Top News:
Eliana Johnson / Politico:
Sources: at least two candidates have turned down WH communications director job, a position that has remained vacant since Jason Miller resigned in December — At least two candidates have turned down the job of White House communications director. — Controlling the message coming …
Discussion:
Washington Post, ABC News, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Guardian, New York Magazine, Refinery29, Quartz, New York's PIX11, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, Fast Company, BuzzFeed, The Daily Caller, @indira_l, @glennthrush, @jdawsey1, @blakehounshell, @cbudoffbrown, @elianayjohnson, @maggienyt, The Week, Business Insider, IJR, TheBlaze, Hollywood Life, NPR, Jezebel, Washingtonian, Deadline, The Wrap, Fortune, TVSpy and Mediaite
Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:
Twitter reports Q4 revenue of $717M, missing estimates, but beats on earnings as MAUs grew 2M from Q3 2016, reaching 319M — Twitter missed analysts' expectations for its fourth-quarter revenue — reporting $717 million versus estimates of $740 million — as advertising spend lagged behind …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Jack Dorsey, Adweek, TechCrunch, PR Newswire, Reuters, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Forbes, GeekWire, Vanity Fair, ZDNet, The Guardian, Mashable, Variety, Fortune, INSIDER, Recode, @bcappelbaum, @verge, Axios, @stevekovach, @businessinsider, @recode, @raju, Recode, VentureBeat and Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check
RELATED:
Brett Molina / USA Today:
Twitter shares fall over 10% on Q4 revenue miss, flat growth, and a 5% YoY drop in US ad revenue — So much for the “Trump bump.” — Twitter missed on revenue during the fourth quarter, according to results released Thursday, as the social media service struggles to sustain rapid growth among its monthly active user base.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Forbes, @techcrunch, BBC, @edmundlee, VentureBeat and @cnbc
Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
Flush with donations, ProPublica is planning to add 15-25 journalists to its newsrooms in New York and Illinois as it reorients itself to cover Trump — Bleak about the future of journalism? Here are some encouraging statistics: — In 2015, ProPublica ended the year with $450,000 in small donations …
Discussion:
@charlesornstein and @laur_katz
Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
Pew study: US adult news consumers can only recall the source of a news link 56% of the time, and 10% name Facebook as a news source — “The online news experience is a mix of deliberateness and serendipity,” a new report from Pew finds, noting that no one particular path to finding online news is dominant among users.
Richard Sandomir / New York Times:
Bob Costas ends his 24-year run as NBC's prime-time Olympics host, reducing his overall workload at the network as he takes on a role similar to Tom Brokaw's — When NBC televises next year's Winter Olympics from Pyeongchang, South Korea, a familiar face will be gone from the prime-time anchor seat …
Discussion:
TVWeek.com, Washington Post, @nbcolympics, @braddjaffy, @sinow, @ennisnyt, @businessinsider, @bleacherreport, @ap_sports and The Big Lead
Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Viacom beats estimates with Q1 net earnings of $396M, with Paramount posting $180M operating loss; CEO Bob Bakish announces Paramount turnaround plan — The new regime at Viacom unveiled a turnaround plan for Paramount Pictures and its cable network group as the conglom surprised Wall Street Thursday …
Discussion:
Forbes, Variety, Deadline, Broadcasting & Cable, Hollywood Reporter, Viacom, Los Angeles Times and Broadcasting & Cable
Ben Popper / The Verge:
Sources: Google combines product teams for YouTube Music and Google Play Music, likely paving way for a single music app in the future — Come together, right now, over me — According to several sources familiar with the change, the product teams working on YouTube Music and Google Play Music are being combined into a single unit.
Discussion:
RAIN News, Music Industry Blog, hypebot, Gear, The Tech Portal, 9to5Google, Tubefilter, AndroidHeadlines.com and Variety
Andrew Liptak / The Verge:
Facebook hires MTV executive Mina Lefevre as head of development, overseeing scripted and unscripted content — Mina Lefevre had been the head of scripted for MTV — Facebook has been working to make video a central part of how its users experience the site, first with Facebook Live …
Discussion:
Forbes, Tubefilter, Deadline, Business Insider, Adweek, @andrewliptak, Mashable and Fast Company
West Virginia Public Broadcasting:
WV Gov. Jim Justice proposes elimination of all state funding for WV Public Broadcasting in new budget, which would translate into staff layoffs of up to 75% — In his proposed budget, Governor Justice proposes the elimination of all state funding for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Discussion:
Current, @farrahfazal and wvpublic.org
Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
Fox News cements its standing as Trump TV as Kellyanne Conway plugs Ivanka Trump's products without any opposition from Fox & Friends anchors — What's less surprising: that a top aide to President Trump would go on a Fox News program and plug the line of clothing and accessories of Ivanka Trump …
Discussion:
The Wrap, LawNewz, New York Times, @sopandeb, @erikwemple and @erikwemple
Trey Williams / MarketWatch:
Gannett beats Q4 expectations with revenue at $867M, up from $739M a year earlier, but print advertising revenue is still declining — Gannett Co. Inc. GCI, +8.51% shares rose nearly 9% in premarket trade on Thursday after the USA Today owner reported fourth-quarter earnings that were better than Wall Street had forecast.
Discussion:
Seeking Alpha, NASDAQ.com and StreetInsider.com