Mediagazer: 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 (Reuters)

9:35 AM ET, December 15, 2016

Top News:

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 …

Discussion: New Jersey Online, The New York Observer, Asbury Park Press, @mycentraljersey, @nickpugz, @sulliview, @sndesantis, @raju, @rizzotk, @andrewwyrich, @jsadinolfi, Asbury Park Press, The Huffington Post and New York Times

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 …

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

Alex Griswold / Mediaite:
Michael Flynn Jr., son of Trump's national security advisor General Michael Flynn, slammed the Washington Post and questioned if it should continue to operate

Discussion: @kylegriffin1, @usaredorchestra, RT, The Wrap, Washington Post, Mother Jones, @clarajeffery, Business Insider, @badpressawards, @globalfreemedia, @washingtonpost and @anthony

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

Jane Martinson / The Guardian:
In letter to the Culture Secretary, former UK PM Gordon Brown urges UK government to delay Fox-Sky deal until after second part of the Leveson inquiry

Discussion: @mediawisemj and @jpublik

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.

Discussion: @tomwheelerfcc, The Wrap, CNBC, The Hill and The Verge

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 …

Discussion: @chrislhayes, @nytimes, @rubibarragan, @joshua_pederson, @claystockton, @max_read, @fmanjoo, @ronlieber, New York Magazine and Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check

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 …

Discussion: Deadline and Variety

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, Business Insider and The Verge

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

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

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

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More News:

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Commenting platform Disqus lays off 20% of its workforce, or 11 people, as it shifts business models to focus on data services for publishers and advertisers

Kelsey Sutton / Politico:
BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith and ex-Politico editor Susan Glasser say it's worrisome press didn't stand up sooner when Trump blacklisted some news orgs

Discussion: @brianstelter, @anamariecox and @politicokevin

Hadas Gold / Politico:
CQ Roll Call Chief Content Officer David Ellis is leaving the company, as it reorganizes its senior executive team

Peter Kafka / Recode:
Facebook is in talks with TV shows and video producers about licensing content including original, licensed, scripted, unscripted, and sports programming

Discussion: Fortune, WIRED UK, eMarketer and Newsroom Posts, Consumerist, Gizmodo, Engadget, Marketing Land, SocialTimes, TechCrunch, Mashable, Variety, Business Insider, @mathewi, @mims and @jwherrman

Earlier Picks:

Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:
Sports-focused streaming service FuboTV signs deals with Fox Networks Group, NBCUniversal, NBA TV, the Weather Channel, and A&E Networks

Discussion: The Wrap, Broadcasting & Cable, @keachhagey, @keachhagey and Variety

Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Virtual reality startup WEVR launches Netflix-style subscription service for cinematic VR titles, available on HTC Vive and Samsung Gear VR initially

Discussion: Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes and VentureBeat

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
Memo from publisher Fred Ryan: Washington Post is profitable, and traffic increased nearly 50% with digital subscription revenue more than doubling in past year

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review and FishbowlDC

From Techmeme:

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Nvidia starts making its Blackwell chips at TSMC's Phoenix plant and says it aims to make up to $500B of AI infrastructure in the US in the next four years

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Sony hikes PlayStation 5 prices in Europe, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, citing a “challenging economic environment”; the PS5 Pro remains the same price

Nikkei Asia:
Sources: Apple asked suppliers in India, Vietnam, and Thailand to ramp up production earlier in 2025; Indian factory utilization rates are already at the limit

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