Facebook-owned …
Claire Reilly / CNET:
Australian federal court orders ISPs to block torrenting sites, including The Pirate Bay, within 15 business days under new site-blocking law — Goodbye Pirate Bay, farewell TorrentHound — Australia's ISPs have been ordered to block a raft of torrenting sites under new site-blocking laws.
Discussion:
ABC, Softpedia News, The Guardian and Techly
Mike Farrell / Multichannel News:
DirecTV and U-verse drop Esquire Network, owned by NBCUniversal and Hearst; network will still be carried in 45M homes — Net will still be available in about 45 million homes — AT&T's DirecTV and U-verse subscribers will be without the Esquire Network as of about 1 a.m. Eastern Time on Dec. 15 …
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
150 prominent filmmakers sign an open letter to major camera makers, including Canon, Nikon, Sony, and others, asking for default storage encryption — In the summer of 2013, when documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras was shooting a still-secret NSA leaker named Edward Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel room, she took security seriously.
Discussion:
Freedom of the Press …, Techdirt, ZDNet, Mashable, @snowden, @trevortimm, TechCrunch, The Verge, @snowden and @freedomofpress
Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
Trump has gone 36 days without holding a press conference since becoming President-Elect, twelve times longer than Bush and Obama — The president-elect postpones this week's press conference, his first planned since July, while holding four “Thank You” rallies — and meeting Kanye.
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Week, bookforum.com, @mlcalderone, @danpfeiffer and Business Insider
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Philip Bump / Washington Post:
Press conferences are reporters' most effective means of cross-examining Donald Trump, which is why he's so reluctant to have one
Press conferences are reporters' most effective means of cross-examining Donald Trump, which is why he's so reluctant to have one
Discussion:
The Week, @pbump, @thefix, @ammboston, @digiphile and @digiphile
Hugh Hewitt / The Hugh Hewitt Show:
In radio interview, Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus says there are “different ways” to do WH daily briefing, seemingly suggesting it could be abolished
In radio interview, Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus says there are “different ways” to do WH daily briefing, seemingly suggesting it could be abolished
Discussion:
NPR, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, CNNMoney, The Daily Caller, @toddruger, @hughhewitt, @hughhewitt, @sahilkapur, @hughhewitt, @chrisgeidner and @seungminkim
Joel Stein / Bloomberg:
Imzy, founded by two former Reddit employees, launched in October to be a gentler version of Reddit; site has 50K members and $11M in seed funding — Imzy, started by two former Reddit employees, wants to be a kinder, gentler version of the controversial discussion site. — by — Subscribe Reprints
Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / WWD:
Amid increased concerns about fake news, The New Yorker adds a “not the news” tagline and banner to The Borowitz Report — The New Yorker has taken steps to clarify that The Borowitz Report is not actually true. — What it looks like when The Borowitz Report is shared on social media.
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, Slate, FishbowlDC, The FJP, MyNewsLA.com and Springfield News-Leader