Top News:
Alex Thompson / Politico:
Elizabeth Warren rejects an invitation to a Fox News town hall, calls the outlet a “hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists” — Elizabeth Warren turned down a Fox News invitation Tuesday for a televised town hall and denounced the cable network as a …
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@ewarren, @ewarren, @ewarren, The Daily Beast, @ewarren, Newser, CNN, Poynter, Mediaite, Axios, ELLE, @jordanuhl, twitchy.com, @stevenlhall1, @ewarren, @mepfuller, Boing Boing, @beckybunzy, Slate, Associated Press, Talking Points Memo, NBC News, Mother Jones, @thrasherxy, @rottenindenmark, The Hill, Hollywood Reporter, New York Times, @ewarren, @ewarren, The Week, @onlxn, @jess_mc, @espiers, HuffPost Canada, @bykowicz and BostonGlobe.com
CNBC:
Comcast agrees to sell its stake in Hulu to Disney in five years at a $27.5B valuation or appraisal amount; Comcast to relinquish voting rights immediately — Comcast has agreed to sell its stake in Hulu in five years to Disney and give up its voting rights immediately.
Discussion:
Variety, Broadcasting & Cable, TechCrunch, The Wrap, corporate.comcast.com, Awful Announcing, @stevekovach, @sherman4949, Fast Company, MediaPost, The A.V. Club, @jdarowski, Hollywood Reporter, Multichannel News, Vanity Fair, Vox, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Financial Times, @xpangler, @gerberkawasaki and @sherman4949, more at Techmeme »
RELATED:
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: NBC's streaming service will be free to customers paying for live TV; about $10/month for cord cutters and won't include live or same-season shows — KEY POINTS — NBC is purposely making its cord-cutting version of its streaming service worse than the free version that comes with a pay-TV subscription.
Discussion:
@clearlycrystalb and NBC News
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify-owned Soundtrap launches Soundtrap for Storytellers, a cloud-based podcast creation platform with advanced features, for $14.99 per month — In November 2017, Spotify picked up the online music studio Soundtrap as part of its efforts to offer more services to artists on its platform.
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, Spotify, Fast Company, Engadget, VentureBeat and Hot Pod News, more at Techmeme »
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
YouTube creators threatened by EU's new copyright directive due to the difficulty of automatically allowing fair use of copyrighted material through filters — KEY POINTS — YouTube creators fear their livelihood and creative outlet could be threatened by a new EU copyright directive …
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed News:
Research group identifies disinformation campaign that published 135 articles on sites impersonating media outlets or on sites where users can post content — An ambitious online disinformation campaign that impersonated major media outlets, used fake Twitter accounts to spread false articles …
Discussion:
Politico, The Hill, @janelytv, @rondeibert, @ahmed, The Citizen Lab and New York Times
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Podcast analytics company Chartable launches SmartLinks, which uses trackable URLs and cookies to let creators know how listeners found their podcasts — How effective are links to podcasts in driving listeners? — A recently launched podcast analytics company is debuting its newest product today …
Discussion:
American Press Institute and @ashleyrcarman
CNBC:
Bleacher Report will start its gaming-related programming from Las Vegas this summer, says its sports betting category grew 3x faster than any other category — KEY POINTS — Bleacher Report betting big on sports gambling — Sports gambling is about to get a big boost from the Bleacher.
Amrita Khalid / Engadget:
Report: sources say WarnerMedia plans to prioritize its streaming service, set to launch in 2020, by streaming new episodes of popular shows before they hit TV — AT&T's WarnerMedia may debut new episodes of popular shows on its upcoming streaming service, right before they hit cable.
Discussion:
The Information, The Verge, @theinformation, @richbtig and @richbtig
William D. Cohan / Vanity Fair:
Sources: CBS and Viacom boards have been in negotiations regarding a merger, but National Amusements can't initiate merger discussions until September 2020 — The more than $1 billion in “cost synergies” identified by bankers and executives in the long-rumored deal pushed by Shari Redstone is code for “big job losses.”
Discussion:
@vanityfair
Jeremy Gordon / The Outline:
Writers like David Foster Wallace should be reevaluated given the approximations in their reporting: they were expert storytellers, not chroniclers of truth — David Foster Wallace's journalism is, in many ways, inaccurate. But he's hardly the only venerated journalist to have made stuff up.
Discussion:
@jeremypgordon, @lyman_brian, @chrisgayomali, @laurawags, @margarita, @rinhugs, @joyre65, @faizsays, @joshdean66, @faizsays, @adamwren, @joshdean66 and @caseyjohnston
Golnar Motevalli / Bloomberg:
US sanctions have caused paper and ink prices to rise in Iran; two government owned dailies have cut coverage and journalists fear layoffs — A lack of headlines is making headlines in Iran. — The economic hardship triggered by a year of U.S. sanctions has extended to the Islamic Republic's newspapers …