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8:25 PM ET, December 29, 2020

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Lukas I. Alpert / Wall Street Journal:
Politico announces it is acquiring E&E News, a high-price subscription trade publication focused on the energy industry and environmental news  —  Purchase comes as Politico looks to expand its overall professional news business  —  Politico is adding some energy to its game.
Anna Wiener / New Yorker:
While the durability of Substack's model remains to be seen, a cultural turn toward journalistic individualism might not be in the interests of a democracy  —  The newsletter service is a software company that, by mimicking some of the functions of newsrooms, has made itself difficult to categorize.
RELATED:
Ben Smith / New York Times:
Profile of Heather Cox Richardson, a Boston College professor whose hit newsletter on Substack goes out to ~350K and adds historical context to current news
Will Thorne / Variety:
First ever NFL game streamed exclusively had an average minute audience of 4.8M on Prime, Twitch, and others, almost as much as traditional TV viewership  —  The first ever NFL game to be shown exclusively on streaming platforms scored solid numbers, showing encouraging signs for future streaming-only games.
McKay Coppins / The Atlantic:
Washington reporters, including Olivia Nuzzi, Jim Acosta, and Yamiche Alcindor, on being recast as “resistance heroes” during the Trump era and what comes next  —  The day after the 2016 election, I got a phone call from an old friend.  Neither of us had slept much …
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Profile of Walter Hamada, who runs DC Films and is aiming to release comics-based movies like Batman and Wonder Woman at a much faster pace  —  Walter Hamada, who runs DC Films, is overseeing a dizzying number of projects, part of a swarm of comics-based stories coming from Hollywood.
RELATED:
Rebecca Rubin / Variety:
AT&T says that nearly half of HBO Max's retail subscribers viewed Wonder Woman 1984 on Friday alone, the same day the movie debuted in theaters
Emily Birnbaum / Protocol:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is tying the fate of $2,000 stimulus checks to the repeal of Section 230  —  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is tying the fate of $2,000 stimulus checks to the repeal of Section 230, an effort that will likely doom both pieces of legislation in the Senate.
Kristin Robinson / Variety:
A loophole in Spotify's copyright infringement detection tactics is allowing unauthorized remixes and bootlegs of songs to be uploaded as podcasts  —  Spotify has joined the ranks of streaming services like SoundCloud and YouTube as a hub for bootlegs of popular songs.
Discussion: Engadget and @delgotloud
Vivian Wang / New York Times:
A Chinese court sentences citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who documented the early COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, to four years in prison  —  Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, is the first known person to be tried for challenging the Chinese government's narrative about the coronavirus pandemic.
RELATED:
Gregor Stuart Hunter / Bloomberg:
Filing: Jimmy Lai, who was charged earlier this month with Hong Kong's new national security law, resigned as chairman of Next Digital  —  Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was charged earlier this month with colluding with foreign forces under the city's new national security law …
Discussion: @gregorhunter
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Ampere: UK streaming subscribers grew 34% YoY in 2020, with a combined 32.4M for Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, the top three services  —  Britons spent 40% of their waking hours watching TV during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, fuelling the biggest year for new subscribers to streaming services.
Discussion: Matt on Audio
Andrew Donohue / Nieman Lab:
Efforts to undermine the 2020 election show the necessity of a democracy beat, focused not on partisan politics but on voter suppression and other threats  —  “These reporters won't see their work in terms of politics or parties, but instead through the lens of honesty, fairness, and transparency.”
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Verizon is telling Fios TV customers that nine local Hearst stations may go dark on Fios on Jan. 1, saying Hearst is demanding carriage fee hikes of 45%+  —  In a new end-of-the-year TV carriage fight, Verizon on Tuesday began notifying Fios TV customers that Hearst Television stations …
 
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 More News: 
Committee to Protect Journalists:
Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Moroccan authorities to release journalist Maati Monjib, arrested amid a money laundering probe
 Earlier Picks: 
Axios:
The New Yorker devotes almost an entire issue to The Plague Year, a 40-page account of how America botched its virus response, a rare step for the magazine
Tim Ingham / Rolling Stone:
A look at music sample marketplaces like Beatport, Splice, BeatStars, and LANDR, which could soon become acquisition targets for major record companies