Mediagazer: Netflix reports mixed Q4 earnings, with revenue of $4.19B vs. $4.21B est., says it added 8.8M global paid memberships, up from its estimate of 7.6M (Sara Salinas/CNBC)

5:05 PM ET, January 17, 2019

Top News:

Facebook removed 364 pages and accounts for misrepresenting themselves when they were in fact linked to employees of Sputnik, a Russian-backed news agency — Today we removed multiple Pages, groups and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram.

Discussion: DFRLab, Press Gazette, New York Times, @benimmo, CNN, Gizmodo, @securedemocracy, @securedemocracy, Fortune, RT, Adweek, DFRLab, Business Insider, @yashalevine, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Mashable, @leaskyht, @thegrugq, @kevinroose, Engadget, The Hill, ABC News, The Week and Mediaite, more at Techmeme »

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

Les Moonves will pursue an arbitration claim to fight CBS for the $120M severance he was denied after the board determined he was fired for cause — Former CBS Corp. chairman-CEO Leslie Moonves will pursue an arbitration claim to fight CBS for the $120 million severance that he was denied …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Wall Street Journal, Ad Age, Multichannel News, Business Insider, Adweek, CNBC, Reuters, The Wrap, Bloomberg, @eriqgardner, Crain's New York Business and Editor & Publisher

Sara Salinas / CNBC:

Netflix reports mixed Q4 earnings, with revenue of $4.19B vs. $4.21B est., says it added 8.8M global paid memberships, up from its estimate of 7.6M — - The company beat Wall Street estimates for earnings per share, but fell just below projections for revenue.

Discussion: Recode, TechCrunch, Business Insider, The Wrap, Business Insider and Fast Company

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Jewish publication The Forward is suspending its print edition and laying off 40% of its staff, including Editor-in-Chief Jane Eisner — The Forward is stopping — its print editions. — The storied Jewish-American publication is suspending its print operations and plans to lay off …

Discussion: @yossigestetner, @yossigestetner, @yossigestetner, @joshuamzeitz, @estherschor, The Times of Israel, @popchassid, @harry1t6, @pgourevitch, @elilake, @dorothyofisrael, @rabbijilljacobs, @sethamandel, @davidimarcus and MediaPost

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Amazon's Alexa will now deliver news briefings to US users in a “newscaster” voice, using tech that adapts Alexa's speaking style to the context of a request — Amazon already gave Alexa the ability to whisper, and now it's rolling out another way to change the assistant's speaking style …

Discussion: The Amazon Blog, VentureBeat, Mashable and Engadget

Michael Schneider / Variety:

Viceland will launch Vice Live, a two-hour show at 9pm ET Monday-Thursday that recaps the day in pop culture and social media, starting February 25 — F-k it, Viceland is doing it live. The cable network will revamp its primetime lineup next month to launch a nightly two-hour live show …

Discussion: @fattonyrap, @evepeyser and @traciemorrissey

Matt Lopez / The Wrap:

Study: 30% of Gen Z'ers and 56% of Millennials say they use Facebook to watch the news, while only 27% and 22% respectively use YouTube to watch it — Facebook is used the most for news coverage, while YouTube is used for career development and entertainment purposes, according to new study

Discussion: Mobile Marketer and wibbitz

Janko Roettgers / Variety:

NPR has turned its news quiz, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, into a five-minute game for smart speakers that use Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa — NPR has turned its popular “Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!” news quiz show into an interactive game for smart speakers: Owners of speakers powered …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Ad Age, VentureBeat and SlashGear

Freddy Mayhew / Press Gazette:

The BBC's first female deputy general director, Anne Bulford, will step down in the spring — The BBC's deputy director general Anne Bulford, the first woman to hold the role, has decided to leave the corporation in the spring. — Bulford rejoined the BBC as managing director of finance …

Discussion: Variety

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:

Interview with Corey Ford of media accelerator Matter, which paused its media venture fund after funding from news companies dried up — In its seven years, Matter.vc has shepherded 73 media startups through eight accelerator programs, funded by two rounds of investments from a bunch of media companies.

Discussion: @newsbyschmidt, @niemanlab, @niemanlab, @ahmedkabil and @coreyford

Lesley Goldberg / Hollywood Reporter:

Showrunner Jason Katims, known for Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, is leaving Universal TV for Apple, as tech companies lure show creators away from studios — The ‘Friday Night Lights’ and ‘Parenthood’ grad will depart his longtime home at Universal Television and create and develop new projects for the tech giant.

BBC:

Trial of BBC Asian Network editor Arif Ansari begins; suit alleges he is responsible for reporter naming sexual assault victim, thinking it was a pseudonym — BBC Asian Network's head of news has gone on trial over the naming of a victim of sexual abuse in a live radio broadcast, a charge he denies.

Discussion: @mschappers

Matthew Champion / BuzzFeed News:

Ahmed Hussein-Suale, a journalist in Ghana who helped expose corruption in African soccer, was shot dead Wednesday by gunmen in an Accra suburb — An investigative journalist who helped expose corruption in soccer in Africa has been shot dead in Ghana. — Ahmed Hussein-Suale was shot twice …

Discussion: Associated Press, @anasglobal, @nakufoaddo, BBC, Committee to Protect …, Al Jazeera and @globalfreemedia

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More News:

Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
Streaming platforms in India, including Netflix, adopt a plan to self-regulate content to forestall censorship by the state; Amazon Prime Video will not sign on

Discussion: Reuters

Sports Illustrated:
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is moving from February to May for the first time since it was launched in 1964

Kevin Hardy / Des Moines Register:
Meredith's executive chairman and former CEO, Steve Lacy, will retire in March but remain chairman of the board in a non-executive capacity

Jon Levine / The Wrap:
Canadian radio station News 95.7 has apologized after its Twitter account was hacked and racist tweets were posted

Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Facebook says it will extend its stricter political ad rules to India, Nigeria, Ukraine, and the EU ahead of upcoming elections in the next few months

Discussion: Livemint, MediaNama, TechCrunch, Adweek and Fortune, more at Techmeme »

Agri Ismal / @a9ri:
A case study of a BBC story about a men's razor ad, and how some media outlets fuel conflict by plucking social media posts from obscure accounts [thread]

Discussion: @pkafka, @chrisroper, @maggiejordanacn, @walldo, @gwillowwilson, @jessamyn, @kthopkins, @carnage4life, @tormut_rose, @andychannelle, @randfish, @annodeasr, @labville and @jeremylittau

Earlier Picks:

Brian Stelter / CNN:
New York Media announces that David Haskell will succeed Adam Moss as editor-in-chief, starting April 1; Haskell has been editor for business and strategy

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Nieman Lab, New York Magazine, @gabibirkner, @jonathanchait, @stellabugbee, @jpressler, @zeitchikwapo, @jpressler, @grynbaum, Vanity Fair, @jswatz, @jerrysaltz, @jenseniorny, Publishing Executive, New York Times and @farhip

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Sinclair launches Stirr, its ad-supported streaming service combining local news from its TV stations with entertainment channels, at Stirr.com or via apps

Discussion: Associated Press, MediaPost, Multichannel News, @alexweprin, Editor & Publisher, Ad Age, The Wrap and Broadcasting & Cable

Jessica Davies / Digiday:
NYT SVP for global advertising says the publisher has not seen ad revenues drop after blocking all open-exchange ad buying on its European pages after GDPR

Discussion: @robpegoraro, @adambanksdotcom, @jason_kint, @rickhanlonii, @antoniogm, @tcross81, @blakereid, @ehsanakhgari, @lam_barrett, @johnnyryan, @astepanovich, @tuacker, @maxschrems, @tjl, @mikarv, @dhh and @privacymatters

Will Oremus / Slate:
Condé Nast's Wired trimmed some positions last Thursday from an apparent editorial staff of about 70; sources say five jobs were cut

Discussion: Digiday, Folio and @lydiabelanger

Rachel Yang / Variety:
Roku says it is removing two Infowars channels on its platform after criticism from users and a rebuke from some Sandy Hook families

Discussion: @roku, Hit & Run, @katehydeny, The Drum, @alexeheath, @gitagovinda, East Bay Times, Business Insider, @jank0 and @oliverdarcy, more at Techmeme »

From Techmeme:

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Meta adds Dina Powell McCormick, who served as deputy national security adviser to Trump in his first term, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison to its board

Ellen O'Regan / Politico:
Ireland's DPC opens an investigation into how personal data in public X posts was used to train xAI's Grok, which could stoke tensions between the EU and the US

Anton Shilov / Tom's Hardware:
China exempts products from AMD, Nvidia, Intel, Qualcomm, and others that are made by Taiwanese companies like TSMC from the 125% tariff on US products

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