Top News:
Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:
Sources: local TV anchors at Sinclair stations are concerned about mandatory on-air corporate promos that claim national media outlets publish fake news — “This is so manipulative.” — That's an anchor at a local TV station owned by Sinclair, describing the company's latest mandate …
RELATED:
Todd Shields / Bloomberg:
Sinclair executes agreements to sell New York and Chicago TV stations to entities with ties to Sinclair's executive chairman; Sinclair would operate stations — Sinclair seeking to trim holdings in deal to buy Tribune — Sales of big stations executed, Sinclair says in FCC filings
Discussion:
@stopthecap, Broadcasting & Cable and Variety
Wall Street Journal:
Univision board chair says CEO Randy Falco plans to retire at end of 2018, earlier than planned; sources say a company review could lead to cost cuts of ~$200M — After canceling IPO plans, Spanish-language broadcaster explores cost cuts to ready company for a potential sale
Discussion:
Deadline, Variety, TVWeek.com, Multichannel News, Hollywood Reporter, @brianstelter, CNNMoney and The Wrap
RELATED:
Paul Bond / Hollywood Reporter:
Univision withdraws its long-delayed IPO, citing “prevailing market conditions”, announces that Peter Lori will replace Frank Lopez-Balboa as CFO — Francisco Lopez-Balboa is out and Peter Lori has been promoted as chief financial officer. — Univision Communications is canceling …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Forbes, @gerryfsmith, Axios and Multichannel News
David Beard / Poynter:
Brandy Zadrozny, a librarian and researcher at The Daily Beast who uncovered Russia's troll farm, Eric Trump's charity, moves to NBC News as a national reporter — Earlier in this decade, Brandy Zadrozny had been happy in Vermont, baking pies, cross-country skiing, working at the Burlington Public Library …
Discussion:
@oneunderscore__, @michellerafter and @dabeard
Wall Street Journal:
Newsweek Media Group says it fired two engineers connected with code that inflated ad metrics, says it removed code; some ad tech firms cut ties with company — Newsweek's international sites ran code that allegedly generated invalid traffic; Newsweek Media Group says it has removed the code, fired two employees linked to issues
Discussion:
PR Newswire, @baekdal, @jason_kint, @jbenton, @larakiara, @keithrhernandez, @srabil and Talking Biz News
RELATED:
Alex Heath / Cheddar:
Sources: Snap plans layoffs to its engineering department, the largest layoffs to date; source says about 100 people, less than 10% of the unit, are affected — Snap Inc. is preparing its largest round of layoffs to date, Cheddar has learned. — The Snapchat-maker plans to announce …
Discussion:
CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, GeekWire, VideoInk, Variety, The Verge, TechCrunch, The Hill, Business Insider, @danprimack, @kurtwagner8, Fast Company and Recode, more at Techmeme »
Rhett Jones / Gizmodo:
NYT editor using “Millennials to Snake People” Chrome extension swapped “Great Recession” for “Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks” in post, had to write correction — Text-altering browser extensions are all fun and games until you forget to turn them off in the most awkward situations possible.
Discussion:
The A.V. Club, @emjbanks, @coolranchzaku, @m_delamerced, @pvolpe, @bencasselman, @sinderbrand, Mashable, @jswatz, @ylindaqiu, @bankonjustin, @echinocrepis, New York Magazine and New York Times
Meg James / Los Angeles Times:
Tronc says FTC and DOJ have approved sale of LA Times as company reports Q4 loss of $373K on revenue of $435M, up 2.3% YoY; print ad revenue down 11.2% — Federal regulators have approved Los Angeles billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong's planned purchase of the Los Angeles Times …
Discussion:
Deadline, Chicago Tribune, tronc, inc., TVWeek.com and Associated Press
David Streitfeld / New York Times:
In an interview, Peter Thiel says he is pursuing Gawker through the courts because Terry Bollea is owed money and does not plan to destroy site's archives — Peter Thiel is Silicon Valley's homegrown Cassandra. He warned for years that the big tech companies were arrogant and clueless and less good for mankind than they believed.
Discussion:
@karaswisher, @pkafka, @stevecase, @karaswisher, @pinboard, @anildash, East Bay Times, Mediaite, @trickfreee, Axios, @mikedelmoro, @scottmaustin, @alexeheath, @ceciliakang, @bykowicz, @joshuabrustein, @johnjcook, @viacristiano, @katierogers, @caseynewton, @mhbergen, @espiers and @sparkyrandles, more at Techmeme »
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Verge:
Profile of Know Your Meme, a website and video series that has been documenting viral online content and internet meme culture for over ten years — After 10 years of documenting memes, nobody has seen this much shit — Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales; Illustrations by Garret Beard
Armin Rosen / Fast Company:
Activists documenting Syrian war say YouTube takedowns and restorations of videos in 2017 left 200K+ videos offline with deletions now continuing at slower pace — Thousands of videos, some of which offer crucial evidence of war crimes, have been deleted via the platform's algorithms.
Discussion:
@arminrosen, more at Techmeme »