Mediagazer: After leaving Meta, CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman has helped a bipartisan group of US senators craft a bill to boost social networks' transparency (Ben Smith/New York Times)

4:30 AM ET, January 4, 2022

Top News:

WaPo's David Fahrenthold, who won the 2017 Pulitzer for an investigation into Trump's charitable giving, will join NYT's DC bureau as an investigative reporter — David is joining The Times's Washington bureau as an investigative reporter. Read more in this note from Elisabeth Bumiller.

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:

While The Atlantic and others have covered the United States' teetering democracy, major publications have yet to make the topic a central focus — Journalists stepped it up in 2021, but now we need a concerted effort — In the year since the Jan. 6 insurrection, mainstream journalists have done a lot of things right.

Ben Smith / New York Times:

After leaving Meta, CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman has helped a bipartisan group of US senators craft a bill to boost social networks' transparency — The co-founder of CrowdTangle has been working with Congress on legislation to make tech companies disclose their inner workings.

Gideon Lichfield / Wired:

Wired merges its US and UK websites, but will still publish two separate print editions, as it vows to reject “the optimist and pessimist views of tech” — The future begins here—again. — In the next few decades, virtually every financial, social, and governmental institution …

Helen Davidson / The Guardian:

Independent Hong Kong news outlet Citizen News will close on Tuesday, citing “the rapid changes in society and worsening environment for media” — Independent online news portal to cease operations amid ‘worsening environment for media’ in city

Discussion: Reuters, @hkcnews_com, T&I AsiaWatch, Al Jazeera, Reuters, @tomgrundy, @hk_watch, CNN, Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, BBC, @austinramzy, Dimsum Daily, @xinwenxiaojie, @lokmantsui, Bloomberg, Hong Kong Free Press HKFP, Variety and National Review

Heidi Chung / Variety:

2022 media trend predictions: subscription video streaming and global digital ad revenue will likely remain growth stories, and the M&A fever will rage on — Though the economy wasn't completely shut down in 2021, life and business were hardly normal. Despite those less-than-normal conditions …

Jem Aswad / Variety:

David Bowie's estate sells the singer's publishing catalog to Warner Chappell Music, sources say for over $250M — The catalog spans six decades and includes such songs as “Heroes,” “Changes,” “Space Oddity,” “Fame,” “Let's Dance,” “Rebel Rebel,” “Golden Years,” “Ziggy Stardust,” …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Complete Music Update, Hollywood Reporter, @scottwoodssays, Forbes, The Guardian, New York Times, @biiilyedwards, Raw Story, Deadline, @variety, New York Post, Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Wrap and Music Business Worldwide

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Twitter completes its $1.05B sale of MoPub to AppLovin, which expects its unified platform with MoPub to process $15B+ of annualized advertiser spend by 2023 — Twitter announced today it has completed the sale of its mobile ad platform, MoPub, to the mobile game maker and marketing software …

Discussion: Business Wire, Adweek, PR Newswire and AppLovin, more at Techmeme »

Tyler O'Neil / Fox Business:

Facebook reinstates the ad account of conservative children's book publisher Heroes of Liberty, saying the account was permanently disabled in error — Heroes of Liberty publishes books about Amy Coney Barrett, Ronald Reagan and Thomas Sowell — Facebook has “permanently disabled” …

Discussion: The Week, New York Post, Jane Hampton Cook’s Substack, @beccaturmo, @mccormickprof, @foxbusiness, @mkhammer, @michaelshermer, @megynkelly, @andymstone, @bethanyshondark, @brithume, @marshablackburn, @sethamandel, Mediaite, National Review and @tedcruz

Stephen Lepitak / Adweek:

MediaRadar: between November 2020 and November 2021, US gambling ad spend reached $488M, including ~$336M on TV, up 63% YoY, and ~$140M on digital, up 52% YoY — The level of advertising spend over the last year in the country is estimated to have reached $336 million

Discussion: @r2rothenberg, @ericporat, @wagersusa, @adweek and World Sports Network

Pamela McClintock / Hollywood Reporter:

Comscore: North American box office revenue rose to $4.5B in 2021, up 101%+ YoY but nearly 60% behind 2019, as movies with youth appeal fueled the recovery — Revenue at the North American box office jumped 101 percent over 2020 but still lagged far behind pre-pandemic levels.

Discussion: The Wrap, Forbes, @mattdentler, @pdergarabedian and The Wrap

Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:

Impresa, the largest media conglomerate in Portugal, gets hacked and extorted by the Lapsus$ ransomware gang — The Lapsus$ ransomware gang has hacked and is currently extorting Impresa, the largest media conglomerate in Portugal and the owner of SIC and Expresso, the country's largest TV channel and weekly newspaper, respectively.

Discussion: @aitorehm, @runasand and @campuscodi

Associated Press:

IFJ: 45 journalists and media workers were killed doing their jobs in 2021, one of the lowest death tolls in 30 years and down from 65 killed in 2020 — BRUSSELS (AP) — A total of 45 reporters and media workers were killed doing their jobs over the last year, the highest number among …

Discussion: @spj_tweets and @juanlozano70

Jennifer Jenkins / Duke University School of Law:

Books, movies, and songs published in 1926 and an estimated 400,000 sound recordings published before 1923 enter the US public domain as copyrights expire — On January 1, 2022, copyrighted works from 1926 will enter the US public domain, 1 where they will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon.