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3:40 PM ET, January 29, 2019

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Madison Malone Kircher / New York Magazine:
Q&A with a Michigan college student who has made 692 quizzes for BuzzFeed as a hobby, becoming the 2nd-highest traffic driver for the site's quizzes worldwide  —  Rachel McMahon is a teen from Michigan you almost certainly haven't heard of before this week.
RELATED:
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
BuzzFeed laid off its Director of Quizzes because lots of people are willing to make quizzes for free  —  “This post has not been vetted or endorsed by BuzzFeed's editorial staff.  BuzzFeed Community is a place where anyone create a post.  Learn more or post your buzz!”
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
Oliver Darcy / CNN:
BuzzFeed says it will pay laid off employees for paid time off they had earned but not used, after current and former staff demanded it in an open letter
Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
As Disney completes merger with Fox and prepares for Disney Plus, uncertainty remains about integration, programming, and the executives who'll lead the shift  —  Bob Iger has repeatedly called it the “highest priority” of the Walt Disney Co.  —  The launch of Disney Plus has become the talk …
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Study finds major US newspapers hiked home delivery prices more than 2x between 2008 and 2016, but about two-thirds of print readers remained loyal  —  Once print advertising collapsed, newspapers hiked prices to get more money from readers.  If they hadn't, they'd employ even fewer journalists and be in even worse shape today.
Jennifer Creery / Hong Kong Free Press HKFP:
FCCC report on press freedom in China: 55% believe government interference has risen, with notable crackdowns in Xinjiang and visa denials for negative coverage  —  Over half of foreign correspondents say reporting conditions in China deteriorated last year, according to the Foreign Correspondents' Club …
Discussion: Reuters and @nvanderklippe
Max Willens / Digiday:
Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith says the company grew revenue by 16% YoY in 2018, and that its Twitter show TicToc is already profitable  —  Welcome to the first installment of Keynote, a weekly Q&A series where top media executives discuss their businesses as well as a hot-button issue facing publishers.
Discussion: MediaPost
Jon Allsop / Columbia Journalism Review:
Sarah Sanders held her first press briefing in 41 days on Monday, which CNN and MSNBC did not carry live, but Fox did  —  “Shampoo the carpets, take the sheets off the chandeliers!”  Those words, emailed around by a pool reporter and shared on Twitter by the BBC's Jon Sopel …
Committee to Protect Journalists:
Sudan's security services arrest at least six journalists covering protests and have stopped the distribution of a newspaper seven times since December  —  Washington, D.C., January 28, 2019—The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Sudanese authorities to release at least six journalists …
Alison Langley / Columbia Journalism Review:
After crowdfunding $2.4M and raising $3.5M from investors, Swiss investigative news startup Republik gets scrappy, asks initial backers to renew subscriptions  —  Republik, a Swiss news startup, raised $2.4 million in less than two weeks in 2017, when a crowdfunding campaign that promised …
ProPublica:
Changes to Facebook's site break plugins created by ProPublica and others to track and report on exactly how Facebook users are being targeted by advertisers  —  Our tool had let the public see exactly how users were being targeted by advertisers.  The social media giant urged us to shut it down last year.
RTÉ:
EU publishes first monthly reports by Facebook, Google, Firefox, and Twitter on their fight against disinformation, wants them to intensify efforts  —  The European Union has urged US internet giants and advertising firms to intensify the fight against disinformation campaigns before EU elections in May, or risk regulation.
RELATED:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook shares draft proposal describing how its new content review board could work, suggesting it have 40 diverse members, none of whom are Facebook staff
 
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 More News: 
Donie O'Sullivan / CNN:
As “deepfake” videos become more common and convincing, the tech will give cover to those dismissing real events as fake; DARPA researches ways to detect fakes
 Earlier Picks: 
Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
Even as companies like Digital First Media strip-mine local newspapers for profit, their journalists continue doing important work and deserve support
Antonia Noori Farzan / Washington Post:
NBC veteran Tom Brokaw apologizes after saying “Hispanics should work harder at assimilation” on Sunday's Meet the Press, evoking further criticism
Wall Street Journal:
Bill Simmons says The Ringer, focused on its network of 28 podcasts with ~35M downloads a month is profitable; sources say it made $15M+ on podcasts in 2018
 

 
From Techmeme:

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
An undisclosed 2023 agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI defines achieving AGI as the point when OpenAI develops AI systems that generate $100B+ in profits

Noah Smith / Noahpinion:
How H-1B workers from India and other countries help the US remain dominant in tech, as some on the new “Tech Right” discover MAGA's racial-nationalist bigotry

New York Times:
Japan Airlines halts ticket sales after a cyberattack hit its network equipment, causing delays to more than 40 flights, and says flight safety was not impacted
 
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