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5:40 PM ET, December 18, 2024

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney confirms pulling a transgender storyline from animated series Win or Lose, saying “many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects” with their kids  —  The original animated show about a co-ed high school team debuts on Disney+ in February.
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Sources: Disney worried that it had a flawed case in Trump's ABC lawsuit, and fighting it could hurt the Disney brand and damage press protections for others  —  Talks started and finished on the same day, after Disney decided that fighting the lawsuit could potentially hurt the company and protections for the press.
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Several ABC News staffers say its Trump settlement sets a concerning precedent and sends a message that Disney is giving priority to its corporate interests  —  Staffers question decision by Disney; company was looking to avoid protracted legal battle  —  Disney's decision …
RELATED:
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Tortoise formally signs the deal to buy The Observer, appoints acting editor Lucy Rock as the title's print editor, and launches a voluntary redundancy scheme
Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
A look at GOP attacks on local news outlets across the US, including the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners' harrassment of LNP reporter Tom Lisi  —  Republicans claim Tom Lisi's reporting is lies to promote a liberal agenda.  How should he respond?  —  On Feb. 1, Tom Lisi took a seat …
Michael Schneider / Variety:
Channing Dungey, incoming WBD CEO of US networks, names Brett Paul as COO and Howard Lee as chief creative officer; Dungey is succeeding retiring Kathleen Finch  —  That includes expanding duties for her top lieutenant at Warner Bros. TV Group, Brett Paul, who will now also serve as chief operating officer for U.S. networks.
Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
Flipboard launches Surf, an app to create custom feeds from Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, RSS, podcasts, and YouTube, in beta on iOS, Android, and iPadOS  —  Surf weaves Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, RSS feeds, podcasts, and YouTube into something that wouldn't have been possible until recently.
Katcy Stephan / Variety:
Amazon says Red One, which opened at just $32M in the US last month, had a record-breaking 50M worldwide viewers in its opening weekend on Prime Video  —  It's a December to remember for Prime Video.  Per the streamer, the Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans Christmas flick “Red One” …
BBC:
Analysis of Facebook data: audience engagement for Palestinian news outlets fell 77% since October 2023; the outlets say Meta severely restricted their reach  —  BBC Arabic, BBC World Service & BBC Monitoring  —  Facebook has severely restricted the ability of Palestinian news outlets …
Bloomberg:
Marc Benioff said there is “no deal on the table” to sell Time, which he has owned since 2018; a report in November said Antenna Group was in talks to buy it  —  “It's extremely important that we do have fair and balanced journalism, and that's why I'm very proud to be an owner of Time …
Jacqui Shine / Wall Street Journal:
As demand for ghostwriters grows, high-end writers see higher salaries and more complex deals; survey: one in three reported earning more than $100,000/year  —  Shifts in the book industry have been a boon to writers who work quietly behind the scenes  —  Reality stars don't typically pride themselves on their literary prowess.
CBS News:
SCOTUS says it will hear a challenge on January 10 to a new law that could lead to a TikTok ban in the US, ahead of the law taking effect on January 19  —  Washington — The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will take up a challenge to a new law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in the U.S …
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Some US groups are building resources to defend against Trump lawsuits, and should gather lawyers, money, and people who know how to respond to performance art  —  In the wake of Donald Trump's election victory and promised revenge tour, a number of individuals have proposed the creation …
RELATED:
Richard J. Tofel / Columbia Journalism Review:
ABC needs to answer questions about its $16M settlement with Trump in a libel case, especially whether it is changing accountability coverage of those in power
 
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 More News: 
Lucas Manfredi / The Wrap:
Roku partners with X Games to stream X Games Aspen, founded by ESPN but sold to MSP Sports in 2022, on the recently launched Roku Sports Channel in 2025
Aisha Counts / Bloomberg:
eMarketer expects Instagram to hit $32B in US ad revenue in 2025, or 50% of Meta's ad sales; filings: Instagram was ~30% of Meta's global business in early 2022
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube sues Ganjingworld, which runs the Gan Jing World video-sharing website, alleging that it has been “automatically vacuuming up YouTube user channels”
 Earlier Picks: 
Sam Bradley / Digiday:
A look at Reddit's growth in sports fan communities; internal data: Reddit recorded a 35% YoY increase in engagement in 1,000+ sports-themed Subreddits in 2024
Discussion: Modern Retail
 

 
From Techmeme:

Bloomberg:
iRobot files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reaches a restructuring agreement to hand over control to its secured lender and main Chinese supplier Shenzhen Picea

Emilia David / VentureBeat:
Nvidia launches Nemotron 3, a family of AI models using a hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture and the Mamba-Transformer design, in 30B, 100B, and ~500B sizes

Arsheeya Bajwa / Reuters:
Nvidia announces it has acquired SchedMD, the developer of Slurm, an open-source workload management system for HPC and AI
 
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