Top News:

Experts: expansion of prosecutions using Espionage Act, started under Obama, could be a larger threat to media during Trump's presidency than libel law changes — Worry about the Espionage Act, not libel laws. — Anyone who doubts that Donald Trump could use the levers of the presidency …
Discussion:
@jayrosen_nyu, Twitter, ThinkProgress, @sulliview, @arishapiro, @penamerican, @pierre, @dankennedy_nu, @honey17011, @jayrosen_nyu, @kendallmire, @jayrosen_nyu, @mlcalderone and @yehudahmirsky
Jim Rutenberg / New York Times:
The persistent questioning by CNN's Jake Tapper of Mike Pence should be the rule on TV news, not the exception, as false assertions and deflections grow — Too often television news, especially on cable, serves as a megaphone for politicians who use it to forward lies and propaganda …
Discussion:
New York Times, @owillis, @senatorshoshana, @ktumulty, @blakehounshell, @philiprucker, @senatorshoshana, @jsteinbeck1939 and @pkafka

Twitter reinstates and re-verifies white nationalist Richard Spencer 's personal account, says his accounts were banned for violating multiple accounts rule — Twitter banned Richard Spencer because he had too many accounts — not because those accounts promoted racism.
Discussion:
BuzzFeed, @richardbspencer, Business Insider, @john_overholt, @lisadep, @kfile, Washington Post, Media Matters for America, @cwarzel, Mashable, The Guardian and Salon

Sources: Politico's Chief Political Correspondent Glenn Thrush is joining the NYT to cover the White House; Thrush's roots are in tabloid journalism — The political journalist wil be reunited with former Politico stars Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

News outlets have simultaneously lost cultural power and the public's trust, which represents both a cause and an effect of the fake-news problem — For a term that is suddenly everywhere, “fake news” is fairly slippery. — Is “fake news” a reference to government propaganda designed to look like independent journalism?
Discussion:
Forbes, @realdonaldtrump, TVNewser and @daviduberti

Under a US government bill, the bipartisan board overseeing Voice of America will be disbanded, replaced by a CEO, sparking fears VOA will become “Trump TV” — A provision tucked into the defense bill guts the Voice of America board, stoking fears that Trump could wield a powerful propaganda arm.
Discussion:
@anthony and @michikokakutani

Bloomberg poaches business writer Joe Nocera from The New York Times to write magazine stories and columns — Mike Bloomberg personally intervenes to hire biz legend who'd been exiled to sports — Even billionaires covet that which they cannot possess. The Observer has learned that former …
Discussion:
FishbowlNY, @joepompeo, @bookgirl96 and @nycjamescobb

Deconstructing the color, pose, and chair in Time's Trump photo, a layered field of references that place the image among the magazine's greatest covers — Time Magazine's annual “Person of the Year” announcement is, year after year, grossly misunderstood.
Discussion:
@alisonloat, @shashitharoor, @metasynthie, @jdforward and @caitlin__kelly

An anatomy of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, as it mutated from an online rumor to a hashtag on social media to actual gunfire in Washington, DC — What was finally real was Edgar Welch, driving from North Carolina to Washington to rescue sexually abused children he believed were hidden …
Discussion:
Mother Jones

UK Culture Secretary Karen Bradley faces questioning in Parliament over Murdoch's bid for Sky, as the deal faces mounting scrutiny — Karen Bradley forced to appear before MPs as concern mounts over media mogul's bid to take full control of satellite broadaster
Discussion:
Observer and The Guardian

Harvard report finds news coverage of both Clinton and Trump during 2016 election was negative in tone and light on policy — A new report from Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzes news coverage during the 2016 general election …
Discussion:
Business Insider

Google's first search result for “Did the Holocaust happen?” is a post from neo-Nazi site Stormfront, showing how Google's algorithm is helping disseminate hate — Last week, we reported how extremist sites ‘game’ the search engine, boosting their propaganda.