Mediagazer: Wired merges its US and UK websites, but will still publish two separate print editions, as it vows to reject “the optimist and pessimist views of tech” (Gideon Lichfield/Wired)

3:55 PM ET, January 4, 2022

Top News:

David Gelles / New York Times:

Ben Smith is leaving the NYT to start a global news organization with Justin Smith to cater to “200M people who are college educated, who read in English” — Mr. Smith will help start a new organization with Justin Smith, the chief executive of Bloomberg Media.

Discussion: Puck, @benyt, @dgelles, Financial Times, @reckless, Variety, Mediaite, The Hill, @ashleyfeinberg, @zengerle, @chaykak, @alexthomp, @jscros, @jscros, @maxwelltani, @jswatz, @froomkin, @brianstelter, @rafat, @davidcorndc, @hunterw, @katie_roof, bookforum.com, @froomkin, Deadline, @buzzfeedben, @lebassett, @daveweigel, @clairevtran, @rosental, @chanders, @kerrymflynn, @kfile, @tomgara, @patrickmcgee_, @sethklamann, @martinsfp, @lpolgreen, @bristei, @s_m_i, @davegershgorn, @carolynryan, @jakesherman, @claremalone, @tomscocca, @kerrymflynn, @paperhaus, @justinhendrix, @jbflint, @rmac18, @cliffordlevy, @alicialutes, @alexbruell, @digitalshields, @ariehkovler, @daisandconfused, @ashleyfeinberg, @joshsternberg, @mhbaskin, @susanpage, @jimwaterson, @lisatozzi, @scottfeinberg, @ezwrites, @michaelroston, @toley88, @robinwigg, @jbflint, @parismartineau, @natalieweiner, @pdmcleod, @howardkurtz, @claireeshaffer, @yair_rosenberg, @ljkawa, @mattnegrin, @ashleyfeinberg, @ungarino, @thekenyeung, @ralstonreports, @brianstelter, @rosiegray, @meredithshiner, @rublekb, @tomgara, @hamiltonnolan, @scottnover, @esotericcd, @samjmintz, @tomgara, @sonnybunch, @edmundlee and @akarl_smith

Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:

Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith steps down effective immediately to found a media company “that serves unbiased journalism”; Scott Havens to replace him as CEO — Mr. Smith, 52, sees opportunity to help address crisis in trust among news consumers

The New York Times Company:

WaPo's David Fahrenthold, who won the 2017 Pulitzer for an investigation into Trump's charitable giving, will join NYT's DC bureau as an investigative reporter — David is joining The Times's Washington bureau as an investigative reporter. Read more in this note from Elisabeth Bumiller.

Ben Smith / New York Times:

After leaving Meta, CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman has helped a bipartisan group of US senators craft a bill to boost social networks' transparency — The co-founder of CrowdTangle has been working with Congress on legislation to make tech companies disclose their inner workings.

Gideon Lichfield / Wired:

Wired merges its US and UK websites, but will still publish two separate print editions, as it vows to reject “the optimist and pessimist views of tech” — The future begins here—again. — In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and governmental institution …

Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:

The Institute for Nonprofit News says it raised $12M, including $6M in matching funds, for 2021's NewsMatch fundraising program and 300+ newsrooms participated — As 2021 came to a close, NewsMatch was just getting started. — The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) announced it raised $12 million …

Discussion: Institute for Nonprofit News, @inn and @inn

Vania Andre / THE CITY:

NYC-based nonprofit news site The City appoints Richard Kim as EIC; Kim was previously HuffPost's executive editor — THE CITY, an independent, nonprofit newsroom dedicated to serving the people of New York, is delighted to announce the appointment of Richard Kim as editor in chief.

Discussion: @richardkimnyc, @zachdcarter, @jere_hester, @nicdawes, @hilella, @lpolgreen, @moorehn, @j__velasquez and @sulliview

Kayleigh Barber / Digiday:

A look at publishers' NFT experiments in 2021, including Decrypt Studios, Yahoo's NFT New York Fashion Week ad deal, and Turner Sports' NFT-based golf game — Many publishers closed out 2020 in a better financial position than they expected early on in the pandemic, giving them the flexibility …

Discussion: @sarahmarshall

Helen Davidson / The Guardian:

Independent Hong Kong news outlet Citizen News will close on Tuesday, citing “the rapid changes in society and worsening environment for media” — Independent online news portal to cease operations amid ‘worsening environment for media’ in city

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Twitter completes its $1.05B sale of MoPub to AppLovin, which expects its unified platform with MoPub to process $15B+ of annualized advertiser spend by 2023 — Twitter announced today it has completed the sale of its mobile ad platform, MoPub, to the mobile game maker and marketing software …

Discussion: Business Wire, Adweek and PR Newswire, more at Techmeme »

Heidi Chung / Variety:

2022 media trend predictions: subscription video streaming and global digital ad revenue will likely remain growth stories, and the M&A fever will rage on — Though the economy wasn't completely shut down in 2021, life and business were hardly normal. Despite those less-than-normal conditions …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Atmosphere TV, which streams ad-supported video channels often without audio, raises an $80M Series C and $20M in debt, bringing its total funding to $140M — Companies like Muzak have made a big business out of building catalogues of licensed audio content for commercial venues …

Discussion: @s3ventures, more at Techmeme »

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Axios:
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Sara Fischer / Axios:
NPR says it will launch an on-demand podcast bundle in H2 as a benefit of membership to local stations, and adds more shows and subscriber-only benefits to NPR+

Discussion: @sarafischer, @isalara, @nprinskeep, @sarafischer and @jeffjarvis

Todd Spangler / Variety:
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Stephen Lepitak / Adweek:
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Tyler O'Neil / Fox Business:
Facebook reinstates the ad account of conservative children's book publisher Heroes of Liberty, saying the account was permanently disabled in error

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
While The Atlantic and others have covered the United States' teetering democracy, major publications have yet to make the topic a central focus

Jem Aswad / Variety:
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Pamela McClintock / Hollywood Reporter:
Comscore: North American box office revenue rose to $4.5B in 2021, up 101%+ YoY but nearly 60% behind 2019, as movies with youth appeal fueled the recovery

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Associated Press:
IFJ: 45 journalists and media workers were killed doing their jobs in 2021, one of the lowest death tolls in 30 years and down from 65 killed in 2020

Discussion: American Press Institute, @raju, @spj_tweets and @juanlozano70

From Techmeme:

Lee-Anne Mulholland / The Keyword:
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Wall Street Journal:
Gina Raimondo says holding back China in the chips race is a “fool's errand”, and investment, more than export controls, will keep US ahead of Beijing

Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Exploring the scaling challenges of transformer-based LLMs in efficiently processing large amounts of text, as well as potential solutions, such as RAG systems

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