Mediagazer: RT host and former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond charged with attempted rape and sexual assault; RT says his show will continue to air as usual (BBC)

8:00 AM ET, January 28, 2019

Top News:

In a letter to BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti and others, the BuzzFeed News Staff Council demands that BuzzFeed pay out earned paid time off to laid-off employees — To Jonah Peretti, Lenke Taylor, and Ben Smith: — We are the BuzzFeed News Staff Council, a group of employees appointed to open …

James Walker / Press Gazette:

BuzzFeed proposes cutting 17 of BuzzFeed UK's 37 editorial staff, with most losses to the Buzz section covering pop culture — Buzzfeed UK's editorial team will be cut by nearly half, its own media reporter has claimed, down from 37 to 20 journalists based in London.

Discussion: @markdistef, @maxseddon, @maggyvaneijk, @rossalynwarren, @jamesrbuk, @danieldrepper, @simonchilds13 and Newser

Hamza Shaban / @hshaban:

BuzzFeed says it's “open to re-evaluating” decision to not pay out earned paid time off to laid-off staff, is setting up a Monday meeting with CEO and employees — - BuzzFeed's head of HR Lenke Taylor responds to employee demands that the company pay laid-off staff their earned vacation days & comp days for working weekends/breaking news/disasters - Says: “We are open to re-evaluating this decision...” - Monday will set up talks with CEO pic.twitter.com/BcEhIeuPIC

Discussion: @mjs_dc, @hshaban and @bigmeaninternet

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

Guardian EIC Katharine Viner says the group is on track to break even in April, talks about being Guardian's first female editor, paywalls, sexism, and more — Guardian News and Media editor-in-chief Katharine Viner has said a hard paywall “isn't really a conversation” …

Will Oremus / Slate:

An overview of projects like NewsGuard, and how efforts to rank the credibility of news sites can be problematic, despite good intentions — In the era of fake news, a cottage industry of startups is competing to turn media credibility into a booming business. Do we really want that?

BBC:

RT host and former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond charged with attempted rape and sexual assault; RT says his show will continue to air as usual — Alex Salmond will continue to host his own television programme despite being charged with attempted rape and sexual assault, BBC Scotland has learned.

Discussion: Press Gazette, New York Times, Scotsman, RT and The Sun

Josephine Cumbo / Financial Times:

Billionaire businessman Philip Green drops legal claim against Telegraph, which reported allegations that he sexually harassed and racially abused employees — Philip Green, the billionaire businessman, has dropped his legal action against a UK newspaper which attempted to report allegations …

Discussion: Press Gazette, The Guardian, Daily Mail, BBC, Sky News and The Sun

Los Angeles Times:

Netflix shares few figures with studios, a negotiation tactic for licensed content, but does divulge them to its stars, who get bonuses for successful shows — When it comes to ratings, Netflix treats the public and many of its business partners like the characters in “Bird Box” …

Ben Thompson / Stratechery:

How the success of Netflix's Bird Box film, which was watched by 58% of its user base in its first month, drives Netflix's virtuous cycle as an aggregator — Bird Box, the Netflix original film, started streaming on December 21 while I was on vacation.1 That perhaps explains why the majority …

Discussion: @latimes and @juliaturner

Timothy Geigner / Techdirt:

US court dismisses lawsuit from RIAA labels against foreign YouTube-ripping sites, citing lack of jurisdiction since no US users or businesses were targeted — It's been quite frustrating to watch the music industry continually turn its legal gaze to whatever it insists is the “new” threat.

Discussion: TorrentFreak, more at Techmeme »

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Major TV networks like NBC and Viacom embrace addressable TV ads, which allow advertisers to create targeted ads by demographic based on viewer data — The hottest new trend in TV tech is “addressable” ads, or TV ads that can be targeted to specific households via user data.

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Analytics company Parse.ly's new feature “demand sorting” identifies most in-demand topics for readers, allowing journalists to discover underreported subjects — Okay, I'll admit it: Sometimes, I write stories because I think they're going to be popular. And sometimes, those stories fall flat anyway.

Discussion: @johnmlevitt and @arhine

Lizzy Raben / The Idea:

Q&A with Sam Felix, Director of Audience + Platforms at NYT, about her role at the paper, how NYT uses different platforms to promote its content, and more — This week, The Idea caught up with Sam Felix to discuss how The Times thinks about reaching new audiences …