Top News:
Tatiana Siegel / Variety:
Justin Baldoni sues The New York Times for $250M over its Blake Lively story, which accused him of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us and more — On June 2, 2023, Blake Lively began a text exchange with her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star Justin Baldoni that blamed …
Discussion:
New York Times, Los Angeles Times, @joshsternberg.com, Us Weekly, People, New York Daily News, @kattenbarge.bsky.social, @kateefeldman.bsky.social, @greene.haus, AV Club, Page Six, @tylercoates.bsky.social, The Wrap, @lauraolin.bsky.social, TMZ.com, Entertainment Weekly, @juliedicaro.bsky.social, @milesgrant.bsky.social, Deadline, New York Post, Just Jared, Rolling Stone, Raw Story, @garnethenderson.com, Daily Mail, @emiandthedesertcrow …, @wheystandard.bsky.social, NPR, IndieWire, @zsharf, @mollyknight.bsky.social, Rolling Stone, E! Online and FemaleFirst
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TMZ.com:
Blake Lively files a lawsuit in a New York federal court against Justin Baldoni and others, claiming mental pain and anguish, emotional distress, and lost wages
Blake Lively files a lawsuit in a New York federal court against Justin Baldoni and others, claiming mental pain and anguish, emotional distress, and lost wages
Discussion:
Associated Press, The Hollywood Reporter, Page Six, Daily Mail, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, Us Weekly, E! Online, New York Post, The Daily Beast, New York Times, AV Club, Just Jared, Deadline, @kattenbarge.bsky.social, Cele|bitchy, RADAR, SheKnows, Suggest and Los Angeles Times
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
The Atlantic plans to hire ~12 journalists, including from WaPo, to bolster its political coverage under Trump; source: it added ~100K subscribers since March — The magazine is recruiting from a crosstown rival, The Washington Post, to bolster its political staff.
Hanna Park / CNN:
Aaron Brown, the CNN anchor who gained prominence for his coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks and his role in shaping CNN's evening news format, died Sunday at 76 — Aaron Brown, the renowned CNN anchor who gained prominence for his coverage of the September 11 attacks and his pivotal role …
Discussion:
New York Post, UPI, ABC News, @brianstelter, The Hollywood Reporter, @newsjennifer_schulze …, @jeffreytoobin, @rmgaustad, TV Insider, @dustinvolz.bsky.social, @brianstelter, @theamberharding, Raw Story, New York Times, Newser, Variety, @markhalperin, Los Angeles Times, Fox News, TVLine, @bmccandless, @brianstelter, RADAR, HuffPost, @edlavacnn, The Hill, The Wrap, Mediaite, @joshmankiewicz.bsky.social, @vaughnhillyard, @samstein, @romanmars.bsky.social, Deadline, Daily Caller News Foundation, New York Daily News, TVNewsCheck, Suggest, @essexjp.bsky.social, The Sun and Just Jared
Duke University School of Law:
Books, movies, and music published in 1929, including William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and sound recordings from 1924 enter the US public domain — On January 1, 2025, thousands of copyrighted works from 1929 will enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1924.
Discussion:
Rolling Stone, The Verge, Gizmodo, SFGATE, Reason, CBS News, @steveweddle.bsky.social, Fred Wilf on LinkedIn, @dirkdierickx@mastodon-belgium …, @garygouldsberry@twit.social, @rhetoricked@esq.social, @gutenberg_org@mastodon.social, @aetherczar.bsky.social, @USelaine@mastodon.online, Los Angeles Times and Plagiarism Today
Inside Radio:
Salem agrees to sell its seven contemporary Christian radio stations to Educational Media Foundation for $80M and repays all $159.4M of its long-term debt — Moving to shore up its balance sheet, Salem Media Group has agreed to sell all its remaining contemporary Christian radio stations …
Bloomberg:
Broadcast networks are seeking higher fees from their local affiliates, often citing the rising cost of sports rights; CBS and Fox have been the most aggressive — - FCC chair nominee accuses Disney of ‘siphoning money away’ — Networks spend heavily on sports, want bigger share of fees
Discussion:
The Desk
Etan Vlessing / The Hollywood Reporter:
Howl CEO Li Haslett Chen steps down from WBD board, opening the way for a high-profile addition to the board in 2025 amid plans to spin off TV assets — The tech exec's exit could open the way for a high-profile addition to the studio's board of directors in 2025 amid plans to possibly spin off its legacy TV assets.
Ernesto Van der Sar / TorrentFreak:
Link-Busters, an anti-piracy company that works for Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and others, recently surpassed 2B URL takedown requests sent to Google — Online piracy is a constant headache for copyright holders; one that's particularly hard to beat.
Nick Vivarelli / Variety:
A look at Germany's new film funding law, which was hastily passed on December 27, that temporarily raises the cash back production grant by 5% to 30% — The German parliament on Friday, in its last session before being dissolved, pushed through a watered down version of the country's long-gestating …
Discussion:
Martin Hartung on LinkedIn
Sportico:
Two sites that streamed sports events without authorization, Methstreams and Crackstreams, are “taking a break”; it's unclear if legal action forced takedowns — A segment of the online sports fan community mourned Monday as two popular websites for pirating illegal streams …
Discussion:
Plagiarism Today, Front Office Sports, @nfl_dovkleiman, Awful Announcing and Billboard
Max Tani / Semafor:
News media personalities including Andrew Ross Sorkin, David Remnick, Rachel Maddow, Mehdi Hasan, and Bari Weiss reflect on the things they got wrong in 2024 — The News — The news media is wrong all the time — though not exactly as its loudest critics claim.
Discussion:
@glegum.bsky.social, The Present Age, @chrislhayes.bsky.social, @elletwocache, @madrid_mike, @souljagoytellem, @jryedinak, @drewsav, @nkulw, @metrauxjulia.bsky.social, @mikeisaac, @ericnewcomer, @ericnewcomer, @mikeisaac, @mikeisaac, @colbyhall, @jrrosenb, @manicghosts, @10hourmix4sleep, @maxwelltani, @adriana_lacy, @imavip, @wilson__valdez, @those_who_fail, @timodc, @shawnhils, @thekennymiles, @nkulw, @dorajfacundo, @drboguslaw, @stryker1, @dorajfacundo, RedState, @jamellebouie.net, @startledn, @semaforben, @emily_sundberg, @tomscocca.bsky.social, @tiagodf.bsky.social, Rolling Stone, @julito77.bsky.social, @lawrencehurley.bsky.social, @tomscocca.bsky.social, @kevincollier.bsky.social, @conorsen.bsky.social, @simonowens.bsky.social, @jayrosen.bsky.social, @karlbode.com and Daily Caller News Foundation
Callum Parke / London Evening Standard:
UK High Court documents show hedge fund manager Crispin Odey is seeking at least £79M from the Financial Times in libel damages over sexual assault allegations — Mr Odey is suing the publication over allegations that he had sexually assaulted multiple women, which he denies
Discussion:
The Times and The Independent