Top News:
Joe Pompeo / Vanity Fair:
Sources: CNN to target savings on digital by eliminating up to ~50 jobs worldwide this week; cuts to affect CNN Money, video, product, tech, social publishing — A year ago, CNN was positioning itself as ready to take on Vice and BuzzFeed in the digital space.
Discussion:
@brianstelter, Deadline, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Radio and TV Talk, The Wrap, The Hill, TVNewser, Mediaite, @kevglobal and @joepompeo
The Daily Beast:
Sources: billionaire financiers behind Ben Shapiro's The Daily Wire website in talks to buy Glenn Beck's TheBlaze — The people who head Ben Shapiro's conservative news site are in talks to buy Glenn Beck's troubled media empire TheBlaze, The Daily Beast has learned.
Discussion:
@simonmaloy, Mediaite, The Wrap and All Access Music Group
John Battelle / NewCo Shift:
Former IAB board member questions Unilever's boycott of Facebook and Google, says major advertisers have little influence on platforms — P&G, Unilever and others are throwing their weight around with Google and Facebook. The platforms can afford to ignore them.
Discussion:
CNNMoney, Business Insider and The Drum
RELATED:
Charles Riley / CNNMoney:
Unilever marketing boss Keith Weed threatens to pull advertising from Facebook, Google, and other digital platforms, citing fake news, among other concerns
Unilever marketing boss Keith Weed threatens to pull advertising from Facebook, Google, and other digital platforms, citing fake news, among other concerns
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, MediaNama, Tubefilter, The New York Observer, AdExchanger, Fortune, The Guardian, The Verge, Reuters, The Hill, The Guardian, Financial Times, Fast Company, NBC News, USA Today, Gizmodo, Quartz, @mattgemmell, @danjokaz00ie, @hadas_gold, @fmanjoo, @mattgarrahan, @sarafischer, @rosenbergerlm, @slpng_giants, @provoost, @awallenstein, BBC and TechCrunch
Laura M. Holson / New York Times:
Profile of MSNBC host Joy Reid, whose Saturday show AM Joy averages nearly 1M weekly viewers and has found popularity on Twitter as a leader of the #resistance — The daughter of immigrants, she spars fiercely with supporters of President Trump, both on the air and in the Twitter ether.
Discussion:
@jamilsmith, TVNewser and Bookforum
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
eMarketer says Facebook lost ~2.8M US users under 25 in 2017, predicts it will lose ~2.1M in 2018; Instagram's US users will grow 13%, Snapchat's by 9% in 2018 — That's according to research firm eMarketer. — Facebook is losing young users even quicker than expected, according to new estimates by eMarketer.
Discussion:
CNBC, The Wrap, @dhh, Vanity Fair, VentureBeat, The Wrap, TechCrunch, The Week, Quartz, @taylorlorenz, Ad Age, ZDNet, Quartz, Fast Company, USA Today, Gizmodo and The Daily Beast, more at Techmeme »
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Facebook to allow publisher paywalls in its iOS app starting 3/1; users get five articles before being asked to pay, publishers get 100% subscription revenue — Apple is allowing Facebook to bend the subscription rules. Starting March 1st, news publishers will be able to use their paywalls inside Facebook's iOS app.
Discussion:
Fast Company, Press Gazette, Recode, MacRumors, @joshconstine, @dansinker, Hollywood Reporter and 9to5Mac, more at Techmeme »
Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:
Google launches dev preview of AMP stories for publishers today with Snapchat-like swipeable text, photos, and videos, considers integrating stories into search — The format doesn't support advertising yet, which could slow its adoption among publishers — Alphabet Inc.'s GOOGL .79% Google unveiled …
Aditi Sangal / Digiday:
As podcasts struggle to be discovered on social media, producers add video, newsletters, and WhatsApp and Facebook groups to gain traction — As social media platforms have pivoted to video, they've gotten publishers to adapt. But one medium has been left out: podcasts.
Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:
Howard Kurtz' book Media Madness claims bias led to a “massive imbalance” between coverage of Trump and other presidents, expressed indignation at fair coverage — Media Madness: Donald Trump, the Press, and the War Over the Truth, Fox News media reporter Howard Kurtz's account …
Jana Winter / Foreign Policy:
Former Senior FBI Official Is Leading BuzzFeed's Effort to Verify Trump Dossier — Anthony Ferrante coordinated the U.S. government's response to Russian election interference. Now he's helping a news site defend itself from a Russian billionaire's lawsuit.
Discussion:
Slate, @desideriodc, @foreignpolicy, The Hill, @janawinter and The Week
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Otter Media, the joint venture of AT&T and the Chernin Group, names Tony Goncalves as CEO — Tony Goncalves, previously head of AT&T's digital brands group and a former DirecTV exec, is joining Otter Media as CEO of the company, the digital-media joint venture of the Chernin Group and AT&T.
Discussion:
Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, Multichannel News, Tubefilter, FierceCable, PR Newswire and VideoInk
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Facebook wants to build section inside Watch tab for news video, hasn't figured out how to measure “meaningful social interactions” after big News Feed update — “The metric is definitely evolving.” — When Facebook made its big News Feed update last month to prioritize posts …
Discussion:
Engadget, @kurtwagner8 and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »