Top News:
Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic:
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 …
Discussion:
New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, The Wrap, Observer, USA Today, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, Al Jazeera English, @mattdpearce, AOL, Above the Law, IJR, Hit & Run, The Guardian, Mother Jones, @geniepee, @ejgold94, @elizabethangell, @rationaldoge, @amyweissmeyer, @adriennelaf, Vanity Fair, Hot Air, The Week, Infowars, @lizziejohnsonnn, Common Dreams, The Slot, The Gateway Pundit, www.wnyc.org, Q13 FOX News, FOX2now.com, Miami New Times, The New Civil Rights Movement, Talking New Media, BGR, TheBlaze, Fox News Insider, New York Magazine, Politicus USA, 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
Katie Roof / TechCrunch:
Snap closes first day of trading at $24.51 per share, 44% above original price of $17, valuing the company at around $34B — Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, had a great day in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange. After pricing the IPO at $17 per share yesterday, the stock opened at $24.
Discussion:
Reuters, Ad Age, Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, CNBC, Bloomberg, Recode, New York Times, Fortune, Dealbreaker, Daring Fireball, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Recode, Softpedia News, Gizmodo, The Information, Fortune and VentureBeat
Bloomberg:
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
David Folkenflik / NPR:
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.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
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 …
Pew Research Center:
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
Brian Flood / The Wrap:
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
Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
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
Lauren Coleman-Lochner / Bloomberg:
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
Ed Meza / Variety:
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
Lucia Moses / Digiday:
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
Rich McCormick / The Verge:
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:
Reuters, ESPN, Engadget, PR Newswire, SportTechie, Variety, GeekWire and TechCrunch
McClatchy Washington Bureau:
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