Mediagazer: Sony Pictures Entertainment buys AT&T's 42% stake in Game Show Network in a ~$510M deal, making Sony the sole owner of the network (Cynthia Littleton/Variety)

Jim Waterson / The Guardian:

New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet says Trump puts journalists' “lives at risk” when he subjects them to personal attacks and calls them names — Dean Baquet decries abuse of journalists and defends not calling president racist — The executive editor of the New York Times …

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @derektmead, @bgrueskin, @swin24, @pulitzerprizes, @adamgoldmannyt, Mediaite, Washington Examiner, @laurawags, The Daily Beast, Breitbart, The Hill and @wphillips49

New York Times:

AP poll finds that ~60% of Americans say they regularly see conflicting reports about the same facts from different sources, as people tune out from the news — Paying attention to the impeachment inquiry and other developments means having to figure out what is true, false or spin.

Discussion: @will_bunch, @jakesnyt, @joshuahol, @drvox, @katestarbird and @whatthebit

Raymond Zhong / New York Times:

Musical.ly founder Alex Zhu, who now heads TikTok, claims that TikTok doesn't share data with China or ByteDance and doesn't censor videos at China's behest — Alex Zhu, the head of the Chinese-owned viral video app, is trying to assuage Washington's fears. “I am quite optimistic,” he said.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, @fryan, Business Insider, @alexstamos, @puiwingtam and @isaacstonefish, more at Techmeme »

Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:

Sources: ByteDance is in talks with record companies to launch a music streaming service as soon as December, initially in Brazil, India, and Indonesia — The Chinese company behind the popular video app TikTok is set to go head-to-head with the likes of Spotify and Apple in the music streaming market …

Discussion: CNN, Music Business Worldwide, Gizmodo, Music Industry Blog, 9to5Mac, Digital Trends, TechSpot and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Knight Foundation:

Gallup/Knight study: 86% of Americans believe people should have access to local news, but only 1 in 5 subscribe or donate to local news organizations — WASHINGTON, DC (Nov. 17, 2019) Most Americans - 86 percent - think people should have access to local news - even if they don't pay for it …

Discussion: Nieman Lab, American Press Institute, Talking Biz News, CNN, @fitzthereporter, @brianstelter and @jboren4507

Taylor Telford / Washington Post:

FedEx CEO Fred Smith blasts NYT article on its tax affairs, without identifying any specific errors, and challenges A.G. Sulzberger to debate him on tax policy — Fred Smith blasts the report — without identifying any specific errors — detailing how the shipper's tax bill went from $1.5 billion in 2017 to zero a year later

Discussion: New York Times, The Hill, CNN, Business Insider, CBS News, Telegraph and New York Post

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

Sony Pictures Entertainment buys AT&T's 42% stake in Game Show Network in a ~$510M deal, making Sony the sole owner of the network — Sony Pictures Entertainment has bought out AT&T's minority interest in Game Show Network for about $500 million. — The deal makes Sony the sole owner of GSN.

Discussion: The Wrap, Deadline and Wall Street Journal

Lloyd Grove / The Daily Beast:

Interview with TV host and film producer Soledad O'Brien on her critiques of journalism in the Trump era, which she often shares to her 1.1M Twitter followers — For Soledad O'Brien, the presidency of Donald Trump has ripped the cover off a lot of things, including the fragility of American democracy …

Discussion: @jeremymbarr, @laurajmg, @frankconniff, @brianstelter, @djrothkopf, Raw Story and WPIX 11 New York

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

AI-powered news aggregation app SmartNews raises $92M, including a $28M raise in August, at a valuation of $1.2B, bringing its total raised to $182M — Looks like there's still money to be made in news aggregation — at least according to the investors backing the news app SmartNews.

Discussion: @whatthebit and @simonowens, more at Techmeme »

The New York Times Company:

The New York Times' TV show, The Weekly, is now available for US subscribers via its website, five months after launching on FX and Hulu — The latest episode of The Times's TV show, as well as episodes from earlier in the season, are now available to Times subscribers in the U.S.

Hadas Gold / CNN:

While impartiality rules prevent a UK television equivalent to Fox News, Boris Johnson's close ties with The Telegraph means he can always rely on its support — London (CNN Business)Whenever US President Donald Trump turns on Fox News, he'll usually see a stream of positive coverage.

Discussion: @lsenews

Jon Blistein / Rolling Stone:

Taylor Swift's former label Big Machine says it's reached licensing agreement allowing Swift to perform songs owned by Big Machine at the American Music Awards — AMA producers Dick Clark Productions deny collaborating with Big Machine on statement — UPDATE: Dick Clark Productions …

Discussion: The Wrap, People.com, Deadline, The Guardian and Vanity Fair