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1:10 PM ET, December 18, 2025

Mediagazer

 Top News: 
Shane O'Neill / Washington Post:
Q&A with Christopher Anderson, who photographed Trump's inner circle for VF: “My job is to ... draw on my experience as a journalist and photograph what I see”  —  Every line, spot, blemish and blood vessel was captured by Christopher Anderson's lens.  What was he thinking?
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
CBS News and The Free Press announce Things That Matter, a series of town halls and debates, starting in early 2026, with Sam Altman, J.D. Vance, and others  —  The news division is also planning a town hall with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore in the ‘Things That Matter’ series, with Bank of America lined up as a sponsor.
RELATED:
John Rogers / Associated Press:
Peter Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent who covered the Vietnam War for the AP and the first Gulf War for CNN, has died at 91  —  Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who spent decades dodging bullets and bombs to bring the world eyewitness accounts of war …
RELATED:
Brian Stelter / CNN:
Senators Warren and Blumenthal call on AG Bondi to recuse herself from reviewing the WBD deal due to her prior employment with lobbying firm Ballard Partners
Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg:
Filing: Comcast's offer to merge NBCUniversal with WBD valued Comcast's media and theme-park assets at about $81B; Comcast's overall valuation is about $111B
Discussion: Semafor, The Motley Fool and MediaPost
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
A study of 1,000+ marketing campaigns: host-read podcast ads on YouTube are up to 25% less effective at driving purchases than in audio-only podcasts  —  Ads that appear in video podcasts are alluring for visually-minded marketers but may perform worse on the whole than audio-only, according to a new study
Jake Kanter / Deadline:
YouTube terminates Screen Culture and KH Studio, two large channels that used AI to create fake movie trailers; the platform earlier suspended the channels' ads  —  The Google-owned video giant has switched off Screen Culture and KH Studio, which together boasted well over 2M subscribers and more than a billion views.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix hires ESPN anchor Elle Duncan as its first on-air host for live sports and cultural events; she has appeared on SportsCenter, College GameDay, and more  —  Netflix execs used to dismiss the idea that they would acquire live sports rights.  Now the world's biggest premium streamer …
Janko Roettgers / The Verge:
Atlas Obscura plans to launch Obscura Society, a WebXR-based lounge offering users 3D avatars for voice chats, portals to other VR apps, and more, in early 2026  —  After building dedicated apps for Meta's Quest and other VR headsets, Atlas Obscura expands to HTC's Viverse platform.
OpenAI:
OpenAI launches the OpenAI Academy for News Organizations, which offers journalists AI training, open-source projects, and practical use cases  —  Working with the American Journalism Project and The Lenfest Institute to launch a new learning hub for journalists and publishers using AI.
Discussion: The Decoder
Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Dow Jones hires ex-Bloomberg Media CEO M. Scott Havens as its first chief growth officer, overseeing subscription growth and other consumer revenue streams  —  Dow Jones has hired M. Scott Havens as its first chief growth officer and global head of consumer, a newly created role that underscores …
Discussion: Talking Biz News
Axios:
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr tells a Senate committee the FCC “is not an independent agency”; the agency removed “independent agency” from its site as he testified  —  FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in his Wednesday Senate testimony that the agency he governs “is not an independent agency, formally speaking.”
RELATED:
Steven Portnoy / ABC News:
Democratic Senate Commerce Committee members accused FCC Chairman Brendan Carr of making “mafia threats” and encroaching on broadcasters' First Amendment rights
 
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 More News: 
Jennifer Schuessler / New York Times:
PEN America elects novelist Dinaw Mengestu as president, as the organization navigates free speech challenges across the US and criticism of its Gaza response
Discussion: PEN America
 Earlier Picks: 
Laura Cress / BBC:
Netflix wins rights to a FIFA soccer simulation game, developed by Delphi Interactive and set for release ahead of the 2026 World Cup, for free to Netflix users
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube says it will no longer give data to US Billboard charts after January 16, arguing Billboard's ranking formula doesn't count ad-supported streams fairly
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta is testing limiting Facebook professional accounts and Pages to posting just two links per month, unless they subscribe to $14.99+/month Meta Verified
 

 
From Techmeme:

Fransiska Nangoy / Reuters:
Indonesia temporarily blocks Grok, citing the risk of non-consensual sexual deepfakes, becoming the first country to block the AI tool

Jackson Chen / Engadget:
Malwarebytes: a 2024 Instagram data breach exposed information on 17.5 million users, including emails, phone numbers, and physical addresses

Microsoft Corporate Responsibility:
A look at the global AI adoption in 2025; use in the global north grew nearly twice as fast as the south; the UAE leads with 64% of working-age adults using AI
 
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