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The Atlantic fires columnist Kevin Williamson after first defending some of his earlier commentary, including that women should be hanged for having abortions — The Atlantic on Thursday fired conservative columnist Kevin Williamson after it became apparent that his belief that women …
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Media Matters for America, HuffPost, CNNMoney, @ewerickson, New York Times, Washington Post, Adweek, Mediaite, @jessicavalenti, Daily Wire, @jessicavalenti, The New York Observer, The Wrap, @noahcrothman, Vox, ThinkProgress, @kristinerudolph, @jillfilipovic, Jezebel, The Federalist, Hit & Run, @benshapiro, @noahcrothman, @mattgertz, @sulliview, @mlcalderone, Slate, iMediaEthics, TheBlaze, Politico, Mother Jones, @ilyseh, @ifwhenhow, @wentrogue, Boing Boing, @anildash, @alexyablon, @stephstephking, @jray05, @maggieserota, @libbycwatson, @danilizsky, @austin_walker, @jamilsmith, @shakestweetz, @joeconason, @robbysoave, @wentrogue, @jljacobson, thecut, The Daily Caller, @leannenaramore and Boing Boing


AMC, owned by Dalian Wanda, wins the first cinema operating license in Saudi Arabia after a 35-year ban on public theaters, will open 30+ cinemas in five years — Hollywood seeks keys to the Kingdom — America's biggest movie theater company is bringing the silver screen to Saudi Arabia.
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Variety, NPR, Fast Company, Reuters, The A.V. Club, CNET, @theundefeated, Slate, PAPER, The Daily Caller, The Verge, Fortune, IndieWire, Business Insider, io9 and The FADER


Facebook gets accreditation from Media Rating Council for first of three audits it committed to, validating ad impressions on Facebook News Feed and Instagram — The Media Ratings Council (MRC,) which has for decades acted as the de facto watchdog for the media and advertising industries …
Discussion:
Adweek, Adweek, Ad Age, Media Rating Council and AdExchanger


Q&A with Rob Byers, the laid-off son of a coal miner who worked at WVA newspapers for over 26 years, on covering coal and politicians, and uncertainty in media — And Rob Byers is out of a job. — Two days after graduating from West Virginia University in 1991, Rob Byers joined …
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@sulliview, @davidfolkenflik, @robbyerswv, @rachelmolenda, @nickriccardi, @citizencohn, @hberkes, @jacquib and @marinafang


Twitter says it suspended 274K accounts for promoting terrorism in last six months of 2017, bringing total to 1.2M since August 2015 — It suspended more than 274,000 accounts just in the last six months of 2017. — Twitter suspended more than 1.2 million accounts that were promoting terrorism …
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Twitter, Forbes, Fortune, GeekWire, ZDNet, Engadget, TechCrunch, CNET, Business Insider, Fast Company, The Outline and Los Angeles Times, more at Techmeme »


Cambridge Analytica denies Facebook's claim that it accessed data on 87M Facebook users, claims it “licensed data for no more than 30M people” — Cambridge Analytica is refuting a report by Facebook today that said Cambridge Analytica improperly attained data on up to 87 million users.
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Facebook, Politico, Slate, Recode, Fortune, 9to5Google, @patrickesque, Yourstory.com, BBC, Mashable, The Ringer, BuzzFeed, Mumbrella and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »
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MoviePass parent company acquires Moviefone from Oath for $15M; Oath will continue selling Moviefone's digital ad inventory — MoviePass is saying “Hello — and welcome to Moviefone!" — Helios and Matheson Analytics, the majority owner of MoviePass, announced the acquisition of Moviefone from Verizon's Oath subsidiary.
Discussion:
Adweek, /Film, Business Wire, Deadline, Forbes, Business Insider, Android Police, @tim_stevens, Hollywood Reporter, TechCrunch, The Wrap and Fortune, more at Techmeme »


The Paris Review names a new editor: Emily Nemens, co-editor of The Southern Review, who hopes to strike “a balance between stewardship and innovation” — Emily Nemens, a co-editor of The Southern Review, seems agnostic and omnivorous when it comes to narrative mediums.


Knight study of local TV news: revenues and viewership are rising, and in smaller markets, TV news websites are the dominant local news source — In many smaller markets, it's local TV stations' websites — not newspapers' sites! — that are the dominant digital local news source.
Discussion:
Informed and Engaged and Poynter


NBCU debuts CFlight metric, which adds up exposure via broadcast, cable, and streaming and counts completed views of commercials, as audience metrics multiply — - Jason Chaffetz, Katie Pavlich, Brian Kilmeade and Pete Hegseth to Sub for Laura Ingraham on Fox News
Discussion:
Deadline, Broadcasting & Cable, AdExchanger and FierceCable


Conde Nast has a median pay gap of 23.3% despite a female majority at every pay level; The Economist Group's 29.5% median pay gap is the highest in UK media — Conde Nast has the largest mean gender pay gap favouring men among all UK publishers and broadcasters, but, when the median is taken …
Discussion:
Forbes, BuzzFeed, National Union of Journalists, @jamesrbuk, gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk, Digiday and WIRED UK


Report on Facebook's fact-checking partnerships examines the struggles of tech companies teaming up with news orgs, details distrust and lack of transparency — Facebook and five US news and fact-checking organizations—ABC News, the Associated Press, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and Snopes …
Discussion:
The Wrap, The Verge, @writemegwrite, @alkapdc, @seanrobinsontnt, @grahamstarr, @jon_allsop, @michaelbkelley, @doplinger, @alaphia, @bgrueskin, @clancynewyork, @cwarzel, @towcenter and @jayrosen_nyu


Interview with Renée Kaplan, FT head of audience engagement, on appealing to more female subscribers via a newsletter, encouraging potential op-eds, and more — Only 20 percent of the FT's subscribers were women. Renée Kaplan, the paper's head of audience engagement, is doing a lot of things to change that.


Sinclair CEO David Smith defends his company's “must-run” segments on media bias, likens them to the late-night shows other networks air on local affiliates — David D. Smith, the chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, says the media is getting his company all wrong.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Vox, The Daily Beast, Washington Post, AOL, CBS Dallas, TVSpy, Mediaite, Center for Public Integrity, CNNMoney and @buzzfeedben