Mediagazer: How one of the largest and most profitable regional newspapers in the UK fell from £59M revenue and 581 staff in 1996 to £16m and 107 staff by 2011 (Dominic Ponsford/Press Gazette)

3:40 AM ET, January 30, 2017

Top News:

Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:

A look at Sean Spicer's first week on the job and feedback he's received, including Trump's distaste of his suit size, comments from Bannon and GOP strategists — WASHINGTON — In his first, rocky week as President Trump's press secretary, Sean M. Spicer was scolded by his boss …

Discussion: @mlcalderone

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:

Despite erosion of trust, Pew research shows people still appreciate media's watchdog role and want journalists to call out lies — Journalism, according to the renowned media scholar and historian Sean Hannity, is dead. — Of course, the Fox News host and Donald Trump disciple …

Discussion: @nppalawyer, @brianstelter, @juz44, @nickochsnerwbtv, @deanpwright, The Huffington Post and AOL

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

An anonymous junior reporter who's worked at Gannett and Tronc discusses life in the daily newspaper trenches — Newspapers have struggled more than any print media in finding a sustainable digital media model. For the latest in our anonymous Confessions series, we talked …

Jonathan Peters / Columbia Journalism Review:

Journalists arrested in DC inauguration protests have law on their side … Or, if you're a journalist, you get arrested simply for gathering news at protests. — At least six journalists have been charged with felony rioting, as The Guardian first reported, after their arrests Friday at Trump's inaugural parade.

Discussion: DCist

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

How one of the largest and most profitable regional newspapers in the UK fell from £59M revenue and 581 staff in 1996 to £16m and 107 staff by 2011 — Former editor of the Leicester Mercury and Derby Telegraph Keith Perch is now a lecturer at Derby University.

Ethan Zuckerman / Deutsche Welle:

News media landscape is changing with the spread of fake news, propaganda, and “disinformatzya,” and these variants must be treated with different techniques — Fake news, propaganda and “disinformatzya” are changing the media landscape - in the US, Russia and Turkey and across the world.

Discussion: @dmlresearchhub

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

New study finds the use of warnings on fake stories alongside real news can mitigate the spread of misinformation — Research conducted by social psychologists at Cambridge University in the UK, and Yale and George Mason in the US, offers a potential strategy for mitigating the spread …

Caitlin Dickerson / New York Times:

Posts on Facebook from ultraconservative websites like Breitbart News and Infowars stoke anxiety about Muslim refugees — Type the word refugees into Facebook and some alarming “news” will appear about a refugee rape crisis, a refugee flesh-eating disease epidemic and a refugee-related risk …

Discussion: Washington Post, @itscaitlinhd, @efairhead, @michaelkruse, Daniel Kreiss, @jodikantor, @jodikantor, Denver Westword and The Daily Caller

The Guardian:

George Orwell experts on how the Trump era shares aspects of the dystopian world of 1984 — Since Kellyanne Conway spoke of ‘alternative facts’, Nineteen Eighty-Four has hit the No 1 spot in Amazon's book sales chart. So, is the age of Newspeak here? … Jean Seaton: The seeds were sown during the George W Bush era

Discussion: @penamerican and New Matilda

Mark Harris / Vulture:

Trump's long tenure in the entertainment industry has given him a warped view of journalists as publicists who dole out uncritical media praise — Donald Trump's presidency has opened, and the reviews are raves! I know this because of a press release the White House issued on Wednesday morning.

Discussion: RealClearPolitics, @peterbeinart, @ryanlizza and @nymag

Ted Johnson / Variety:

ISPs, studios, and record labels end the four-year-old copyright alert system that sent warnings to users over P2P downloads of pirated content — Major internet providers are ending a four-year-old system in which consumers received “copyright alerts” when they viewed peer-to-peer pirated content.

Discussion: Engadget and Multichannel News

Chris Cillizza / Washington Post:

The flood of leaks now coming out of the White House suggest that Trump's aides have resorted to influencing him through a public airing of grievances — All White Houses leak. Sometimes the leaks are big, sometimes small. But there are always people willing to talk to reporters about the …

Discussion: New York Times