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.
Discussion:
Deadline, Mediaite, Hollywood Reporter, Forbes, Mediaite, @areyoutherezod, @thr, Ad Age, @poniewozik, TVWeek.com, Vanity Fair, The New York Observer, The Daily Caller, Rolling Stone, Broadcasting & Cable, Fortune, The A.V. Club, VideoNuze Analysis, TVNewser, Business Insider and FierceCable
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, CNET, Engadget, Fortune, @fraying, @tonyromm, @oneunderscore__, The Hill, @kurtwagner8, @jaydolan, @chrisella, Motherboard, @craigsilverman and @jayrosen_nyu, 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 …
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:
@jpodhoretz
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, @abtran, Search Engine Journal, @alexhern, @jessebrown and @moorehn, more at Techmeme »
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 »
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
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 »
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
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 »
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
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:
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