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.
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 and Slate, 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:
@nycsouthpaw, @amychozick, @rpogrebin, @lpolgreen, @anandwrites, @mattgertz, @patrickhealynyt, @jswatz, @samsifton, @ashleyrparker, @owillis and @samdolnick
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:
TechCrunch and Engadget, 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, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Engadget, The Verge and Mashable
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:
CNNMoney, @ibarguen, @pilhofer, @bareham2016, @kris_sacrebleu, @maxboot, @sulliview and @brianstelter
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
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 — A right-wing online “university” is on track for a billion views in 2018, its professors are some of the best-known conservatives in media …
Discussion:
The Outline
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, CNNMoney, The Walt Disney Company, Broadcasting & Cable, ESPN, Hollywood Reporter and Awful Announcing
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 — The world has changed since last year's Oscars — and for the better. — So let's not forget what got us there: great journalism.
Discussion:
@elizwgreen, @briannolan1974, @eduardosuarez, @1312sam, @marinafang, @paulkingsley7 and @sulliview
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
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 — ISTANBUL — Having already brought Turkey's mainstream media to heel, and made considerable headway in rolling back Turkish democracy …
Discussion:
pulse.ng
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 — Conspiracy theorist and Infowars founder Alex Jones, that guy who thinks the government is flooding waterways with chemicals that turn frogs gay …
Discussion:
Media Matters for America, Tubefilter, BetaNews and TechCrunch
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