Top News:
Chris Morris / Variety:
Acclaimed actor and director Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife Michele Singer were found dead in their home; LAPD is investigating the deaths as a homicide — Rob Reiner, who segued from starring in “All in the Family” to directing movies including “This Is Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men” and …
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Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
How media coverage of Trump's AI EO overstated federal authority over states and overlooked how the order's interstate commerce argument could backfire — The mainstream media just failed a basic civics test so badly that you'd think their brains have been pickled by the kinds of folks who spend all their time on X (oh, wait...).
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Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Major brands were replaced by direct-response advertisers during commercial breaks of CBS News' December 13 town hall with Erika Kirk, moderated by Bari Weiss — During a Saturday-night town hall led by Bari Weiss, the recently named editor in chief of CBS News, most of Madison Avenue sought an off-ramp.
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Max Tani / Semafor:
Internal tests show WaPo launched its AI podcast feature despite 68%+ of generated scripts failed its standards, saying it would “iterate through” the issues — The Scoop — The Washington Post began putting out AI-generated podcasts even after internal tests found …
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Scott Fitzgerald / Wall Street Journal:
Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on antitrust, argues consumers stand to benefit from Netflix's acquisition of WBD — Consumers stand to benefit from Netflix's acquisition of Warner. — In a crossover event fit for Hollywood, Netflix is acquiring Warner Bros …
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Will McCurdy / PCMag:
Amazon rolls out Ask This Book to the Kindle iOS app, letting readers ask questions about plot or characters; authors can't opt out — Whether you're reading dense, challenging 19th-century classics or the latest thriller, sometimes even the best readers lose track of what's actually going on …
Elias Leight / Wall Street Journal:
Christmas music is more popular than ever, with listeners embracing it earlier in the year; by December 10, 20 of Spotify's top 25 tracks were Christmas-themed — One music manager described a holiday hit as a ‘little ATM machine’ — The group Pentatonix are known for their a capella renditions of Christmas classics.
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Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A look at financial advice YouTuber Caleb Hammer, who has over 2M subscribers and 60K to 70K subscribers paying $9.99/month for exclusive content — Caleb Hammer, the host of Financial Audit, a top podcast on YouTube, is one of the online upstarts filling the void left by the decline of combative daytime TV
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@dannygroner.bsky.social
Paul Sonne / New York Times:
A profile of Ivan Urgant, a popular Russian late-night TV host who became a pariah after his suspension in February 2022 for opposing the invasion of Ukraine — Ivan Urgant was an unstoppable Russian megastar. Then he expressed opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
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@michaeljstern.bsky.social
Lauren Edmonds / Business Insider:
Filing: Reddit says in its lawsuit against Australia's social media ban that it's “a collection of public fora” and social interaction isn't its “sole purpose” — - Australia is now barring children under 16 from creating or maintaining social media accounts.
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Kanis Leung / Associated Press:
Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai is found guilty of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring to publish seditious articles — Jimmy Lai, the former Hong Kong media mogul and outspoken critic of Beijing, was convicted in a landmark national security trial …
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Pamela McClintock / The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney's Zootopia 2 surpasses $1B at the global box office, the fastest PG-rated film to do so after just 17 days in release — Disney's year-end holiday tentpole achieved the feat faster than any Holllwood animated film in history, as well as any PG-rated film.
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