Top News:
César López Linares / LatAm Journalism Review:
How independent Venezuelan outlets, operating from exile and in alliance with reporters who remain in the country, managed to cover Maduro's ouster — It was around 2:00 a.m. on Jan. 3 when reports of explosions and low-flying aircraft in the city of Caracas began circulating on social media.
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Alyssa Ray / The Wrap:
PBS says it is ending PBS News Weekend, due to federal budget cuts; anchor John Yang says he'll be leaving PBS but many members of the show's team will remain — “Due to federal budget cuts, we've had to make the difficult decision to rework our staffing and programming,” anchor Amna Nawaz shares
Discussion:
@barbararybolt.bsky.social, twitchy.com, mikemcguff.com, The Gateway Pundit and PBS NewsHour
Oliver Darcy / Status:
Sources: Bari Weiss has kept Anderson Cooper's unaired 60 Minutes piece about Trump's decision to accept South African refugees in a prolonged editorial process — Earlier this week, on Tuesday, members of the “60 Minutes” team gathered for a meeting to discuss the future of Sharyn Alfonsi's delayed piece …
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Jeff Jarvis / Katie Couric Media:
Under Bari Weiss and anchor Tony Dokoupil, CBS Evening News has become state propaganda, costing CBS News respect as mass media's audience shrinks
Under Bari Weiss and anchor Tony Dokoupil, CBS Evening News has become state propaganda, costing CBS News respect as mass media's audience shrinks
Discussion:
The Wrap, The Guardian, @andrewmceo.bsky.social, Salon, @beastobsessed, @sashotodorov1, Gazetteer SF, The Daily Beast, People, Variety, Entertainment Weekly, @jeffjarvis.bsky.social, Puck, The New World, @ernie.tedium.co, @bethfertig.bsky.social, @jeffjarvis.bsky.social, al.com, New York Post, National Enquirer and Suggest
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Sources: Paramount is seeking a strategic partner to invest in MTV as it aims to refocus MTV on music; Nielsen: MTV averaged <200K viewers in primetime in 2025 — Paramount Skydance Corp. is looking to revive MTV — and it wants the music industry's help.
Jennifer Swann / Wired:
How Craigslist has stayed relevant for users as a place to find jobs, housing, and personal connections without relying on algorithmic feeds or public profiles — Millennials are still using Craigslist to find jobs, love, and even to cast creative projects—eschewing other AI- and algorithm-dominated online spaces.
Bloomberg:
Chinese short-video app Kuaishou's stock has surged 88% over the past year, driven by the success of its Kling AI video generator, which has amassed 60M users — Few major companies have tried to pull off a pivot to AI as swiftly as Kuaishou Technology. — Long known as a laggard …
Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
A look at the visual investigations of the Minneapolis ICE shooting by The NYT, WaPo, and Bellingcat, and how they helped people trying to make sense of events — When everyone has seen the same videos, what service do news sites provide? — Late Wednesday afternoon …
Discussion:
New York Times, twitchy.com, Poynter, @dirkjacobs.bsky.social, The Atlantic, Townhall, New York Daily News, @theothermike.bsky.social, CBS News, The Daily Signal, Straight Arrow News, Washington Post, Deadline, @asharangappa.bsky.social, New York Post, @jonathanweisman, KSTP-TV, @alpenglowdreams.bsky.social, @karynpugliese.bsky.social, @sarajacobs.house.gov, Wired, @sarahscire.com, @samlitzinger.bsky.social, CNN, The Verge, @eliothiggins.bsky.social, @joffirphd.bsky.social, @bellingcat.com, @eliothiggins.bsky.social and @eliothiggins.bsky.social
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
Italy fines Cloudflare €14.2M for refusing to block pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service; CEO Matthew Prince says he will discuss it with US officials — Italy fined Cloudflare 14.2 million euros for refusing to block access to pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service …
Alex Reisner / The Atlantic:
Researchers say GPT 4.1, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 3 can reproduce long excerpts from books they were trained on when strategically prompted — On tuesday, researchers at Stanford and Yale revealed something that AI companies would prefer to keep hidden.
The Hollywood Reporter:
X sues the National Music Publishers' Association and its members, claiming they conspired to force X into group licensing deals at inflated rates — X alleges antitrust violations over music publishers allegedly refusing to negotiate individual licenses with the company.
Discussion:
Variety, The A.V. Club, Digital Music News, Reuters, New York Times, Billboard, @nitishpahwa.com, The Verge and Global Competition Review
Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:
The San Francisco Standard hires Elizabeth Ralph to oversee its Opinion section; Ralph is currently editor of Politico Magazine and Politico managing editor — Elizabeth Ralph is joining the San Francisco Standard newsroom leadership team to oversee the Opinion section.
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Filings: X's UK revenue fell 58.3% YoY from £69.1M in 2023 to £28.9M in 2024; pre-tax profits fell from £2.2M in 2023 to £767,000 in 2024 — Elon Musk-owned site reports plunging profits amid outcry over use of AI tool Grok to create sexually explicit imagery
