Mediagazer: Reddit on Russian propaganda: hundreds of accounts removed, few Russian ads were seen and are now disallowed, @TEN_GOP tweets amplified by “thousands” on Reddit (Kurt Wagner/Recode)

8:10 PM ET, March 5, 2018

Top News:

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

Early estimates from Nielsen suggest ratings for Sunday's 90th Academy Awards dropped significantly since last year's show — Live viewership of the 90th annual Academy Awards ceremony was down significantly from the 2017 telecast, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings for ABC's nearly four-hour telecast.

Kurt Wagner / Recode:

Reddit on Russian propaganda: hundreds of accounts removed, few Russian ads were seen and are now disallowed, @TEN_GOP tweets amplified by “thousands” on Reddit — Reddit didn't find any Russian ads about the 2016 election, but there was plenty of non-ad content being shared.

Discussion: reddit, Washington Post, Slate, @laobserved, CNET, Fortune, Engadget, @fraying, The Hill, Motherboard, @kurtwagner8, @craigsilverman, @tonyromm, @jayrosen_nyu, @jaydolan, @oneunderscore__ and @chrisella, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / Recode:

ESPN names Jimmy Pitaro as new president of ESPN and co-chair of Disney Media Networks; he's currently head of Disney consumer products and interactive — He's the man many people thought Bob Iger would pick to run the sports giant. — Disney is poised to make an internal hire to run ESPN …

Discussion: Deadline, ESPN, Ad Age, The Walt Disney Company, Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, Business Insider, Radio & Television …, TVNewser, New York Times, Bloomberg, CNNMoney, The Daily Caller, Awful Announcing and Mediaite

Jay Solomon / Columbia Journalism Review:

Journalist Jay Solomon lost his job as a foreign correspondent with the Wall Street Journal after being targeted by hackers who were likely state sponsored — How hacked emails and a yacht in Monaco ended my career — Off the coast of Monaco in the summers of 2014 and 2015 …

Discussion: @nxthompson and @jpodhoretz

Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:

Google is selling US restaurant review guide Zagat, which it bought for $151M in 2011, to restaurant review company The Infatuation for an undisclosed sum — When Google agreed to buy Zagat for $151 million nearly seven years ago, the technology giant intended to bring the restaurant review empire into the digital age.

Discussion: The Infatuation, TechCrunch, Eater, Forbes, Engadget, Search Engine Land, Fortune and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Joey Rhyu / Facebook Media:

Facebook has been testing a breaking news label for articles, is expanding that beta to 50 more publishers in Latin America, North America, Europe, Australia — Earlier this year we made a commitment to show more high quality news on Facebook. People tell us they want to see informative news …

Discussion: @pkafka, Adweek, Fast Company, TechCrunch, @johncolucci, Engadget, @charlesarthur, Search Engine Journal, @abtran, @alexhern, @jessebrown and @moorehn, more at Techmeme »

Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac:

Netflix update lets parents set custom PINs for individual movies or shows and displays maturity level ratings at the moment of hitting play — Netflix today announced that it is updating its parental controls to create more detailed protection for young viewers.

Discussion: Netflix Media Center, MacRumors, East Bay Times, The Verge, VentureBeat and Mashable, more at Techmeme »

The New York Times Company:

The New York Times promotes Deputy Culture Editor Patrick Healy to role of politics editor — Patrick Healy has been named politics editor. Read more in this memo from Dean Baquet, Joe Kahn and Matt Purdy. — The midterm elections are shaping up as an epic battle …

Discussion: @mattgertz, @patrickhealynyt, @nycsouthpaw, @lpolgreen, @amychozick, @jswatz, @samsifton, @ashleyrparker, @anandwrites, @owillis, @samdolnick and @rpogrebin

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Cox Media's conservative site Rare, which was heavily reliant on Facebook traffic with 2.3M fans, is closing at the end of this month after launching in 2013 — Rare.us, the viral content site launched by Cox Media in 2013 to take on the ever-evolving digital landscape from a right of center lens …

Discussion: @kevinwglass, @joeperticone and @pfeifferdc

Frederic Filloux / Monday Note:

A “Spotify for News” won't work for the same reasons Spotify itself is struggling: competition from the “big four” in tech, which will ramp up over time — Spotify's IPO is scheduled for this spring. Its SEC Filing offers an interesting perspective on the future of the news industry.

Discussion: One Man & His Blog

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

A look at NewsGuard, led by Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, which has raised $6M and plans to use journalists to rate reliability of ~7,500 online news sources — Media entrepreneur Steven Brill thinks there's something missing from all the efforts to separate fake news from the real kind: Some smart and discerning humans.

Discussion: Nieman Lab, Adweek, @andrewmseaman, CNNMoney, @ibarguen, @pilhofer, @bareham2016, @kris_sacrebleu, @maxboot, @sulliview and @brianstelter

Gardiner Harris / New York Times:

State Department has spent $0 of the $120M allocated by Congress since late-2016 to counter foreign efforts to meddle in elections or sow distrust in democracy — WASHINGTON — As Russia's virtual war against the United States continues unabated with the midterm elections approaching …

Discussion: The New York Observer, Washington Post, Fox News Insider, bookforum.com, The Week, Slate and @natashabertrand, more at Techmeme »

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More News:

Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:
Facebook hires Matthew Henick, who was leading BuzzFeed's push into TV and films, to oversee global video content strategy and planning

Discussion: TechCrunch, Matthew Henick and @stevekovach

Kerry Flynn / Mashable:
Kickstarter, Foursquare, Etsy, Shutterstock, Expa, and Automattic sue FCC over net neutrality rule changes, following other actions from the tech industry

Discussion: The Hill and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Jackie Strause / Hollywood Reporter:
Ryan Seacrest hosts E! network's pre-Oscars show, following allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct claims by ex-stylist Suzie Hardy

Discussion: Washington Post, Mediaite, East Bay Times and The FADER

Mars Woo / DealStreetAsia:
Bilibili, China's biggest video streaming platform for anime, is planning an IPO in the US and hopes to raise $400M

Discussion: Variety

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
The world - and Hollywood - has changed since last year's Oscars, thanks to courageous reporting by the press on men like Harvey Weinstein

Discussion: @elizwgreen, @marinafang, @1312sam, @paulkingsley7, @briannolan1974, @eduardosuarez and @sulliview

Earlier Picks:

Tom McKay / Gizmodo:
YouTube says it did not tell Alex Jones his Infowars channel would be deleted from the site on Sunday; as of Sunday evening, it was still available

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Tubefilter, BetaNews and TechCrunch

Joseph Bernstein / BuzzFeed:
Profile of PragerU, a nonprofit site whose five minute explainer videos, presented by well-known conservative pundits, have amassed 1B+ YouTube, Facebook views

Discussion: The Outline

Carlotta Gall / New York Times:
Turkish government attempts to clamp down on country's digital media with proposed law which will make broadcasting via internet illegal without a license

Discussion: pulse.ng

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:
Profile of Outlier Media, a free text message-based news service for low-income residents in Detroit offering to check the public record of houses or landlords

From Techmeme:

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic raised an additional $4B from Amazon, will make AWS its primary cloud partner, and is working with Annapurna Labs to develop new Trainium accelerators

The Information:
Sources: OpenAI considered developing a browser, discussed deals to power AI features on Samsung devices and search on sites and apps from Condé Nast and others

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is testing a more conversational Siri version, dubbed “LLM Siri”, with plans to release it as early as spring 2026 as part of iOS 19 and macOS 16

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