Mediagazer: Techdirt gets $250K+ via Craig Newmark, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Charles Koch Foundation, more to cover free speech while battling Hulk Hogan's lawyer (David McCabe/Axios)

4:00 PM ET, August 9, 2017

Top News:

NPR programming across all stations rose to about 30M average weekly listeners in 2016, up 14% YoY; revenue up 9% YoY to $213M — MORE FACT SHEETS: STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA — Hundreds of local and regional radio and television stations comprise the U.S. public media system.

Discussion: Pew Research Center

Sydney Ember / New York Times:

Sinclair's bid to buy Tribune Media draws opposition from advocacy groups, Dish Network, and conservative outlets including Newsmax, OANN, and The Blaze — The Sinclair Broadcast Group's proposed acquisition of Tribune Media has ignited expected opposition from left-leaning advocacy groups …

Discussion: @brucebartlett, HuffPost, @melbournecoal, Free Press, Media Matters for America and Variety

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Tribune Media reports a Q2 loss of $30.4M, compared with a year-ago loss of $161.6M, and quarterly revenue dropping 2% to $469.5M — Programming costs at the firm, which Sinclair has agreed to buy, rose, including $20 million of “additional expense related to the strategic shift toward …

David McCabe / Axios:

Techdirt gets $250K+ via Craig Newmark, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Charles Koch Foundation, more to cover free speech while battling Hulk Hogan's lawyer — An eclectic group is financially backing TechDirt, a tech news site being sued for libel by the same lawyer who who helped take down Gawker.

Discussion: Nieman Lab, @jackshafer, @trevortimm, @bro_pair, @harrymccracken, @jason_kint, @dmccabe, @niemanlab, @jessekblum and Talking Biz News, more at Techmeme »

Alexios Mantzarlis / Poynter:

Mozilla launches the Mozilla Information Trust Initiative, with the aim of combatting online misinformation through new products, research, more — Mozilla, the nonprofit organization behind the Firefox browser, announced today a new program to combat online misinformation.

Discussion: The Mozilla Blog

David Faber / CNBC:

Sources: French telecom giant Altice and its US subsidiary, Altice USA, are working on a bid for Charter Communications — - The French telecom giant and its U.S. cable subsidiary, Altice USA, are working on an offer to buy Charter, according to people close to the situation.

Discussion: Deadline, Business Insider and FierceCable

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Disney to end Netflix film distribution deal in 2019, will launch ESPN streaming service in 2018 and Disney streaming services in 2019 — Disney will end its distribution deal with Netflix and launch its own streaming service, the company announced today. It intends to launch the service in 2019.

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Disney's Iger: strategic shift to streaming is both a defensive and offensive move that will include sacrifices, but is ultimately a better model

Discussion: Reuters, The Verge, Ad Age, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and The Week

The Walt Disney Company:
Disney will pay $1.58B to acquire additional 42% stake in BAMTech, making it a majority stakeholder

Melody Kramer / Poynter:

Interview with Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, EFF's senior staff technologist, on increasing user trust by decreasing the use of third-party trackers — Last year, Steven Englehardt and Arvind Narayanan at Princeton University looked at the top 1 million sites on the internet and found …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Lucinda Southern / Digiday:

BuzzFeed Germany is struggling to attract readers and advertisers, with just 3.5M monthly unique visitors in June and less than 500K likes on Facebook — With Germany's federal election coming up Sept. 24, BuzzFeed Germany is pushing further into news and politics coverage …

Kim Masters / Hollywood Reporter:

Interview with John Stankey, the current head of AT&T's entertainment group who will run Time Warner post-acquisition — “Investment in content is going to increase,” says John Stankey in his first interview since being named to oversee HBO, Warner Bros. and CNN as he reveals …

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

President Trump continues tweeting against The Washington Post and The New York Times in apparent effort to delegitimize outside sources of information — THE MORNING PLUM: — In recent days, President Trump has escalated his assaults on the “Fake News” media and other institutions …

Discussion: @realdonaldtrump, CNNMoney, Fox News Insider, The Daily Caller, New York Magazine, The Federalist, Axios, Politico, @theplumlinegs, @wdlindsy, CNN, New York Daily News, The New York Observer, Mediaite, Fox 59, Vanity Fair, The Week and Associated Press

Joseph Otterson / Variety:

NBCUniversal's comedy streaming service Seeso, launched in January 2016 with a price of $3.99/month, is shutting down later this year — Comedy streaming service Seeso is shutting down, the streamer announced Wednesday. — “We're writing to let you know that later this year …

Discussion: Deadline, VideoInk - Medium, IndieWire, Hollywood Reporter, Splitsider and Seeso

Chris Ariens / Adweek:

Bloomberg to launch management consultancy unit using data from terminals, research arms, and analysts, will charge businesses $150K-$200K/month — Tapping its deep resources to provide consulting services for businesses — Bloomberg is leveraging its vast reach in financial data …

Archived Page Info:

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Who's Hiring in Media?

Commissioning Editor - Practical Law — Reuters

Energy Markets Reporter, London — WSJ

Oil Reporter, Singapore — Bloomberg

Newsperson - State Govt. & Politics, CA — AP

Business Reporter, SC — Post & Courier

State Government Reporter, WA — Seattle Times

Climate Crisis Columnist — Prospect UK

Multimedia Journalist, CA — Paramount

Community Engagement Mgr., DC — Freedom Forum

Staff Writer - Business, NY — WIRED

Editor, MA — Nieman Reports

Team Editor - Breaking News, ON — Toronto Star

Senior Reporter & Event Host, NY/CA — Newcomer

Climate & Weather Reporter, MN — Star Tribune

Senior Tech Editor, Remote US — The Verge

News Reporter, MA — Berkshire Eagle

Multimedia Journalist, PA — Observer-Reporter

Managing Editor, WA — Everett Herald

Private Credit Reporter, NY — Debtwire

Legislative Reporter, CA — Sacramento Bee

Reporter, PA — Tribune-Review

Visual Editor, Remote — Rest of World

Staff Writer, MI — Watershed Voice

California Playbook Writer, CA — Politico

Senior Media Editor — Digiday

National Investigative Reporter, NY — HuffPost

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More News:

Dallas Morning News:
Belo, parent of Dallas Morning News, says it will outsource much ad creation and production work to Gannett, resulting in 45 layoffs

Discussion: @nbj914 and News & Tech

Alvin Chang / Vox:
Analysis of 17 months of Fox and Friends transcripts shows how hosts speak to Trump, including using “we” statements, using “the president” not by name

Discussion: Washington Post, Politico, bookforum.com and @jayrosen_nyu

Etan Vlessing / Hollywood Reporter:
Lionsgate beats estimates with Q1 net income of $174M, up from $1.3M last year, including $201M gain from Epix equity sale, on revenue of $1.01B

Discussion: Variety, Deadline, The Wrap, Deadline, Variety and Lionsgate

Earlier Picks:

David Uberti / Splinter:
Breitbart names a NYT reporter working on story about government secrecy, lists those who received email from her, and says the reporting demonstrates collusion

Discussion: Breitbart, Mediaite, Washington Post, Media Matters for America, @jdawsey1, @bradheath, @postscottwilson, @ryansabalow, @janemayernyer, @samuelaadams, @andrewperezdc, @nickconfessore and @johnmcquaid

Franklin Foer / The Atlantic:
Franklin Foer, former editor of the New Republic, on Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes' failed attempt to turn around the magazine's fortunes

Discussion: Recode, @rafat, @thetomasrios, @vanessaw and @digidave

Samuel Gibbs / The Guardian:
HBO hackers demand a multimillion-dollar ransom and release emails, scripts, and personal phone numbers of GoT stars in latest dump of stolen data

Discussion: Wired, Polygon, The Verge, Vanity Fair, Variety and New York Times

From Techmeme:

Financial Times:
Sources: the US FTC plans to investigate allegations that Microsoft is abusing its market power in productivity software to prevent customers from leaving Azure

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI says the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS can now read code from some developer-focused apps, including VS Code, Xcode, TextEdit, Terminal, and iTerm2

David Pierce / The Verge:
Google releases a free Gemini app for iOS, letting users ask questions, chat via text, voice, or their camera, and use the conversational mode Gemini Live

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