1:15 PM ET, December 15, 2025
December 15, 2025
12:50 PM
Alice Brooker / Press Gazette:
The Associated Press launches AP Verify, an AI-powered tool, including chatbot and geolocation, to help journalists authenticate text, photos, and videos
10:55 AM
Aidan Ryan / The Boston Globe:
The Boston Globe says Brian McGrory will return as editor, after Nancy Barnes' departure at the end of 2025; McGrory previously was editor from 2012 to 2023
10:10 AM
Reuters:
Internal documents: Meta earned $18B+ in annual ad sales from China in 2024, making up 10%+ of its global revenue, with $3B+ linked to fraudulent ads like scams
9:35 AM
Sara Fischer / Axios:
WSJ launches Free Expression, a newsletter-focused opinion brand that will be available via its own channels and Substack, initially offering free content
9:00 AM
Anna Heim / TechCrunch:
Berlin-based Mirelo, whose AI models can interpret video content to add matching sound effects, raised a $41M seed led by Index and a16z, after a $3M pre-seed
8:05 AM
Rose Henderson / Bloomberg:
Memo: Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos lay out Netflix's WBD offer, moving to quell concerns about job losses and the end of theater releases, after Paramount's bid
7:15 AM
Freddy Mayhew / Press Gazette:
PA Media, the UK's largest press agency, says it has adopted a “video-first” strategy to meet increased demand for live and vertical social media content
6:21 AM
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
5:05 AM
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
3:55 AM
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
December 14, 2025
11:30 PM
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
10:05 PM
Kanis Leung / Associated Press:
Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai is found guilty of colluding with foreign forces and conspiring to publish seditious articles, and faces a possible life sentence
9:45 PM
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
December 13, 2025
11:00 PM
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
December 12, 2025
11:00 PM
Trip Gabriel / New York Times:
R. Bruce Dold, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the Chicago Tribune, where he became editor-in-chief and publisher, is dead at 70
10:30 PM
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
9:50 PM
Gene Maddaus / Variety:
Google has removed dozens of AI videos from YouTube that depicted Disney characters, after Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter flagging the links
4:10 PM
Lauren Hirsch / New York Times:
Sources: WBD chose Netflix partly fearing limited recourse if Paramount's bid failed, since Larry Ellison has not provided a personal guarantee
3:20 PM
Aidan Ryan / The Boston Globe:
Boston Globe editor Nancy Barnes steps down from her role but will remain on staff as editor-at-large; she joined the paper as the first female editor in 2023
2:55 PM
Financial Times:
OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok
1:50 PM
Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93
1:05 PM
Ann Gehan / The Information:
Source: livestream shopping app Whatnot nears ~$1B in revenue for 2025; Whatnot says it has passed $6B in gross sales this year, more than doubling 2024's sales
12:41 PM
Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg:
Sources: X reported $752M in Q3 revenue, up 17% YoY, a net loss of $577.4M, and EBITDA of ~$454M, up 16%; revenue for the first nine months of 2025 was $2B+
12:25 PM
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Sources: DMGT has locked down funding for its £500M acquisition of the Telegraph, in a funding package expected to comprise equity and debt
11:05 AM
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
YouTube launches an option for US-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD
9:55 AM
Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz:
[Thread] Substack quietly added a feature that forced subscribers to download the app to read full newsletters but say they've rolled it back after complaints
9:15 AM
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Amazon Prime Video pulls its AI recaps, which it began testing in November, for Fallout, Bosch, and other shows after users noticed errors in the Fallout recaps
8:55 AM
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost
8:00 AM
Mark Stenberg / Adweek:
Sources: the tenure of Anastasia Nyrkovskaya, Fortune's outgoing CEO, was marked by turmoil over a clash with Victor Pang, a lawyer for the company's owner
5:50 AM
Alice Brooker / Press Gazette:
The Guardian names Netflix's former director of product Allan Donald as its first VP of product; Donald oversaw the content discovery operation at Netflix
December 11, 2025
10:55 PM
Reuters:
Reddit files a lawsuit against Australia to overturn its social media ban for under-16s, saying it “infringes the implied freedom of political communication”
9:45 PM
Sara Guaglione / Digiday:
The Washington Post's new Your Personal Podcast, which offers AI-generated customizable podcasts, was developed under a multiyear agreement with ElevenLabs
5:45 PM
Max Tani / Semafor:
Sources: WaPo's top standards editor decried “frustrating” errors in its new AI-generated personalized podcasts, announced this week for users of its mobile app
5:30 PM
Todd Spangler / Variety:
In a message to members, the WGA says Disney's licensing deal with OpenAI “appears to sanction” OpenAI's “theft of our work”, and it plans to meet with Disney
4:15 PM
Axios:
Sources: during the bidding process, Paramount promised WBD that its foreign partners and Jared Kushner's fund wouldn't have any voting or governance rights
3:55 PM
Bloomberg:
A US appeals court upholds a contempt ruling in Epic v. Apple but says Apple can charge commissions on external links, with the rate to be set by a lower court
2:40 PM
Jacob Shamsian / Business Insider:
A Manhattan jury finds director Carl Rinsch guilty on all seven counts of defrauding Netflix of $11M when making sci-fi show White Horse
2:10 PM
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
NY governor signs bills requiring ads to disclose AI-generated performers and mandating consent of heirs to use a deceased person's likeness commercially
1:00 PM
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Bob Iger says the OpenAI deal “does not in any way represent a threat to the creators at all” because it doesn't include name, likeness, or character voices
12:20 PM
Dan Friedman / Mother Jones:
Jack Posobiec, a new Pentagon press corps member, seems to be working in coordination with the Pentagon to threaten a journalist writing about a DoD official
12:00 PM
Axios:
The OpenAI deal gives Disney a fair amount of oversight and control over how its IP is used, including a joint steering committee to monitor user creations
11:40 AM
Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli / Financial Times:
Journalists at Italian newspaper La Stampa go on strike to protest against a potential sale of its parent company Gedi to Greek media organization Antenna
10:00 AM
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Disney sends Google a cease-and-desist letter, accusing Google of “massive scale” copyright infringement and using AI to “exploit and distribute” its content
9:40 AM
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Pinterest agrees to acquire tvScientific, a CTV ad platform that automates and optimizes ad buying; tvScientific was founded in 2020 and has raised ~$60M
9:33 AM
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Disney and OpenAI sign a three-year deal to bring 200+ Disney characters to Sora; Disney will make a $1B investment in OpenAI and become a major OpenAI customer
9:05 AM
OpenAI:
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach landmark agreement to bring beloved characters from across Disney's brands to Sora
8:40 AM
Yael Krifcher / Committee to Protect Journalists:
A look at the erosion of press freedom and independent reporting in Israel, where journalists report escalating censorship, harassment, and self-censorship
6:45 AM
Alice Brooker / Press Gazette:
UK sports publisher GRV cut ~60 staff since September, reducing its workforce to 94, citing drops in Google traffic; other sports sites report similar declines
6:05 AM
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Mirror Editor-in-Chief Caroline Waterston steps down after less than two years, to be succeeded by Chloe Hubbard, currently UK editor at The Independent
December 10, 2025
7:20 PM
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Google tests AI-powered overviews on some publications' Google News pages; publishers like Der Spiegel, El País, and WaPo in commercial partnerships get paid
6:25 PM
Dominick Mastrangelo / The Hill:
President Trump told reporters “it's imperative” for CNN to be sold: “Any deal it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it or sold separately”
6:00 PM
Emily Graffeo / Bloomberg:
A look at Netflix's funding plan for WBD: $59B of debt financing via Wall Street banks, to be eventually replaced with bonds, term loans, and revolving credit
5:40 PM
David Bauder / Associated Press:
The NYT says it won't be deterred in its work after Trump posted on Truth Social that reporting by The NYT and others about his health was “seditious”
4:55 PM
Ted Johnson / Deadline:
Two representatives on the US House Financial Services Committee warn WBD CEO David Zaslav of national security concerns about the financiers of Paramount's bid
4:30 PM
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google rolls out Preferred Sources globally, letting users customize “top stories” in Search, and launches highlighted links from users' news subscriptions
4:05 PM
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify says it will test Prompted Playlist, which lets users describe what they want to hear and receive a unique set of songs based on their listening history
3:30 PM
Joe Wilkins / Futurism:
McDonald's Netherlands pulls an AI-generated Christmas ad, made by ad agency TBWA\NEBOKO with film production company The Sweetshop, after social media backlash
2:55 PM
Kara Voght / Washington Post:
A profile of Brian Glenn, Real America's Voice WH reporter and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, who is giving up his WH gig after the Trump-MTG split