Top News:
Dave McNary / Variety:
Star Wars: The Last Jedi opened with a box-office gross of $45M, the second-largest Thursday preview in North America, behind The Force Awakens — The Force remains unstoppable as Disney-Lucasfilm's “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” opened with $45 million on Thursday night.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Deadline, Box Office Mojo, The New York Observer, AiPT!, CinemaBlend, Forbes, 89.3 KPCC, /Film, IndieWire, The A.V. Club, The Wrap, Fortune, Polygon, Forbes and UPROXX
Shruthi Muraleedharan / Facebook:
Facebook debuts Snooze, a News Feed feature to temporarily unfollow a person, Page, or group for 30 days — One of our core News Feed values is giving people more control. Over the next week, we're launching Snooze, which will give you the option to temporarily unfollow a person, Page or group for 30 days.
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, The Guardian, Forbes, TechCrunch, Pocket-lint, The Ringer, UPROXX, The Verge, iDownloadBlog.com, Variety, VentureBeat, Mashable, Axios, CNET, Daily Mail, TIME, Engadget, Business Insider and Mashable, more at Techmeme »
Yashar Ali / HuffPost:
Ten current and former Fox News on-air staffers say they faced harassment by execs and talent, refuting Rupert Murdoch's dismissal of allegations as “nonsense” — The media mogul said claims of rampant sexual harassment at the network are “nonsense.”
Discussion:
@badfoxgraphics, Media Matters for America, The Wrap, UPROXX, Mediaite, New York Times and Forbes
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
How Ridley Scott replaced Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World in just 9 days, amidst Sony's heavy publicity push and award buzz — LOS ANGELES — The sun was setting on Nov. 7, when Christopher Plummer arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan for a secret, hastily arranged meeting.
Discussion:
@nytimes, Vanity Fair, @abc and IndieWire
Ryan J. Reilly / HuffPost:
Assistant US Attorney Rizwan Qureshi calls journalist's knowledge of terms “black bloc” and “kettle” suspicious in Trump inauguration felony cases — The U.S. government told a D.C. jury that six people — including a photographer and two medics — “agreed to destroy your city.”
Jason Parham / Wired:
How headlines at black gossip blog Bossip, like those at the earlier MediaTakeout, use drama, humor, and insider terminology to appeal to niche readers — OUT OF THE typhoon that was Alabama's special senate election, it was black women in particular who showed up in force for Doug Jones, the Democratic challenger.
Discussion:
@_blackmuses
Rebecca Leber / Mother Jones:
Environmental Protection Agency signed a no-bid $120K contract with Republican opposition research firm Definers Corp., to help track and shape press coverage — It promises “war room” style media monitoring. … Using taxpayer dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency has hired …
Michael Wolff / Hollywood Reporter:
A look at the dynamics among Rupert Murdoch and his children, and how their business interests may have influenced the Disney deal — When the media titan unloads the bulk of Fox to Disney rather than letting it pass to his heirs, it proves he has always has had a favorite Murdoch — himself.
Discussion:
CNNMoney, Bloomberg and Broadcasting & Cable
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Peter Kafka / Recode:
Splice, a startup that sells digital tools and music samples to musicians, raises $35M in Series B funding — Steve Martocci's first company was a text messaging service. Now he's behind the scenes of a Demi Lovato song. — Making money selling songs is hard: Just ask Spotify …
Discussion:
Billboard, Business Wire and hypebot
Peter Dreier / American Prospect:
Bill Moyers, one of the most prolific and influential figures in American journalism, retires again, from BillMoyers.com — Bill Moyers has threatened to retire several times. Each time, the many fans and friends have urged the legendary PBS journalist to reconsider, and each time he did.
Discussion:
BillMoyers.com, @peterdreier, @nicholsuprising, @billmoyers and @randycoppinger
Tony Romm / Recode:
A coalition of state attorneys general, led by the New York AG, pledge to sue the FCC for repealing net neutrality rules — States like Washington and New York are gearing up to fight the FCC's recent repeal — The United States is about to go to war with itself over net neutrality.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Talking New Media, New York Times, Metro, Ars Technica, CityLab, The Verge, Bustle, Ars Technica, Fast Company, The New York Observer, kottke.org, The Montana Post, Fortune, @matthewstoller, Forbes, U.S. Senator Ed Markey …, Washington State, New York Magazine, Talking Biz News, 9to5Mac, New York Times, The Verge, Free Press, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check and MacRumors, more at Techmeme »
Isaac Stone Fish / Washington Post:
After China's Integrated Whale Media bought a majority stake in Forbes in 2014, several cases of editorial meddling have raised questions about independence — When a Chinese company buys a major American magazine, does the publication censor its coverage of China?
Discussion:
@mathewi, Talking Biz News, @stinson, @gwbstr, @raykwong, @raju, @bethanyallenebr, @anderscorr, @john_hudson, @melissakchan and @whitebison66
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Iger plans to make Hulu the outlet for Fox's more “adult-oriented product”; whether Disney will try to buy out Comcast's and TimeWarner's stakes remains unclear — Nothing will change immediately at Hulu in the wake of Disney's $52 billion deal with 21st Century Fox.
Discussion:
Forbes, The New York Observer, The A.V. Club, The Guardian and Los Angeles Times
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