Mediagazer: Spotify expands its push into original content with three new podcast series on music and pop culture, with more originals to be announced later this year (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

4:30 AM ET, February 24, 2017

Top News:

Sahil Patel / Digiday:

Interviews detail how Disney's $675M purchase of Maker Studios failed to thrive as prospects faded for YouTube multichannel networks — It wasn't one thing that transformed Maker Studios from a Disney princess to a pumpkin — there were a whole lot of many things.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Adweek, The Tech Portal, Engadget and VatorNews

Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:
Disney lays off 80 from digital media unit, including from Maker Studios, and plans to shrink Maker talent network, which once had 55K+ creators

Discussion: Variety, Fortune, Polygon and The Wrap

Hadas Gold / Politico:

The New York Times is using the Oscars to launch a multi-faceted ad campaign about “The Truth”, the paper's first TV ad push in a decade — The New York Times is taking the unusual and expensive step of advertising during the Academy Awards on Sunday, joining companies like McDonalds …

Discussion: YouTube, @nytimes, Business Wire, @alexweprin, AgencySpy, Ad Age, @niemanlab, Newser, @dylanbyers, @alexweprin, @alexweprin, @kelseymsutton, @dylanbyers and @hadas_gold

Hadas Gold / Politico:

James O'Keefe's 2009 undercover audio recordings of CNN employees have landed with little impact, though not all hours of tape have been made available — For a few days, Project Veritas founder and conservative activist James O'Keefe has been hyping the release of what he said were hundreds …

J.D. Durkin / Mediaite:

Fox News contributor Alan Colmes, Sean Hannity's former on-air debating partner, has died at age 66 — Longtime radio and cable news broadcaster Alan Colmes is dead at the age of 66 after reportedly battling a brief illness. — Fox News moments ago reported on Colmes' death with a segment narrated …

Kurt Wagner / Recode:

Facebook begins testing ad breaks in partner videos, sharing 55% of ad revenue; Live videos from Pages with 2K+ followers will get an ad break option — Many publishers have trouble making money off Facebook videos — this could change that. — Facebook is ready to make money from all the videos …

Discussion: Facebook Media, Wallaroo Media, Softpedia News, Fast Company, Engadget, Business Insider, Adweek and Variety

Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:

Google's Jigsaw unveils Perspective, an AI-powered tool for publishers to weed out abusive comments, available as an API for free — A research team tied to Google unveiled a new tool on Thursday that could have a profound effect on how we talk to each other online.

Discussion: Jigsaw - Medium, Nieman Lab, Washington Post, Boing Boing, Computerworld, Wired, The Verge, New York Magazine, @jigsawteam, @jigsawteam, BetaNews, Consumerist, Mashable, 9to5Google, Forbes, Softpedia News, New York Times, Reuters, VentureBeat, @martinsfp, The Drum, BBC, @dovseidman and Yahoo

David Shepardson / Reuters:

Time Warner selling Atlanta's WPCH to Meredith for $70M, a move that might mean Time Warner-AT&T deal can avoid FCC review — Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) said on Thursday it plans to sell a broadcast station in Atlanta to Meredith Corp (MDP.N) for $70 million, which could help speed the company's planned merger with AT&T Inc (T.N).

Discussion: Fortune, Broadcasting & Cable, Radio & Television …, Fierce Cable, TVNewsCheck and Deadline

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Spotify expands its push into original content with three new podcast series on music and pop culture, with more originals to be announced later this year — Spotify is expanding its podcast selection today, with the announcement that it's adding three new original podcast series on its service …

Discussion: news.spotify.com, Engadget, Variety, The Verge, Fortune, Tubefilter, @techcrunch, Billboard and hypebot

Compete:

Univision's Fusion Media Group launches Compete, a site covering e-sports and competitive gaming, operating as a Kotaku subdomain — Welcome to Compete, a joint venture between Deadspin and Kotaku dedicated to covering the best, worst, dumbest, most thrilling, most interesting, and …

Discussion: Bloomberg and @deadspin

Joe Mayes / Bloomberg:

Sources: The Financial Times is eliminating 20 editorial jobs globally to cut costs as print revenue declines — The Financial Times, the salmon-colored newspaper bought by Japan's Nikkei Inc. in 2015, is eliminating 20 editorial jobs globally through attrition to cut costs as print revenue declines …

Discussion: Talking Biz News, @business, @wan_medialex, @newslambert and @mskimberlychin

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

News Corp CFO Bedi Singh is leaving, will be replaced by Susan Panuccio, CFO of News Corp Australia — News Corp., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com and Barron's, announced Thursday that Chief Financial Officer Bedi Singh is leaving the company.

Discussion: Mumbrella

Oliver Darcy / Business Insider:

Interview with an anonymous co-founder of The Reagan Battalion, the conservative Twitter account that brought down Milo Yiannopoulos — One of the mysterious men behind Reagan Battalion, an anonymous conservative Twitter account, seemed floored recalling the events of the past 72 hours.

Discussion: @michellefields, @oliverdarcy, @oliverdarcy, @oliverdarcy, @businessinsider and @oliverdarcy

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Home & Travel Reporter, Ireland — Newsweek

Assistant Digital Editor, MA — Boston Globe

Senior Editor - Visuals (Temporary), DC — NPR

South Reporter, GA/Remote — ProPublica

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Investigations & Enterprise Ed., WI — Cap Times

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More News:

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
FCC votes to lift transparency requirements, such as disclosing network performance and data caps, for ISPs with under 250K subscribers

Discussion: motherboard, Computerworld, Axios and Engadget

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:
UK regional daily newspapers lost print sales at an average rate of 12.5% YoY in 2016, with Wigan Evening Post hit hardest, dropping 36%

Discussion: @domponsford, @domponsford, @domponsford, @domponsford, @rlwjones, @pressgazette and @pressgazette

Garett Sloane / Ad Age:
41% of online ads are larger than industry standards, slowing down websites and annoying users with crawling load times, according to Ad Lightning

Discussion: GeekWire, @jarroddicker, @adage and @niemanlab

USA Today:
USA Today Network launches secure website for sources and government whistleblowers using SecureDrop

Discussion: Adweek, @jguynn, @nchute, @mickeyshueypi and @nathanielcary

Washpostpr / Washington Post:
John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's former campaign chairman, is joining The Washington Post as a contributing columnist

Discussion: @mlcalderone, @timebner, @brentscher, @dylanbyers, @tomkludt and Poynter

Earlier Picks:

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:
Tronc Q4 profit swings to $19.4M from year-earlier loss of $77K, expands digital audience by 16% YoY, but advertising drops 16% for the quarter

Discussion: tronc, inc., Adweek, Los Angeles Business Journal and Seeking Alpha

Shawn W. Crispin / Committee to Protect Journalists:
Interview with Dang Xuan Dieu, a reporter with Vietnam Redemptorist News who was jailed for over five years before being exiled to France

Discussion: @pressfreedom, @pressfreedom and @janbeanland

Neil MacFarquhar / New York Times:
Russia's foreign ministry unveils effort to label news it considers to be fake, includes articles from NYT, Bloomberg, Daily Telegraph, NBC, and more

Discussion: Fortune, The Verge, CNNMoney and BuzzFeed

Steven Perlberg / BuzzFeed:
Sources: Facebook is hosting off-the-record meetings with journalists to improve relations; source says FB discussed boosting publisher ad revenue from videos

Discussion: Digiday and The Guardian

From Techmeme:

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Cisco details a hacking campaign that penetrated multiple governments' networks using two zero-day flaws in its VPN and firewall Adaptive Security Appliances

Ben Glickman / Wall Street Journal:
IBM agrees to buy HashiCorp, which helps companies manage cloud infrastructure, in a deal valuing HashiCorp at $6.4B and expected to close by the end of 2024

Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg:
US prosecutors charge two founders of Samourai Wallet, saying the crypto mixing service facilitated more than $100M in money laundering transactions

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