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

4:40 PM ET, February 23, 2017

Top News:

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 …

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 — Maker Studios' talent network, which at one time grew to 55,000 creators, also is being slimmed down. — Disney is laying off 80 employees across …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Adweek, Digiday, The Wrap, Variety and Polygon

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, Computerworld, Wired, Boing Boing, New York Times, Reuters, New York Magazine, Forbes, BetaNews, Softpedia News, Consumerist, @martinsfp, Mashable, @jigsawteam, The Verge, @jigsawteam, VentureBeat, 9to5Google, BBC, @dovseidman, Yahoo and The Drum

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 …

Discussion: @hadas_gold, @oliverburkeman, TVNewser, Project Veritas, Washington Post, The Wrap, @kelseymsutton, @sopandeb, @morningmoneyben, @karaswisher, @matthewnussbaum, @jamesokeefeiii, @politico and @byrontau

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: AgencySpy, Business Wire, @alexweprin, @niemanlab, Ad Age, @dylanbyers, @alexweprin, @alexweprin, @kelseymsutton, @dylanbyers and @hadas_gold

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, TechCrunch, Adweek, Wallaroo Media, Fast Company and Variety

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: @business, @wan_medialex, @newslambert and @mskimberlychin

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

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, Variety, Billboard, The Verge, Tubefilter, @techcrunch, Fortune and hypebot

USA Today:

USA Today Network launches secure website for sources and government whistleblowers using SecureDrop — The USA TODAY Network has launched a secure website for sources who want to share information with reporters covering government institutions from city halls to the White House.

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

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 — Ads need to go on a diet. — More than 40% of online ads are larger than industry standards, which slows down websites and annoys users …

Discussion: @jarroddicker, @adage and @niemanlab

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% — UK regional daily newspapers audited by ABC lost print sales at an average rate of 12.5 per cent year on year in 2016, according to figures released today.

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

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 4:40 PM ET, February 23, 2017.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Accounting Specialist Editor, Remote US — Reuters

Senior Correspondent - Wealth, NY — WSJ

Asia Credit Reporter, Seoul — Bloomberg

Senior Editor, DC — National Geographic

Sr. Social Media Specialist, NC — espnW

Associate Editor - Aviation, TN — Firecrown

Assistant Editor - Digital, NC — SBJ

Video Producer - YouTube, NY — Morning Brew

Senior Managing Ed. - Daily Desk — The Athletic

Content Managing Editor — Freedom Forum

Editor, MA — Nieman Reports

Team Editor - Breaking News, ON — Toronto Star

Senior Reporter & Event Host, NY/CA — Newcomer

Associate Editor, Remote — Tech Policy Press

Retail Reporter, MN — Star Tribune

Senior Data Editor, DC — U.S. News

Managing Ed. - Berks County, PA — Spotlight PA

News Editor - UK, Remote — The Verge

Staff Writer, TX — Dallas Observer

Multimedia Journalist, PA — Observer-Reporter

Service Journalism Editor, CA — Sacramento Bee

Content Director, Remote — Campaigns & Elections

Sports Reporter, ME — Bangor Daily News

Los Angeles Issues Reporter, CA — CalMatters

Reporter - Middle East — Rest of World

Executive Editor, OR — Lookout Local

California Playbook Writer, CA — Politico

Senior Media Editor — Digiday

National Investigative Reporter, NY — HuffPost

Lexington County Reporter, SC — The State

Reporter - Offshore Wind — Canary Media

General Assignment Reporter, FL — County Record

Staff Reporter, CA — Daily Kos

Data Editor, NY — ProPublica

Add your company here

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

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

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, @nytimesworld, @gordonnyt, @stevinazo, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, The Hill, BuzzFeed and @cressman

Earlier Picks:

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
District court judge blocks California law preventing IMDb from publishing ages of actors, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment

Discussion: Techdirt, @jack_morrissey, @politico, @adgo and @joshgerstein

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: The Guardian, @perlberg, @matthewjsinger, @miriamelder and @daweiner

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:
The New European, set to print for four weeks post-Brexit, gets 1M pageviews/month with 20K circ.; print serves as “visible articulation” of readers' values

Discussion: @pilhofer, @niemanreports, @niemanlab, @jbenton, @newsalliance, @vischella, @jbenton, @brianstelter, @ylichterman and @simonmacmichael

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
The journalists Trump called “enemies of the people” include veterans, the son of Mexican immigrants, a farmer's daughter, and many other Rust Belt natives

Discussion: Forbes, USA Today, CNNMoney, The Guardian, NPR, Fortune, @farhip, @kenroth and MediaFile

From Techmeme:

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X starts rolling out an update to let users see public posts, and following and followers lists, of users who block them; blocked users still can't engage or DM

Financial Times:
Sources: Meta's plans to build a US nuclear-powered AI data center were thwarted in part after a rare bee species was found on land earmarked for the project

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with GM SVP Baris Cetinok on having a “high conviction” that ditching CarPlay and Android Auto is the right call, building autonomous cars, and more

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page