Mediagazer: How The Dodo has achieved viral success by posting heartwarming videos about animals, racking up 2.3B views each month (Emma Grey Ellis/Wired)

12:05 PM ET, December 28, 2019

Top News:

David K. Li / NBC News:

Radio shock jock Don Imus, an early pioneer of the genre known for his controversial and often offensive statements, dies at 79 — He had announced on Jan. 22 that he was retiring, telling fans: “Turn out the lights...the party's over. — Radio shock jock Don Imus, one of the early pioneers of his genre …

Discussion: New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, @davidgura, Mediaite, @ingrahamangle, Los Angeles Times, @stevekovach, @seanhannity, HuffPost, @seanhannity, @blackamazon, Page Six, @nydailynews, @davidgura, @cochranshow, @thr, @thr, @llinwood, Washington Examiner, ABC News, The Sun, DoYouRemember?, Fox Business, TMZ.com, @marklevinshow, New York Daily News, Celebrity, Deadline, The Inquisitr, @brianstelter, Fox News, The Wrap, Rolling Stone, @carlquintanilla, The Desk, The Hill, @soledadobrien, @elongreen, The Daily Beast, TVLine, Us Weekly, @nytmetro, @barry_yeoman, @matthewkeyslive, @benmullin, @zeitchikwapo, @benschwartz_, Radio Ink, Salon, Washington Post, Bloomberg, USA Today, Heavy.com, @dannagal, Variety, People.com, NPR, New York Daily News, National Post, Newsweek, @dick_nixon, Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Washington Examiner, WFAN Sports Radio 66AM 101.9FM and @brianstelter

George P. Slefo / Ad Age:

Spotify will suspend political ads in early 2020, citing the lack of tools to review them; source: political ads are not a significant source of its revenue — Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and the RNC are among Spotify advertisers — Spotify is suspending the sale of political advertising …

David Porter / 8tracks blog:

As 8tracks prepares to shut down on December 31, its co-founder shares a post-mortem of what went wrong with the once-promising music streaming startup — 8tracks has had a long run and its day in the sun. We're sad to announce, however, that the company and its streaming service will wind …

Discussion: @jherskowitz, @davidporter, @agaresia, @rrhoover, @chr1sa, @hasief and @mathewi, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Comcast is in advanced talks to acquire Xumo, which offers an ad-supported video streaming service, as Comcast prepares to launch NBC's Peacock — Deal would help cable giant's digital-video ambitions as it prepares to launch its own video-streaming service

Discussion: Marketplace, Variety, The Streamable, New York Post, MediaPost, Broadband TV News, Broadcasting & Cable, @digitalshields, @tomventimiglia, @aagave, Engadget, @benmullin, Hollywood Reporter and MarketWatch

Heather Bryant / Nieman Lab:

In 2020, the question of how to save newsrooms will start to shift to how to save journalism as a process, emphasizing more collaboration and inclusiveness — Heather Bryant is founder and director of Project Facet. — There are always two conversations happening in any given field.

Discussion: @thischrishorne, @matt_kiefer, @antonioattolini, @nikkiusher, @antonioattolini and @thensim0nsaid

Jay Rosen / PressThink:

What Chuck Todd blamed on naiveté to lessen his error of ignoring the GOP's spread of disinfo was in fact willful blindness and malpractice — That disinformation was going to overtake Republican politics was discoverable years before he says he discovered it.

Peter Wade / Rolling Stone:
Q&A with Chuck Todd about a Dec 29 edition of Meet the Press focusing on journalism and disinformation with guests like NYT's Dean Baquet and WaPo's Marty Baron

Alexander Lim / Storybench:

Q&A with NYT designers Antonio De Luca and Sasha Portis about creating an interactive story on New York City's subway map for the map's 40th anniversary — For the 40th anniversary of the New York City subway map, The New York Times created an interactive story that all but places you directly inside the map.

Discussion: @journalims

Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:

William Greider, a reporter, editor, and author who wrote about the economy and politics for WaPo, Rolling Stone, The Nation, and other outlets, dies at 83 — In interviews with Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, he exposed doubts about the supply-side economics that the administration had embraced.

Shareen Pathak / Digiday:

Survey of 135 publishers: 50%+ say direct-sold ads are big source of revenue, 40% had no subscription rev, affiliate ads at most a small revenue source for 82% — For publishers, the biggest priorities heading into 2020 are how to grow revenue they can control: Both through direct-sold ads and subscriptions.

Sara K. Baranowski / Nieman Lab:

2020 will be the start of an exciting era for community news with local outlets producing high-impact reporting that experiments with new formats and engagement — Sara Konrad Baranowski is editor of the Iowa Falls Times Citizen. — The attention of the news industry …

Emma Grey Ellis / Wired:

How The Dodo has achieved viral success by posting heartwarming videos about animals, racking up 2.3B views each month — The media empire's heartwarming (and highly shareable) animal videos rack up 2.3 billion views each month. It might be our favorite website of the decade. — Frog is a rooster.

Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:

A look back at how Facebook and Twitter evolved over the 2010s, chasing size and influence at a cost to society that will take years to understand — The two companies had a bad run in the 2010s. It was their own fault. — It's been a rough decade for Facebook and Twitter.

Discussion: @ekp, @kantrowitz, @laurahelmuth, @gregoriancant, @espiegler and @mrshanerussell, more at Techmeme »

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Mediagazer at 12:05 PM ET, December 28, 2019.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Who's Hiring in Media?

Senior Data Journalist, NY — WSJ

Manager - Publishing Editorial, Manila — Reuters

Oil Reporter, Singapore — Bloomberg

Newsperson - State Govt. & Politics, CA — AP

Business Reporter, SC — Post & Courier

State Government Reporter, WA — Seattle Times

Climate Crisis Columnist — Prospect UK

Multimedia Journalist, CA — Paramount

Community Engagement Mgr., DC — Freedom Forum

Senior California Politics Reporter, CA — SFGATE

Staff Writer - Business, NY — WIRED

Team Editor - Opinion, ON — Toronto Star

Assistant Correspondent, DC — Kyodo News

Climate & Weather Reporter, MN — Star Tribune

Senior Tech Editor, Remote US — The Verge

Lead Business Reporter, TN — Daily Memphian

Managing Editor, WA — Everett Herald

Private Credit Reporter, NY — Debtwire

City Correspondent, London — Financial News

Legislative Reporter, CA — Sacramento Bee

Reporter, PA — Tribune-Review

Visual Editor, Remote — Rest of World

Staff Writer, MI — Watershed Voice

Senior Political Reporter, DC — The Lever

California Playbook Writer, CA — Politico

National Investigative Reporter, NY — HuffPost

Business & Gaming Reporter, NV — Las Vegas Sun

Coastal Climate Reporter, SC — Island Packet

Environment & Energy Reporter, CT — CT Mirror

Coordinating Editor, OR — OPB

Editor, Remote US — Daily Kos

Business Reporter, WA — Longview Daily News

Editor-in-Chief, AZ — Phoenix New Times

Add your company here

See Also:

Mediagazer: site main

Mediagazer River: reverse chronological Mediagazer

Mediagazer Mobile: for phones

Mediagazer Leaderboard: Mediagazer's top sources

Subscribe:

Mediagazer RSS feed

Mediagazer on X

Mediagazer on Mastodon

More News:

I-Hsien Sherwood / Ad Age:
For ad agencies, the 2010s weren't as bloody as the 2008 recession, but plenty of them failed or were absorbed including Young & Rubicam and J. Walter Thompson

Discussion: @dangoldgeier

Monica Nickelsburg / GeekWire:
Q&A with Snopes CEO David Mikkelson and reporter Alex Kasprak on the state of news, working and breaking up with Facebook, and preparing for the 2020 election

Jim Milliot / Publishers Weekly:
Private equity firm KKR has signed a deal to acquire OverDrive from Rakuten USA; OverDrive helps libraries and schools access digital and audio books and more

Discussion: @markcoker, Business Wire, teleread.org, The eBook Reader Blog, MarketWatch and Publishers Lunch

Allyson McCabe / Wired:
As labels increasingly rely on streaming data to scout talent, they could become less willing to sign artists whose music isn't engineered to maximize profit

Discussion: @wiredculture, more at Techmeme »

Constance Grady / Vox:
With print books often cheaper than ebooks, whose sales stabilized at ~20% of total book sales, a look at the aftermath of Apple's ebook price fixing lawsuit

Discussion: @gorskon, @tkingdot, @paulkrugman, @jamesrbuk, @chrissagers, @jolshan, @jackshafer, @dandrezner, @irhottakes, @sea_baugruppe, @constancegrady, @voxdotcom, @marshacollier and bookforum.com, more at Techmeme »

New York Times:
Studios produced 58 franchise films in 2019, which accounted for 82% of the worldwide Hollywood box office

Discussion: @davidpoland, @sameepa, @ticoromao and @kennethturan

Earlier Picks:

Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube gives creators more ways to handle copyright disputes with a YouTube Studio update that includes an Assisted Trim tool to edit out claimed content

Discussion: @redtraccoon, @notpatrick, @martinsfp, @loudmouthjulia, Engadget, 9to5Google and support.google.com

Associated Press:
Turkey's top court rules that a two-year ban on Wikipedia violates freedom of expression; it remains unclear when access to the site will be restored

Discussion: The Guardian, @cultrhack, Techdirt, @krmaher, Fox News, Engadget and The Hill

A.J. Bauer / Nieman Lab:
A strong electoral backlash against Trump in 2020 can impose boundaries on conservative media which could otherwise venture beyond self-regulation for good

Suzanne Daley / New York Times:
Inside NYT's front-page decision-making process, which has evolved from a single meeting among senior editors to a more democratic and organic effort

Discussion: @adriana_lacy and @danbilefsky

Dan Kennedy / wgbh.org:
To grow digital subs, papers should consider offering traditional bundles with national and local news plus comics and features to become one-stop destinations

Discussion: @dankennedy_nu and @dankennedy_nu

From Techmeme:

Kent Walker / The Keyword:
Google says the DOJ's “wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court's decision”, would hurt US consumers, and jeopardize the US' global tech leadership

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri says Threads is rebalancing ranking to prioritize content from people that users follow, warns that creators' “unconnected” reach may go down

Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
The CFPB will supervise tech companies with digital wallets, like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Venmo, with 50M+ annual transactions, treating them more like banks

Sister Sites:

Techmeme
Top news and commentary for technology's leaders, from all around the web

memeorandum
What US political commentators are discussing online right now

WeSmirch
The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page