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 — WASHINGTON — Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, told House investigators on Tuesday that her work for President Trump …
Discussion:
CNN, Mediaite, Forbes, The Wrap, @chucktodd, Vanity Fair, The Mary Sue, Mother Jones, @bridgeproject21, The Daily Caller, Washington Post, Splinter, @chucktodd, New York Magazine, @magi_jay, AOL, @mobute, @brianbeutler, @amandacarpenter, @matthewamiller, @cristianafarias, @aubs89, @mmurraypolitics, @philippereines, @waltshaub, @sethabramson, @cahnemily, @jpbrammer, @drwestinfortx07, @brianklaas, PEN America, KTLA and The Root
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.
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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:
Recode, TechCrunch, Fast Company, The New York Observer, Recode, AdExchanger and Fortune, more at Techmeme »
Katie Roof / TechCrunch:
Spotify had 159M MAUs in December 2017, up 29% YoY, of which 71M were premium subs; CEO Daniel Ek owns 23.8% of the firm, co-founder Martin Lorentzon has 12.4% — Music streaming service Spotify is going public and they've just unveiled their filing. — The documents state that it is targeting …
Discussion:
@thekenyeung, more at Techmeme »
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
YouTube says some moderators misapplied policies, mistakenly removed some conspiracy and pro-gun videos and channels, will reinstate videos removed in error — Video site's human screening stumbles in a major early test — Episode shows challenge of spotting and removing content
Discussion:
Polygon, The Outline, The Verge, Engadget, The Next Web, The Hill, Motherboard, The Gateway Pundit, The Verge, Gizmodo and The Hill, more at Techmeme »
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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__
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
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.
Discussion:
@dangillmor, Washington Post and The Daily Caller
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Chris Ariens / TVNewser:
After devoting two nights of coverage to claim CNN scripted a question, Tucker Carlson told viewers there's no evidence “right now” the network did so
After devoting two nights of coverage to claim CNN scripted a question, Tucker Carlson told viewers there's no evidence “right now” the network did so
Discussion:
@carlsonsports and @moneyries
Associated Press:
Father of Florida shooting survivor admits altering an email from CNN that was sent to other news outlets amid controversy but says it wasn't on purpose
Father of Florida shooting survivor admits altering an email from CNN that was sent to other news outlets amid controversy but says it wasn't on purpose
Discussion:
Washington Post, Mediaite, ABC News, The Wrap, @joeconchatv, @farhip, @joshgreenman, @jameshasson20, @gregmitch, @parkermolloy, @morningmoneyben, @mattlaslo, @kfile, TV Tattle, Gizmodo, Mediaite, @daviduberti, @mccanner and @kfile
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 »
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 — https://apnews.com/0b2e032629694f85bf95 086832ea7641 — BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — An investigative journalist shot dead …
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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
Washington Post:
Analysis of posts on anonymous forums shows how extremists tried to undermine news reports and push conspiracy theories to broader media after Parkland shooting — Forty-seven minutes after news broke of a high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., the posters on the anonymous chat board 8chan …
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
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Daily Star editor Dawn Neesom has resigned and Daily Express editor Hugh Whittow is expected to resign Thursday following Trinity Mirror takeover — Job cuts to save £20m loom as Trinity Mirror completes buyout of Richard Desmond titles … The editors of the Daily Express and Daily Star …