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.
Discussion:
New York Magazine and @austin_walker
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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:
BuzzFeed, @markdistef, @mattdpearce, @jane__bradley, @maggyvaneijk, @kimberleydadds, @mjs_dc, @patblanchfield, @sunapology, @charles_kinbote, Variety, @williamsjon, @tolly_t, @maggyvaneijk, @rossalynwarren, @jamesrbuk, @maxseddon, @danieldrepper, @simonchilds13, @janelytv and @jillfilipovic
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
BuzzFeed laid off its Director of Quizzes because lots of people are willing to make quizzes for free
Discussion:
Fluxblog, @eleanorbate, @jeff__benjamin, @karaschlegl, @niemanlab, @conroyforreal, @robferdman, @kwameopam, @johnastoehr and @kateotherkate
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
Discussion:
Slate, @peretti, @dylanmatt, @hshaban, @verambergen, @daveyalba, @jeremymbarr, @rachelysanders and BuzzFeed News Staff Council
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 …
Discussion:
Business Insider and The Information
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.
Discussion:
@emilybell, @gerryfsmith, @irischyi, @irischyi, @irischyi, Journalism Studies and Editor & Publisher
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
Adam Becker / Undark:
Inference, a “quarterly review of science” started in 2014 and funded entirely by Peter Thiel, publishes scientific articles alongside junk science — The newish ‘quarterly review of science’ sometimes muddies the waters between science and political ideology. It is funded by Peter Thiel.
Discussion:
@bobbierman and Boing Boing
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 …
Discussion:
Mediaite, Reporters Without Borders, The Hill and Blog Network
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.
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 …
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 — In November, Facebook announced a new plan that would revamp how the company makes content policy decisions on its social network …
Discussion:
Facebook, @zittrain, @davidakaye, @imillhiser, The Verge, @jjmacnab, Adweek, Gizmodo, Fortune, MediaPost, Engadget and Ad Age, more at Techmeme »
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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.
Discussion:
The Guardian and Digital Single Market, more at Techmeme »
Reuters:
Verizon Q4: misses expectations with revenue up 1% YoY to $34.3B, a 46K Fios video subscriber loss, and revenue for Verizon Media Group at $2.1B, down 5.8% YoY — rollout@ (Adds details on capital spending, subscribers) — Verizon Communications Inc beat Wall Street estimates …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Verizon Fios & Custom TV, Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch
Tyler Kingkade / BuzzFeed News:
High school bans student magazine from covering sexual assault allegations against a student, illustrating a growing fight over censorship of student press — At the beginning of the school year, one of Kyra Howard's high school classmates abruptly stopped showing up for classes.
Discussion:
@tylerkingkade
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