Mediagazer: UK media regulator Ofcom launches an investigation into an incident at Red Bee that led to a subtitle outage at Channel 4 for several weeks in 2021 (Jim Waterson/The Guardian)

4:05 AM ET, February 1, 2022

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The New York Times acquires Wordle, the simple word game that has amassed “millions of daily players”, for “an undisclosed price in the low-seven figures” — Wordle, Josh Wardle's stimulating and wildly popular daily word game, is joining The New York Times's portfolio of original …

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Daniel Ek / Spotify:

Spotify publishes its long-standing Platform Rules and says it is working to add a content advisory to podcast episodes that discuss COVID-19 — A decade ago, we created Spotify to enable the work of creators around the world to be heard and enjoyed by listeners around the world.

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Sam Byford / The Verge:

Joe Rogan posts a video to Instagram defending booking contentious guests, apologizes to Spotify for the backlash, and says he may book more “experts” — 'I'm very sorry that this is happening to them.' — Joe Rogan has issued a response to the ongoing controversy …

Ryan Broderick / Garbage Day:

Spotify made an editorial choice by paying $100M to be Joe Rogan's publisher and can't shirk its responsibility by just adding a content warning to his episodes — Read to the end for Pumpkin Cowboy — Please Do Not Let Spotify Convince You That Joe Rogan Is A Content Moderation Problem

Elahe Izadi / Washington Post:

Capital B, a US local nonprofit news organization focused on Black audiences, launches with $9M in philanthropic backing and 16 employees with plans to hire 11 — Capital B, a new digital-media start-up, will provide hard news and investigative reporting aimed at Black audiences.

Wall Street Journal:

Antenna: Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, and others struggle to retain US subscribers who joined to watch a hit show or movie; many unsubscribe within a few months — Roughly half of U.S. viewers who joined right after ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ were gone in six months, data show

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg:

The FT's US journalists seek to unionize with the NewsGuild, ask for voluntary recognition from the FT, and say their 40-person unit has over two-thirds support — Journalists at the Financial Times are seeking to unionize the publication's U.S. operation, the latest in a wave of organizing efforts in the news media.

Discussion: @josheidelson, @greenhousenyt, @anastasiakeeley, @demfromct, @bigblackjacobin, @davidgura, @moisenoise, @mshannahmurphy, @josheidelson and @josheidelson

Cassandra Garrison / Reuters:

Univision and Televisa complete their merger and plan to launch the world's biggest Spanish-language streaming service in H1 2022, targeting nearly 600M people — Mexican broadcast powerhouse Grupo Televisa and U.S. based Univision (UVN.UL) are preparing to launch what would be the biggest …

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Helen Davidson / The Guardian:

Survey: at least six foreign journalists have left China amid increased intimidation through online trolling, physical assaults, hacking, and visa denials — Report says heightened dangers have prompted at least six to leave and many others to develop emergency exit plans

Discussion: @lotteleicht1, @birgitmschwarz, Bloomberg and Hong Kong Free Press HKFP

Glen Owen / Daily Mail:

Source: UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is planning legislation where the DMU force Meta, Google, and others to negotiate payment deals with news publishers — - Platforms will be encouraged to negotiate payment deals with news organisations — If negotiations fail, an independent arbitrator would set a fair price

Discussion: HoldtheFrontPage, @lukejohnsonrcp, The i Paper, @benedictevans, The Signal, @matthewlesh, @benedictevans, The Sun, @s8mb and @benedictevans

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:

Sources: Amazon paid $100M+ for exclusive ad and distribution rights to the podcast My Favorite Murder and all other Exactly Right Media shows — Two Canadian folk singers have forced Spotify to do what thousands of angry social media users could not. — Spotify on Sunday outlined a series …

Discussion: @lucas_shaw and @alexanderchee

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:

With SCOTUS eager to revisit precedent, Sarah Palin's NYT lawsuit is a serious challenge to the press-friendly standard for libel set by Times vs. Sullivan — But none of these landmark cases are as potentially consequential as Sarah Palin's suit against the New York Times

Discussion: @porter_anderson, @brianlehrer, @matthewschafer, @moiradonegan, @terri_rupar, @stormmela and @sarafischer

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More News:

Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
UK media regulator Ofcom launches an investigation into an incident at Red Bee that led to a subtitle outage at Channel 4 for several weeks in 2021

Associated Press:
A fourth Mexican journalist, who was enrolled in the government's protection program, has been murdered in less than a month, after killings sparked protests

Discussion: The Guardian, Axios, MyNorthwest.com, @martinxhodgson, @ema_sasic and @keegan_hamilton

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
NBCUniversal names Valari Dobson Staab as the chair of its local content division and says NBC's RSNs will launch a direct-to-consumer offering later this year

Discussion: Deadline, Awful Announcing, Barrett Media and Next TV

Josh Sandiford / BirminghamLive:
UK police seek a court order under the Terrorism Act to reveal sources from a journalist who helped overturn convictions in the 1974 IRA Birmingham bombings

Discussion: The Guardian, The Times, Press Gazette and @lisaocarroll

Sharon Moshavi / International Center for Journalists:
Velocidad, a media accelerator that invested nearly $1.5M in 10 Latin American news outlets, says its grantees generated new revenue over six times their grants

Discussion: @icfj and @icfj

Earlier Picks:

Richard J. Tofel / Second Rough Draft:
ProPublica's Richard Tofel reflects on 20+ years as a newsroom attorney: preventing cases from being filed, the need for newsroom counsel independence, and more

Discussion: American Press Institute

William Turvill / Press Gazette:
The Seattle Times says it now has 81,000 digital-only subscribers, up 10% over the past 12 months and almost doubling its 41,000 subscribers in January 2019

Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:
Pigeon 605, which sells ads and sponsored posts, emails news to 4K of 200K residents in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, based on interest topics users pick

Discussion: Pigeon605

J. Clara Chan / Hollywood Reporter:
Podcast network Lemonada Media, which grew its annual revenue from $1.5M in 2020 to over $5M in 2021 and reaches 2M+ listeners per month, raises an $8M Series A

Reuters:
Meta says it has paused new users from joining its social media tracking tool CrowdTangle as it works “through some staffing constraints”

Discussion: @melissaryan, @jordanguiao, @kevinroose and @antmandan

From Techmeme:

George Steer / Financial Times:
Nvidia closed down 10% on Friday, falling the most since March 2020 and losing more than $200B of its market value, as investors pull back from AI bets

Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Telegram partners with Tether to let the messaging app's ~900M users send USDT to each other through The Open Network blockchain

Wall Street Journal:
Apple removes WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram from its App Store in China, after orders from the country's regulators citing national security concerns

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