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, Mediaite, Columbia Journalism Review, The Wrap, The New York Observer, AOL, Business Insider, Fast Company, FOX31 Denver, Coffee House, Washington Post, Jezebel, Axios, Refinery29, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, thecut, @isaacdovere, Hollywood Life, @jimwaterson, IndieWire, BloombergQuint, KTLA, @anthony, The Week, The Daily Caller, East Bay Times, Decider, @maggienyt, Variety, Splinter, Fortune, The Daily Beast, @eisingerj, bookforum.com, Hollywood Reporter, People.com, Slate, The Big Lead and TV Tattle
CNBC:
US indicts 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian entities, including Internet Research Agency, in Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 elections — - Special counsel Robert Mueller said a grand jury had indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Discussion:
New York Times, Mediaite, HuffPost, The New York Observer, Recode, Geller Report, The Guardian, WTKR-TV and Engadget, more at Techmeme »
RELATED:
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, Jonathan Albright, @nitashatiku, @wired, Jonathan Couser, Fast Company, @ilvestoomas, @profcarroll and @justinhendrix
Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
Covering Parkland shooting means balancing informing the audience with interviewing traumatized teenagers who may not be able to give informed consent — The morning after the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., NBC's “Today Show” aired a dramatic live interview Thursday.
Discussion:
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, @jennamargaretta, @jbenton, @mack_oxenden, @sulliview, New York Times and CNN
RELATED:
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:
Poynter, @cwarzel, @mat, @noupside, @emilybell, @derekwillis, @harrisalexc, @harrisalexc, @marxmedia and @hashtaggriswold
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 in New York rules that by embedding a tweet with copyrighted content, websites may violate copyright, rejecting years of settled legal precedent — 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.”
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, Fast Company, Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Daily Dot, PC Magazine, @jbenton, The Verge, Billboard, Techdirt, @cdgoldstein, TorrentFreak, @felixsalmon, The Outline, Boing Boing, Engadget, @eriqgardner, @bergmayer, @franklomonte, @theauburner, @jeffjarvis, @medialawprof, @craigcalcaterra, @ericgoldman, @petersterne, @andrewdfish, @jeffjohnroberts and @annalecta, more at Techmeme »
Aoife White / Bloomberg:
Belgian court rules Facebook is illegally collecting user data via cookies on third party sites, must remove data, threatens €250K/day fines for noncompliance — Fine of up to 250,000 euros a day if company doesn't comply — Social network to appeal, says cookies are industry standard
Discussion:
The Guardian and Reuters, more at Techmeme »
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
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, @nickwoltman and @bobmcgovernjr
BBC:
Facebook complies with demand of Russia's internet censor to remove Instagram video by opposition activist Alexei Navalny, but the video remains on YouTube — Instagram has blocked posts in Russia relating to corruption claims made by the country's most prominent opposition leader.
Discussion:
CNBC, Fast Company, Gizmodo, @wendysiegelman, BuzzFeed, @paulachertok, TechCrunch, Washington Post, Associated Press and Telegraph, more at Techmeme »
Shan Wang / Nieman Lab:
At the Digital News Initiative Summit on Thursday, Google previewed a “Subscribe with Google” feature in Google Play for publishers who use paywalls — Hey, Google — how do we solve the news industry's various revenue problems? — Google gave a preview of some features it's …
Discussion:
@marcusschwarze, @jeffjarvis, @jeffjarvis and Digiday, more at Techmeme »