Top News:
Jim Rutenberg / New York Times:
News Media Alliance, with members including NYT, WaPo, and News Corp, seeks antitrust exemption from Congress to negotiate collectively with Google and Facebook — Google and Facebook continue to gobble up the digital advertising market, siphoning away revenue that once paid for the quality journalism …
Lucia Moses / Digiday:
Source: The NYT is undecided on whether to participate in Facebook's Instant Articles subscriptions, with the paper seeing no “great upside” to being involved — Facebook is moving ahead on plans to let people subscribe to publications through Instant Articles.
Discussion:
@joelcifer, @rafat, @nxthompson, @digiday, @shansquared, @lmoses and @bmorrissey
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Despite a tumultuous year, Fox News has remained number one in every key TV news ratings measure — A few days ago, a TV journalist was verbally sparring with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House deputy press secretary - and it wasn't one of the usual suspects.
Joshua Green / New York Magazine:
How Bannon became Trump's key henchman: arranging for Ann Coulter to pen a policy paper and weaponizing Breitbart against Megyn Kelly, before he joined campaign — Why does Trump double-down every time it seems like he should retreat? Because Steve Bannon is back in his boss's good graces.
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Fox News Signs Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer as Contributor — Senior TV Editor @bristei — Ari Fleischer joins the ranks of former White House press personnel enjoying a significant presence at the nation's TV-news outlets. The former White House press secretary under …
Discussion:
Broadcasting & Cable, TVNewser, @harlan and @jonsteinberg
Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
A profile of CNN reporter Jim Acosta, described by WH Press Sec Sean Spicer as a prime example of a journalist in a “YouTube, click-driven industry” — These are times that try a White House reporter's soul. Jim Acosta hasn't kept quiet about what's been troubling his.
Discussion:
TVNewser, Mediaite, @drpulaski2017, @trevortimm, @farhip, @markfollman and @jayrosen_nyu
Adam K. Raymond / Vulture:
How spammers, ripoff artists, and even superstars juice their numbers on Spotify with covers, tricky song titles, silent tracks, and large albums — A few weeks after the release of Kendrick Lamar's “Humble,” the hard-charging lead single on his fourth album Damn., the song landed at No. 1 on Billboard's streaming chart.
Discussion:
BetaNews, The Guardian, hypebot, Music Business Worldwide, @adamkraymond and The FADER
Ricardo Bilton / Nieman Lab:
Podcast database and discovery site Podchaser focuses on episodes rather than entire shows, with user-generated tagging and episode-level reviews — “One of our big advantages is we're trying to build this bottom-up, feature-wise, and talking to a hundred different podcasts and tons of listeners and asking exactly what they want."
Chris O'Brien / VentureBeat:
USC study suggests there may be a black market of bots used to spread misinformation across Twitter during elections — As if Twitter's reputation hasn't been battered enough, a new study sheds light on how the social media platform can be hijacked by bots to spread political disinformation during election campaigns.
Discussion:
@manjusrii and @moorehn
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Time Inc. Vice-Chairman Norman Pearlstine is retiring from the company later this month, after which he plans to work as an adviser for early-stage media firms — Publishing industry veteran Norman Pearlstine is retiring from Time Inc. this month, after which he plans to work as an adviser …
Discussion:
Mediawire
Ben Eisen / Wall Street Journal:
Financial news network Cheddar is buying StockStream, a stock-picking game created by a 26-year-old former Amazon engineer that went viral — Cheddar Inc., the streaming financial-news network that was recently valued at $85 million, is buying a viral stock-picking game started …
Discussion:
Business Insider and @srussolillo, Thanks:@jonsteinberg
Sarah Ellison / Vanity Fair:
Q&A with Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer, two of Politico Playbook's authors, on their forthcoming book, expansion of the Playbook franchise, more — Inside the transfer of power at Playbook, the most influential newsletter in politics. — It's been a year since Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman …
Discussion:
@gbrotman, @kenvogel, @jakesherman and @mlcalderone