Mediagazer: After YouTube recategorized “Brie Larson”, star of Captain Marvel, as news in search, its algorithm surfaced videos from news publishers, pushing down trolls (Julia Alexander/The Verge)

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Memo: in 2018, BuzzFeed generated $100M+ from business lines that didn't exist in 2017; Facebook video platform revenue grew from $500K in Q1 to $3M in Q4 2018 — - BuzzFeed CEO Says Company Is Generating Over $200 Million Annually From Businesses That Didn't Exist Two Years Ago

Discussion: Nieman Lab, Business Insider, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, Digiday, @xpangler, @lucas_shaw, Adweek and @rafat, more at Techmeme »

New York Times:

White House Communications Director Bill Shine has resigned to serve as senior adviser on Trump's re-election campaign — Bill Shine, the former Fox News executive who joined the White House staff last summer to manage President Trump's communications operation, has resigned and will move …

New York Times:

Sources: Amazon teams up with the NY Yankees, Sinclair Broadcasting, and others in a bid to buy the YES sports network from majority owner 21st Century Fox — Amazon is coming to New York — to grab a piece of the Yankees sports network. — Jeff Bezos' tech giant has teamed …

Discussion: Associated Press, Fox Business, @business, @darrenrovell, Bloomberg, Bleacher Report, The Wrap, Awful Announcing, Broadcasting & Cable, New York Post and BloombergQuint

Alex Sherman / CNBC:

An overview of Amazon's media strategies, which include partnering with channels, expanding sports rights, and connecting content to products it sells — - Jeff Bezos gives the Amazon Studios team a massive budget to win “Lord of the Rings” and even sends Echo speakers to the Tolkien estate.

more at Techmeme »

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman share content plans for Quibi, their streaming service launching in April 2020, including a show on Evan Spiegel and Snapchat — Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman today announced a slate of new series and projects heading to their forthcoming video streaming service, Quibi.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, Fast Company and The Wrap, more at Techmeme »

Gene Maddaus / Variety:

Former exec of Asian-themed OTT service DramaFever, which shut down in Oct., sues Warner Bros. alleging anti-Asian bias and retaliation amid exec layoffs — A former executive at the Asian-themed OTT service DramaFever filed suit on Wednesday, accusing Warner Bros. of laying off Asian-American executives due to bias.

Discussion: Forbes, HuffPost and NBC News

Mia Galuppo / Hollywood Reporter:

In memo, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara apologizes for “personal actions” that embarrassed company and staff after leaked texts show entanglement with actress — “I deeply regret that I have made mistakes in my personal life that have caused pain and embarrassment to the people I love the most.

Discussion: The Week, The Wrap, Variety, Deadline, @awolfeful, @thrmattbelloni and @glenn__kenny

The Conversation:

Australian court case puts media outlets on notice that they could face large compensation claims, after The Age was found liable for a reporter's PTSD — A landmark ruling by an Australian court is expected to have international consequences for newsrooms, with media companies on notice …

Discussion: Nieman Lab, @jbenton, @lindsaycohen and @seanrobinson1e4

Alison Weissbrot / AdExchanger:

Product manager says Google is building a podcast app and hopes to surface podcasts in search results by using speech-to-text to understand audio content — Google, a sleeping giant in the podcast space, is starting to open its eyes and stretch. — Since launching its native podcast app …

Arunabh Saikia / Scroll.in:

The editor and the publisher of Shillong Times, NE India's oldest English-language daily newspaper, held guilty of contempt after running story on judges' perks — The editor and publisher have been ordered to pay a fine of Rs two lakh each within a week, else they will be imprisoned for six months and the paper banned.

Discussion: @trulymonica, IJR, @prasanto and @loquacious_lion

Julia Alexander / The Verge:

After YouTube recategorized “Brie Larson”, star of Captain Marvel, as news in search, its algorithm surfaced videos from news publishers, pushing down trolls — How a simple ‘news’ tag can change everything — If you searched “Brie Larson” on YouTube a couple of days ago …

Discussion: Business Insider, Comic Book, The A.V. Club and Tubefilter, more at Techmeme »

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Serial Box, a digital publisher of serialized fiction that publishes stories in text and audio formats, raises $4.5M in seed funding, led by Boat Rocker Media — Serial Box, a startup bringing back the tradition of serialized fiction, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding.