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Joe Posnanski / JoeBlogs:
Joe Posnanski, a former Sports Illustrated senior columnist, reflects on the magazine's impact on his own life and on sports journalism before the internet — At the moment, there's confusion. Heartbreak and confusion. Sports Illustrated may live on. It may not. It may morph into something else.
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NPR, New York Post, Chicago Sun Times, The Hill and ABC News
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Todd Spangler / Variety:
Filing: the Arena Group “failed to make a quarterly payment” of ~$3.75M on January 2 to Authentic Brands, the license holder of Sports Illustrated
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@si_union, New York Daily News, TIME, Axios, @xpangler, Awful Announcing, Hollywood Reporter, Washington Post, UPROXX, The Ringer, HuffPost, The Information, Business Insider, Front Office Sports, Newser, Page Six, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Vibe, Wall Street Journal, Defector, New Jersey Online, New York Times, Sportico, The Messenger, The Athletic, Mediaite, Barrett Media, nyguild.org, The Wrap and KNSD-TV
Reuters:
Sony sends a termination notice to Zee Entertainment to call off the $10B merger between its Indian media unit and Zee, citing unmet conditions as the reason — Japan's Sony Group (6758.T) said on Monday it has sent a termination notice to Zee Entertainment (ZEE.NS) to call off a $10 billion merger …
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BBC, Bloomberg, The Wrap, Financial Times, Broadband TV News, CNN, @danprimack, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, TechCrunch, Deadline, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal
Yair Rosenberg / The Atlantic:
How a cascade of media failures led to misleadingly truncated quotes from Israeli officials about Gaza being cited in the BBC, NPR, The New York Times, and more — Journalists and jurists point to damning quotes from Israel's war cabinet as evidence of genocidal intent. But the citations are not what they seem.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
ElevenLabs, which uses AI tools to create and edit synthetic voices, raised an $80M Series B co-led by a16z, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross at a $1B+ valuation — There's a lot of money in voice cloning. — Case in point: ElevenLabs, a startup developing AI-powered tools to create …
Discussion:
@elevenlabsio, John McClymont on LinkedIn, TechStartups, Reuters and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »
Ted Johnson / Deadline:
Donald Trump's campaign refused to let NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard travel as a pool reporter, leading to NBC News' access being cut off for the day — Donald Trump's campaign refused to agree to let an NBC News correspondent travel with him on New Hampshire campaign stops today …
Daisy Dumas / The Guardian:
Australia's Nine newspapers names former Daily Mail Australia editor Luke McIlveen as executive editor, overseeing the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more — McIlveen was previously editor-in-chief of news.com.au and founding editor of Daily Mail Australia. He takes on Tory Maguire's former role at the Age and SMH
Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of David Ellison, who built Skydance Media into a powerful and profitable maker of big-budget movies and TV shows, as he explores a deal for Paramount — Skydance Media's David Ellison produced and financed movies and shows. Now he has his eyes on Paramount.
Discussion:
@jbflint
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Some indie producers say raising money via Sundance exposure no longer works; Comscore: 13 indie movies made $20M+ at the US box office in 2023 vs. 21 in 2019 — The number of hit indie movies is in decline. Some blame the Sundance Film Festival, but the problems run much deeper.
Discussion:
@lucas_shaw, @lucas_shaw and Variety
Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
Sky UK & Ireland head Stephen van Rooyen plans to step down at the end of February; the unit will now report directly to Sky Group CEO Dana Strong — “I have taken the decision that now is the right time for me to leave Sky.” — Comcast's Sky Group said on Monday that Stephen van Rooyen …
Discussion:
Variety, Deadline and Broadband TV News
Naman Ramachandran / Variety:
The UK publishes its mid-term review of the BBC's Royal Charter, ending on December 31, 2027, saying “the BBC needs to adapt or risk losing” audience trust — The U.K. government is giving more power to the BBC and media regulator Ofcom to handle complaints as part of its mid-term review into the corporation's functioning.
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Byline Times, Broadband TV News, The Mirror, Telegraph, Sky News, Deadline, GOV.UK, HoldtheFrontPage, The Guardian and Financial Times
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Nightshade, a free tool that lets artists “poison” AI models being trained on their artwork without permission, is now available to download for Mac and PC — It's here: months after it was first announced, Nightshade, a new, free software tool allowing artists to “poison” …
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Boing Boing, Emil Protalinski on LinkedIn, Natalie Edwards on LinkedIn, @ianbetteridge@writing …, Jackie Barbieri on LinkedIn, @jadel4w, @theglazeproject, @kellyannerodak, @theglazeproject, @theglazeproject, @theglazeproject, @theglazeproject, @theglazeproject, @signbeetle, @sini4ka111, @theglazeproject, @rahll, @theglazeproject, @alexjc, @indianshrekt, @the_row_house, @palomamcclain, @eballai, @theglazeproject, @kat_loveland, Nightshade, IGN, Glaze, The Decoder, AI Agenda, @seanb@mstdn.ca, @grammargirl@zirk.us and The Register, more at Techmeme »
Aylin Woodward / Wall Street Journal:
Many archaeologists and anthropologists say two recent popular Netflix documentaries circulate unverified science and shouldn't be labeled as documentaries — ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ and ‘Unknown: Cave of Bones’ circulate unverified science, many archaeologists say. Filmmakers defend their storytelling.
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