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Even in an age of nearly-real-time news, big stories still often break in the evening because of newspaper print deadlines — It's usually around 8 p.m. when the push notifications start rolling in. On Wednesday night, The New York Times kicked things off at 7:56 p.m. with a major story …
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Washington Post, CNN, New York Times, The Wrap, Observer, Vanity Fair, Business Insider, USA Today, Rolling Stone, @mattdpearce, Al Jazeera English, @johnrobinson, Hit & Run, The Guardian, Newsy, Mother Jones, Hot Air, The Week, Infowars, @lizziejohnsonnn, Common Dreams, @rationaldoge, The Slot, The Gateway Pundit, www.wnyc.org, Q13 FOX News, FOX2now.com, Miami New Times, The New Civil Rights Movement, Talking New Media, @geniepee, @amyweissmeyer, @ejgold94, Above the Law, @adriennelaf, IJR, BGR, @elizabethangell, TheBlaze, AOL, Fox News Insider, Politicus USA, New York Magazine, Mediaite, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Washington Monthly, Boing Boing, NPR, The Huffington Post, RT, Refinery29, The Daily Caller, Fast Company, Mashable, The Daily Beast and Axios


Spotify says it has 50M paying subscribers, up from 30M in March 2016 — Spotify continues to cement its place as the leader in music streaming, and today the company announced that it just hit another milestone of 50 million paid subscribers. … It's impressive growth for the company …
Discussion:
@spotify, Fast Company, Softpedia News, Variety, CNET, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Engadget, Tech Narratives, Axios and hypebot


Source: Trump has sworn off Morning Joe as he cuts back on MSNBC and CNN; he remains an avid Fox viewer and watches CNBC for business news — President said to binge more on Fox News, avoid CNN, MSNBC — Lobbyist discusses buying ads on Trump's favorite TV shows


Interview with CNN chief Jeff Zucker, who is emerging as a champion of aggressive journalism as Trump attacks and snubs his network — Attacked on national TV for supposedly serving up “fake news.” Shut out of a White House press briefing in retribution.


Pew survey: 76% of Democrats and 49% of Republicans say freedom of the press to criticize political leaders is very important — 77% say it would be ‘too risky’ to give presidents more power — Large majorities of the public, Republicans and Democrats alike, say open and fair elections …
Discussion:
@basquiatball, @kkaplan and Washington Post


The New York Times redesigns its front pages to give readers a more comprehensive overview of what the paper is doing both in print and digital — The New York Times today introduced a reimagined design of the front two pages of its newspaper (known as pages A2 and A3), modeled on the “front of book” pages of magazine layouts.
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, Adweek, Business Wire, @jackshafer and Publishers Weekly


Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and other organizations team up to launch a site tracking press freedom violations in the US — In the early days of his presidency, Donald Trump has called journalists the “enemy of the American people” (twice) …
Discussion:
@indexcensorship, @jodieginsberg, @indexcensorship, @londoninsider, @rorypecktrust, @shift_mindsets, @rcfp, @tigerbeat, @poynter, @fqadi, @journalismfest, @trevortimm, @benmullin and @mathewi


Mashable Studios creates a new position, vice president of programming and development, in Los Angeles and hires Polly Auritt, most recently of Fullscreen — Mashable has hired Polly Auritt, formerly VP of programming at Fullscreen, as head of programming and development for Mashable Studios.
Discussion:
Multichannel News

Barnes & Noble sees its biggest holiday-quarter decline since 2005 as it misses Q3 targets, with Nook sales down 26%; stock falls over 8% — Bookstore chain's same-store sales tumbled 8.3% in the period — Company now expects a decline of 7% for the full year
Discussion:
Investors, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, The Verge, Consumerist and Fortune


Reed Hastings says Netflix has invested $1.75B+ into European productions and currently has 90+ original shows in development across Europe — BERLIN - Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday that the company had invested more than $1.75 billion in European productions, including licensed programming …
Discussion:
Fortune, Forbes, @variety and @juanpmoraless


In the two years since hiring its first chief digital officer, Condé Nast's digital audience has grown 76% while time spent on sites has increased 132% — Last June, Vanity Fair launched The Hive, its first vertical outside the storied magazine, with a roster of star writers and social-first strategy.
Discussion:
@digiday, @fsantarpia and @leovanderborgh


Twitter partners with ESL and Dreamhack to broadcast tournaments and e-sports events live starting March 4, will also broadcast 30-minute weekly e-sports show — After making a move into streaming traditional sports, Twitter will now start streaming e-sports.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, SportTechie, Reuters, ESPN, Engadget, PR Newswire, Variety and GeekWire


Defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed over dossier moves from local Florida court to federal court, which might be more current on constitutional issues — WASHINGTON — A defamation suit brought against online news site BuzzFeed for its publishing of an intelligence dossier that alleges Kremlin ties …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller and @jeffjohnroberts