Top News:
Maggie Haberman / New York Times:
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks says she's resigning in coming weeks; sources say she has been considering leaving for several months — Hope Hicks, the White House communications director and one of President Trump's longest-serving advisers, said Wednesday that she was resigning.
Discussion:
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Nicholas Fandos / New York Times:
Sources: White House Communications Director Hope Hicks told House investigators that her role sometimes required her to tell white lies on behalf of Trump
Discussion:
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Dan Primack / Axios:
Spotify files with SEC for $1B direct listing, will use SPOT as stock symbol; reports 71M paid subs, up 46% YoY, $4.09B revenue in 2017, up from $2.95B in 2016 — Music streaming giant Spotify today filed for a $1 billion IPO. Axios had previously reported on the company's confidential filing, but the new paperwork is public.
Discussion:
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Janko Rottgers / Variety:
Spotify says operating loss was $461.2M in 2017, up from $425M in 2016; average user streams 25 hours of audio a month, playlists generate 31% of all listening — Spotify officially filed for a public offering with the Security and Exchanges Commission Wednesday.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Recode, AdExchanger, The New York Observer, Fast Company and Fortune, more at Techmeme »
Peter Kafka / Recode:
Sony Music owns 5.7% of Spotify's shares, which is more than other music labels and potentially worth $1.1B based on a $20B valuation — Now it has to figure out how to divide that money with Beyonce and its other artists. — Spotify's coming IPO is validation for CEO Daniel Ek, who has built a giant music streaming business.
Recode:
Spotify's gross margin has grown from 16% to 21% from 2014 to 2017, but since it pays per stream, it still has to figure out how turn usage growth into profit
Discussion:
TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »
Taylor Lorenz / The Daily Beast:
The Oshry sisters, a family of Instagram stars, concealed the fact that their mother is Pamela Geller, an alt-right troll who was banned from entering the UK — Claudia, Jackie, Olivia, and Margo Oshry are a group of sisters in New York living the millennial dream, running viral Instagram accounts …
Discussion:
@jackdwagner, @taylorlorenz, @theperezhilton, @ariellec, @swin24, @mattzeitlin and @oneunderscore__
Akhil Arora / NDTV Gadgets 360:
Amazon Music launches in India as a free service for Prime members, available on Android, iOS, and the web — Amazon Music has been given a full-scale launch in India, the subscription-based music streaming service that's part of Amazon Prime membership. You can now access it via music.amazon.in …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, MediaNama, Firstpost, Ubergizmo, Music Business Worldwide, MediaNama, RAIN News, Android Central, The Next Web and TechCrunch
Jon Lafayette / Multichannel News:
NBCUniversal to decrease ads by 10% in original primetime programming on all of its television networks and reduce the number of commercials per break by 20% — New pods will feature just two commercials — NBCUniversal said it plans to decrease advertising time by 10% in original primetime programming …
Discussion:
Variety, Adweek, FierceCable and @markdavis
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter begins rolling out its Bookmarks feature, which lets users privately save tweets and has been in testing since October 2017, to all mobile users — Twitter today is publicly launching its “Bookmarks” feature, which has been in testing since late last year, following the company's HackWeek project dubbed #SaveForLater.
Discussion:
Adweek and Fast Company, more at Techmeme »
Paris Martineau / The Outline:
After removing some conspiracy and pro-gun videos and channels, YouTube says it will reinstate videos, which may have been removed in error by moderators — Looks like that whole “content moderation” thing wasn't a joke after all. — The Future — Looks like that whole “content moderation” thing wasn't a joke after all.
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Splinter, Motherboard, Gizmodo, Polygon, The Verge, Engadget, The Hill, The Verge, The Gateway Pundit, Gizmodo, The Next Web and The Hill, more at Techmeme »
Jeremy Barr / Hollywood Reporter:
Fox News host Sean Hannity joined colleague Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night in retracting story alleging CNN had scripted a high school student's question — The about-face from the Fox News hosts comes after a high school student's father admitted to inadvertently deleting words in an email to a CNN producer.
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Associated Press:
Two officials close to Slovak PM Robert Fico, who were named in slain journalist Jan Kuciak's last story, have resigned until investigation into murder is over — BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — An investigative journalist shot dead in Slovakia last week was working on a story about the activities …
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Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / WWD:
Vogue and Vice put on hold their collaboration, Project Vs, due to launch today; source says sexual harassment allegations at Vice caused loss of sponsorships — The project was put on hold after multiple sponsors got cold feet, according to sources. — Vice chief executive officer Shane Smith …
Discussion:
Digiday, Ad Age, The Business Journals and Daily Front Row
Kristen Hare / Poynter:
How a chat between two reporters who covered Pulse and Sutherland Springs mass shootings led to creation of a Facebook group for journalists covering trauma — The Orlando Sentinel reporter reached out to the San Antonio Express-News reporter on the night of Nov. 15, 2017.
Discussion:
@underoak, @kristenhare, @luluramadan, @luluramadan and @kristenhare
Mathew Ingram / Columbia Journalism Review:
Profile of The Disconnect, an online magazine featuring essays, fiction, and poetry that only reveals its content to readers when they disconnect from the web — At first glance, it seems like the ultimate paradox: A magazine that exists only on the internet, filled with content …
Alexandra Steigrad / New York Post:
Source: Jay Penske sells minority stake of Penske Media Corp to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund for $200M+, valuing Penske's company around $1B — Jay Penske has sold a minority stake of his media company, Penske Media Corp., to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, The Post has learned.
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