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, The New York Observer, The Wrap, AOL, Fast Company, Mediaite, Coffee House, Washington Post, Business Insider, The Guardian, Jezebel, Vanity Fair, Refinery29, The Daily Caller, Axios, Fortune, @isaacdovere, @maggienyt, @eisingerj, bookforum.com, New York Magazine, Slate, Decider, Bloomberg, People.com, Hollywood Reporter, thecut, Hollywood Life, @jimwaterson, IndieWire, KTLA, @anthony, The Week, East Bay Times, Variety, Splinter, The Daily Beast, The Big Lead and TV Tattle
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, @jbenton, @mack_oxenden, @jennamargaretta, @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:
@cwarzel, @mat, @noupside, @emilybell, @derekwillis, @harrisalexc, @harrisalexc, @marxmedia, @hashtaggriswold, Poynter and Media Matters for America
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:
The Daily Dot, PC Magazine, The Verge, Techdirt, The Outline, Electronic Frontier Foundation, @cdgoldstein, Boing Boing, Billboard, TorrentFreak, @felixsalmon, Engadget, @bergmayer, @franklomonte, @theauburner, @jeffjarvis, @medialawprof, @craigcalcaterra, @ericgoldman, @eriqgardner, @petersterne, @andrewdfish, @jeffjohnroberts and @annalecta, more at Techmeme »
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 Couser, @wired, Fast Company, @nitashatiku, Jonathan Albright, @ilvestoomas, @profcarroll and @justinhendrix
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 and @jeffjarvis
RELATED:
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 »
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
Press Gazette:
Istanbul court sentences six journalists, including Ahmet and Mehmet Altan and Nazli Ilicak, to life sentences for involvement in 2016 coup — A court in Istanbul has sentenced six journalists accused of involvement in a 2016 coup attempt to life prison terms, according to Turkey's state-run news agency.
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