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7:20 PM ET, January 2, 2024

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Source: The Messenger is expected to lay off roughly two dozen out of ~300 employees this week; the company says it is “in the midst of a second-round raise”  —  The company, an aggressive entrant to the digital news space, is expected to cut roughly two-dozen employees later this week.
RELATED:
Justin Baragona / The Daily Beast:
Richard Beckman, president of The Messenger, announces his resignation, citing health problems, and says January 31 will be his last day  —  The troubled “non partisan” news startup has seen a staff exodus over the last few months.  —  Richard Beckman, hard-charging president of the news site The Messenger, has resigned.
Kelly Garrity / Politico:
Donald Trump plans to forgo the CNN's GOP primary debate in favor of a town hall on Fox moderated by Fox anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum  —  The former president has yet to debate other Republican primary candidates.  —  Former President Donald Trump will participate …
Adam Chitwood / The Wrap:
USC study: women directed 12.1% of 2023's top films, up from 2022's 9%; Universal led with four top films directed by women, followed by Lionsgate and Disney  —  A USC Annenberg report finds that only 12.1% of the year's top films were directed by women  —  While Greta Gerwig's “Barbie” …
Ben Jiang / South China Morning Post:
A look at the rise of mini TV series, typically 100+ one-to-five-minute episodes, with the first ~10 free to watch, on Chinese short video platforms like Douyin  —  On November 21, the hit Chinese web series Rise of the Dark Lotus, which had racked up millions of views in less than a week, disappeared from the country's internet.
Reuters:
Hong Kong tycoon, pro-democracy advocate, and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai pleaded not guilty in his landmark trial; prosecutors laid out key allegations  —  Hong Kong tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai pleaded not guilty on Tuesday in his landmark trial, where he is accused …
Nic Fildes / Financial Times:
How Bluey, an Australian animated TV show for kids, became a global hit, in part due to partnerships between its production company Ludo and public broadcasters  —  The offbeat television show about an animated family of cattle dogs has fast become the country's most important cultural export
Joe Mandese / MediaPost:
Omnicom closes its $900M acquisition of Flywheel Digital from Ascential; ex-Ascential CEO Duncan Painter will lead Flywheel as a practice area within Omnicom  —  Omnicom this morning confirmed it has closed on its $900 million acquisition of Flywheel Digital from Ascential plc …
Discussion: Omnicom Group Inc.
Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Comscore: US and Canada box office revenue rose 20% in 2023 to cross $9B but was still below the $10B+ in 2009 and the $11B+ in every year from 2015 to 2019  —  If Hollywood isn't setting off huge fireworks in celebration, it's because revenue is still down from pre-COVID times while worry looms …
GhoulsWhoCode:
Hoodline, a local news service acquired in 2020 by PR agency owner Impress3 Media, seems to have fake people of color bylining stories with automated content  —  Hoodline.com/Chicago appears to be using AI to generate fictional people of color to re-write aggregated news, often directly pulled from existing news sources or PR agencies.
Discussion: @so_treu
J. Edward Moreno / New York Times:
The lawsuits against tech companies could shape what copyright means for AI, or simply serve as leverage for plaintiffs to secure more favorable licensing deals  —  The use of content from news and information providers to train artificial intelligence systems may force a reassessment of where to draw legal lines.
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
X posts with link previews now display titles or headlines in the bottom left corner of the image, but the text size is small and long headlines get cut off  —  X, the platform better known as Twitter, removed headlines from posts with links a few months ago, but is now bringing them back in a new format.
Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:
G/O Media names Dan Hirschhorn as editor-in-chief of Quartz; Hirschhorn most recently worked for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Philadelphia Inquirer  —  Dan Hirschhorn, an experienced editor and digital newsroom leader, has been named editor in chief of Quartz, effective immediately.
 
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 More News: 
The Nation:
Interviews with journalists in Gaza on struggling simply to stay alive, as mounting challenges of reporting have meant the world gets a fraction of the story
 Earlier Picks: 
Alexandra Topping / The Guardian:
Berrow's Worcester Journal, owned by Newsquest and first published in 1690, hires “AI-assisted” reporters who use an in-house copywriting tool based on ChatGPT
Jessica Murray / The Guardian:
John Pilger, an Australian journalist and documentary filmmaker who covered conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Biafra, dies at age 84
Margaret Atwood / In the Writing Burrow:
Margaret Atwood argues that Substack violates its own terms of service by permitting Nazis to publish on its platform, and says Substack can't have it both ways
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
A look at the rise of AI-generated virtual influencers, with some charging thousands of dollars to promote products, leading to concerns from human influencers