Top News:
Jason Rezaian / Washington Post:
Reporters without Borders has released its annual press freedom report-card and the US is ranked 45th in the world; Philippines slid to #133 and Turkey to #157 — Last weekend, as Nicaragua's police brutally cracked down on protesters demonstrating against President Daniel Ortega …
Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:
Netflix orders one of its first shortform series, Follow This, a weekly docuseries following BuzzFeed News journalists as they work, premiering July 9 — The shortform series will follow the journalists at BuzzFeed News as they report a variety of stories.
Discussion:
YouTube, Nieman Lab, Columbia Journalism Review, Variety, @buzzfeedben, The Wrap, @mathewi, @journalistslike, @believekarolina, @azeen, @scaachi, @pranavdixit, The Daily Caller, Fast Company and Slate
New York Times:
Danish inventor Peter Madsen convicted of murdering journalist Kim Wall; court heard how he invited her on to his submarine with the intention of killing her — COPENHAGEN — A Danish inventor who admitted to dismembering a journalist and discarding her body from the submarine he built …
Discussion:
CNN, Politico, @kennwhite, @emilynussbaum, The Wrap, @erinlea7, @afreedma, @ap and Committee to Protect …
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
The Guardian halves its losses to £19M in the year to the end of March and is on track to break even in 2018 — Publisher reports smaller than expected loss of £19m as benefits of tabloid switch filter through — The publisher of the Guardian and Observer halved its losses …
Discussion:
@helenpidd
Sahil Patel / Digiday:
Viacom says it is working with Snap on multiyear original content and ad deal that would include Snapchat influencers in new and existing shows — Viacom and Snapchat are working together to create new shows that would star top Snapchat stars. — In a multiyear original content …
Discussion:
@kerrymflynn
RELATED:
Chronicle of Higher Education:
Drew Cloud, an “expert” on student loans quoted by WaPo, CNBC, and The Boston Globe, is a fictitious persona created by a student finance company — Drew Cloud is everywhere. The self-described journalist who specializes in student-loan debt has been quoted in major news outlets …
Discussion:
UPROXX, @mollyhc, @zittrain, @edpolicyhabash, @ralphehanson, @muckrakery, @trace_urdan, @dynarski and Talking Biz News
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube announces expanded opt-in YouTube Kids controls for parents, including locking down content to show only videos reviewed by humans — To address parents' concerns over inappropriate content on YouTube being seen by children, Google today is announcing an expanded series of parental controls for its YouTube Kids application.
Discussion:
USA Today, New York Times, The Verge, BBC, CNNMoney, Engadget, YouTube Blog and 9to5Google, more at Techmeme »
RELATED:
Jonathan Randles / Wall Street Journal:
Filing: Peter Thiel agrees to withdraw bid for Gawker website and archives, will give eventual buyer legal release for archived articles — Billionaire venture capitalist will sit out sale of dormant blog to avoid potential legal claims against him — Billionaire investor Peter Thiel …
Cale Guthrie Weissman / Fast Company:
Digg, formerly owned by Betaworks, has been sold to Boston-based ad-tech company BuySellAds; new CEO Todd Garland plans to streamline Digg and build up ad stack — Last month, Digg, an old beloved content aggregation destination, made the sad announcement to its loyal following that it was shutting down its RSS platform, Digg Reader.
Discussion:
@inafried and @caleweissman, more at Techmeme »
Justin Baragona / Contemptor:
Infosec expert for Joy Reid says significant evidence exists that her old blog was compromised and some recently circulated posts were not on site at any time — Earlier this week, Mediaite published a bombshell report on the discovery of a large number of homophobic posts that had been discovered …
Michael E. Kanell / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Pandora says it plans to add about 250 jobs in Atlanta over the next three years in engineering, sales, legal, and human resources — Pandora, the largest music streaming service in the U.S., has announced plans to add 250 jobs in Atlanta during the next three years.
Discussion:
Associated Press and Atlanta Business Journal
Jem Aswad / Variety:
US House unanimously passes Music Modernization Act to streamline licensing and ensure royalty protection for pre-1972 performances; bill now goes to Senate — As expected, the Music Modernization Act unanimously passed the House of Representatives Wednesday afternoon.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
AT&T says it netted 312K new DirecTV Now customers in Q1 to reach 1.46M subscribers as it reports revenues of $38B, down 3.4% YoY, missing targets — AT&T added 312,000 DirecTV Now net new customers in the first three months of 2018 to reach 1.46 million subscribers — offsetting losses on the traditional pay-TV front.
Discussion:
The Wrap, TechCrunch, Hollywood Reporter, CNET, AT&T and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »
Washington Post:
The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, Associated Press, and CNN ask court to unseal records from Mueller's Russia investigation — A coalition of news organizations, including The Washington Post, asked a federal court on Tuesday to unseal materials used by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III …
Ali Kucukgocmen / Reuters:
Turkish court sentences 14 staff members of Cumhuriyet paper to prison on terrorism charges and acquits three; trial of ex-EIC Can Dundar to be kept separate — ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced 14 staff of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet to prison on terrorism charges …
Discussion:
Telegraph, Associated Press and Hürriyet Daily News