Top News:
Ronan Farrow / New Yorker:
Since 2016, American Media has made Karen McDougal professional promises and paid $150K in a catch-and-kill arrangement for her story of her affair with Trump — One woman's account of clandestine meetings, financial transactions, and legal pacts designed to hide an extramarital affair.
Discussion:
@maggienyt, Columbia Journalism Review, Mediaite, AOL, The Wrap, New York Magazine, Variety, Axios, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Business Insider, East Bay Times, thecut, @anthony, Fortune, @jimwaterson, KTLA, Splinter, IndieWire, Hollywood Reporter, The Week, The Big Lead, Hollywood Life, The Daily Beast and New York Times
David Beard / Poynter:
Interview with The Intercept's Research Director Lynn Dombek on researchers, their skill sets, and their role in site's Dakota pipeline and Rob Porter stories — Move over, Woodward and Bernstein. — This era's great journalistic diggers include Julie Tate, Kitty Bennett, Alice Crites, Margot Williams and Sheelagh McNeill.
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
District court judge says using image from tweet in a news story could violate copyright, in a case involving multiple news outlets including Vox Media, Gannett — The defendants including Breitbart, Time, Vox and the Boston Globe warned a loss would “cause a tremendous chilling effect on the core functionality of the web.”
Craig Timberg / Washington Post:
New analysis shows 36K tweets from Internet Research Agency linked most often to Breitbart News, then Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle; RT ranked 19th — Russia's disinformation campaign during the 2016 presidential election relied heavily on stories produced by major American news sources …
Discussion:
Wired, Nieman Lab, @wired, @nitashatiku, Fast Company, Jonathan Albright, @ilvestoomas, @profcarroll and @justinhendrix
Brian Dowling / Boston Herald:
Digital First Media has acquired the Boston Herald in a bankruptcy auction with an $11.9M bid, beating out GateHouse Media and Revolution Capital — Digital First Media won the Boston Herald in a five-hour bankruptcy auction with an $11.9million bid that all but settles who will carry …
Discussion:
BostonGlobe.com and @bobmcgovernjr
Jane Lytvynenko / BuzzFeed:
Reporter's outreach to shooting survivors via Twitter was hindered by accounts falsifying her words and targeting her; Twitter said targeting didn't break rules — In the wake of the Florida high school shooting Wednesday, Twitter users began spreading doctored tweets targeting Miami Herald reporter Alex Harris.
Discussion:
@cwarzel, @mat, @noupside, @emilybell, @derekwillis, @marxmedia, @harrisalexc, Poynter, @hashtaggriswold, @harrisalexc and Media Matters for America
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Magna Global: TV ad sales in the US fell 7.8% to $61.8B in 2017, the biggest drop outside a recession in at least 20 years, with no sign of a pickup in 2018 — Sales drop last year was worst outside a recession in 20 years — The peak of the market was two years ago, Magna Global says
Mark Glover / Sacramento Bee:
McClatchy reports Q4 revenue of $244.7M, down 6.7% YoY, and net income of $60.4M, compared to $3.1M in Q4 2016; digital audience revenue up 8.2% — Sacramento-based newspaper publisher McClatchy on Friday reported a year-over-year gain in fourth quarter net income for 2017, with an accompanying boost in digital subscribers.
Discussion:
McClatchy
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
Congressman says office of FCC inspector general, a nonpartisan internal watchdog, is investigating the relationship between Ajit Pai and Sinclair Broadcasting — WASHINGTON — Last April, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, led the charge for his agency …
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Facebook partners with Lyft, Chase, Save the Children, and others to bolster its Community Help efforts by offering more information on food, transport, shelter — Facebook is amping up its Community Help efforts, now enabling companies like Lyft, Chase, International Medical Corps and Save …
Discussion:
Facebook, Forbes, Android Police, Engadget, Fast Company and Adweek, more at Techmeme »
Maane Khatchatourian / Variety:
Univision reports $3B revenue and $655M net income, says benefit from new tax law saw its tax rate reduce to ~24% from ~38% — U.S. Spanish-language media giant Univision Communications had both good and bad news to deliver during its fourth-quarter and 2017 year-end earnings report on Thursday.
Discussion:
Radio & Television …, Univision Communications and Broadcasting & Cable
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Chartbeat: AMP traffic to publishers increased 100% since 2017 as mobile dominates traffic growth; Parse.ly data shows Facebook referral traffic fell to 25.3% — According to new data from Chartbeat, the vast majority of traffic growth publishers are seeing from platforms is now coming from Google AMP …
Discussion:
Recode, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check, Digiday and Accelerated Mobile …, more at Techmeme »