Top News:
Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, BBC, and more protest US secretary of state's plan for no media on his trip to Asia — D.C. bureau chiefs from major news organizations, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal …
Zeynep Tufekci / New York Times:
WikiLeaks' CIA document cache, which focuses on compromising devices and not apps, underscores the strength of Signal's and WhatsApp's encryption — On Tuesday morning, WikiLeaks released an enormous cache of documents that it claimed detailed “C.I.A. hacking tools.”
Discussion:
9to5Mac, @dabeard, @dangillmor, @amy_siskind, @sparrowmedia and www.wnyc.org
Ricardo Bilton / Nieman Lab:
Anonymous donor gives $1M to fund NYTimes.com subscriptions for students, joining 15.5K other donors to provide access to 1.3M students — The New York Times has shared some big numbers about the “Sponsor a Subscription” program that it launched in February: Thanks to contributions from 15,500 donors …
Discussion:
The New York Times Company, New York Times, Fortune, The Hill, Adweek, CNBC and Editor & Publisher
BuzzFeed:
11 hoaxes published on The Resistance, which parodies fake news, were reposted by 48 different spam sites, including 16 from Macedonia and 4 from Georgia — When the American man known online as Busta Troll tried to get the Eastern European spammers to stop stealing his content, one threatened to knock his site offline.
Discussion:
@craigsilverman, @buzzfeednews, @janelytv and @jaketapper
Maev Kennedy / The Guardian:
Food blogger Jack Monroe has won about $30K in Twitter libel case against Mail Online columnist Katie Hopkins — Food writer and campaigner wins £24,000 from Mail Online columnist in row over tweets about damage to war memorial — The food writer and campaigner Jack Monroe …
Discussion:
Press Gazette, BBC, @davidtpegg and mirror
James Warren / Poynter:
New Jersey journalists launch Montclair Local, a 2-section, 16-page weekly newspaper costing $12/year, delivered to about 15K households — Montclair is a New Jersey bastion of the Trump-doubting privileged class that went back to the future Thursday with an imperiled species: a new broadsheet newspaper.
Discussion:
@poynter, @jimwarren55 and Montclair Local
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook to raise the allowed frequency of ads in Instant Articles, enabling insertion for every 250 words instead of every 350 words — Facebook's Instant Articles were always a bad deal for news outlets. While quick to load so they drove more readers, the hosted-on-Facebook mobile web format sterilized …
Discussion:
Engadget, Facebook Media and Adweek
Alexandra Alter / New York Times:
Interview with Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, who have sold a book on 2016 election to Penguin, to be published in 2018; HBO plans a miniseries based on book — On election night last year, the political journalists and analysts Mark Halperin and John Heilemann appeared on …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Jezebel, Poynter, The Daily Caller, Hollywood Reporter, CBS News, The Guardian, @jeremyscahill, Business Insider, Deadline and Vanity Fair
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: a group including Jahm Najafi, of private investment firm Najafi Cos., and Pamplona Capital Management has emerged as a bidder for Time Inc. — Competitive sales process for publisher appears to be nearing completion, even in the wake of Bronfman group dropping its bid
Discussion:
@asharma, @jeffreyt1 and Fortune
Ross Benes / Digiday:
BI UK will test an anti-ad blocker prompting readers to either whitelist BI, pay for an ad-free subscription, or pay a few pennies to see an article ad-free — As its staff sized nearly doubled over the last year to 45 employees, Business Insider U.K. moved shop in January to a larger co-working space …
Discussion:
@larakiara
Sara Fischer / Axios:
CTA study finds video viewership has increased by 30% in the last five years, but TV accounts for only about half of all video viewership, down from 62% in 2013 — Data: Consumer Technology Association; Chart: Lazaro Gamio / Axios — A new Consumer Technology Association study finds …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Streaming media software maker Plex opens Plex Cloud service to all Plex Pass subscribers — After a couple of stops and starts — and some concerns — media player software maker Plex is opening its online service known as Plex Cloud to all paying Plex users.
Discussion:
Plex, Android Police, Android Police, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, The Verge, Engadget and MacRumors