12:40 AM ET, December 5, 2021
December 4, 2021
10:20 PM
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Profile of Twitch streamer Tyler Steinkamp, including the loneliness and rage that comes with streaming game battles and real-world moments for 50 hours a week
5:21 PM
New York Times:
CNN says it has fired Chris Cuomo after “additional information has come to light” about the help he gave his brother Andrew Cuomo
5:10 PM
Katie Robertson / New York Times:
Interview with Anna Wintour and Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch as they transform its biggest publications into global brands while streamlining content sharing
3:51 PM
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Analysis of 200K+ articles from 65 news sites: coverage of Biden for the past four months has been as bad as, or worse than, Trump in the same period of 2020
December 3, 2021
8:55 PM
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Twitter says it mistakenly suspended 12 accounts after “coordinated and malicious reports” targeted researchers and journalists, and will review its new policy
7:25 PM
The Wrap:
BuzzFeed, Inc. announces it has merged with a SPAC, acquired Complex Networks, and will start trading on the Nasdaq as BZFD on Monday
6:35 PM
Tarpley Hitt / Gawker:
G/O Media “invites” seven Chicago staffers of The A.V. Club to move to Los Angeles, where EIC Scott Robson is establishing an office, or else lose their jobs
6:00 PM
Jack Shafer / Politico:
With a tiny audience, the cable news industry has devolved from a useful headline service to a 24/7 eldercare operation; few would notice if it disappeared
5:00 PM
Heather Landy / @heatherlandy:
[Thread] Crediting a move by The Verge, Quartz updates its “off the record” and “on background” rules to specify everything is on the record until Quartz agrees
4:15 PM
Lindsay Kornick / Fox News:
NYT is reviewing a Wirecutter editor's tweets and voicemails she allegedly sent to a gun rights group about their press release after the Oxford school shooting
3:40 PM
Shraddha Chakradhar / Nieman Lab:
Inaugural diversity survey of 209 Canadian newsrooms finds nearly 80% have no Black or Indigenous staff; 52.7% of staff identify as women and 74.9% as white
2:35 PM
Isaac McIntyre / Dexerto:
YouTube briefly suspended Ludwig Ahgren's livestream on Thursday, days after his publicized move from Twitch; Ahgren blames DMCA notices for playing Baby Shark
12:50 PM
Lachlan Cartwright / The Daily Beast:
Martin Clarke, DMG Media publisher and CEO/EIC of MailOnline and DailyMail.com, is leaving at the end of February 2022 after 12 years
11:40 AM
Austin Huguelet / St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Lee Enterprises says Alden's notice to nominate three board candidates is invalid and that the deadline for 2022 board nominations has since passed
10:20 AM
KABE-LP:
Univision launches Noticias Univision 24/7, the first news streaming channel on its streaming service PrendeTV
8:45 AM
Sui-Lee Wee / New York Times:
A Philippine court lets Maria Ressa travel to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize after the government blocked her; she still needs two more courts to approve
8:10 AM
Bloomberg:
Sources: Jimmy Lai's Taiwan unit of Apple Daily, which has 300 staff members, is shutting down in December when funding runs out
December 2, 2021
8:50 PM
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Netflix loses an appeal in a case that ordered it to stop poaching Fox employees; the court upheld fixed-term staff contracts, which Netflix argued were illegal
8:07 PM
New York Times:
BuzzFeed will go public via a merger with 890 5th Avenue Partners, raising $16M from the SPAC and $150M via debt and acquiring Complex Networks for $300M
4:30 PM
Lukas I. Alpert / MarketWatch:
US prosecutors charge two men with running a music royalty scam, collecting $20M+ from YouTube, by falsely claiming rights to 50,000 Spanish language songs
4:00 PM
Jack Suntrup / St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Emails: Missouri officials planned to thank the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for finding a data vulnerability before they threatened a reporter, calling him a hacker
3:05 PM
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: BuzzFeed is expected to receive a fraction of the $287.5M held by the SPAC it is merging with as some investors pull out
3:00 PM
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Five major education publishers sue Shopify for $500M+ over failing to remove pirated textbooks and other content that violate their trademarks and copyrights
2:30 PM
Mathew Ingram / Columbia Journalism Review:
Journalists and activists worry Twitter's new privacy policy will be weaponized and make their jobs harder, due to vague terms like “the public interest”
1:55 PM
Associated Press:
Ogden Newspapers acquires Swift Communications' local newspapers in the US West; the deal is set to close on December 31
1:25 PM
Christopher Dinsmore / Baltimore Sun:
Baltimore Sun Media reaches a preliminary agreement to shut down its South Baltimore printing plant and move printing of its newspapers to Wilmington, Delaware
12:40 PM
Reid J. Epstein / New York Times:
Two Georgia election workers sue the far-right website Gateway Pundit for defamation over its false claims that the two manipulated ballots in 2020
11:10 AM
Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
NBCU's reality TV streaming service Hayu launches in India and is now available in 28 countries across Europe and Asia
10:15 AM
Carlos Greer / New York Post:
Ex-Shape staffers say they worked 375 unpaid overtime hours on the new Sweet July magazine, were laid off, and then asked to return as temps for the next issue
9:20 AM
Alistair Gray / Financial Times:
The Rothermeres raise their bid to take Daily Mail and General Trust private by £35M, valuing the publisher at £2.75B; shareholders must decide by December 16
8:55 AM
Radhika Anilkumar / Reuters:
Canadian video platform Rumble, popular with right-wing users, will go public via a SPAC at a $2.1B valuation and expects to raise around $400M
8:25 AM
Bron Maher / Press Gazette:
Meta adds £5.9M over two years and 18 trainee spots to its UK Community News Project, which pays for reporters' salaries and training
8:15 AM
Shawn McCreesh / New York Magazine:
BuzzFeed News' union holds a walkout after two years of contract negotiations, as shareholders approve a plan to take the company public via a SPAC
7:35 AM
@bfnewsunion:
We've been bargaining our contract for almost 2 years, but BuzzFeed won't budge on critical issues like wages — all while preparing to go public and make executives even richer. So TODAY, we're walking out to send a reminder that there's no BuzzFeed News without us. #BFNWalksOut https://twitter.com/...
December 1, 2021
10:05 PM
Washington Post:
A coalition of news outlets sides with Steve Bannon in fighting to keep court documents public ahead of his case for refusing to testify before Congress
9:50 PM
The Verge:
Federal judge blocks a Texas law that limits large social media platforms' ability to moderate content, saying it violates the platforms' First Amendment rights
4:59 PM
Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC:
Disney appoints Susan Arnold as chair of the board, replacing Bob Iger, who is set to step down by the end of this year
4:10 PM
Wudan Yan / Poynter:
A freelancer explores how the deep social responsibility that motivates many journalists also makes them an exploitable labor force and susceptible to burnout
2:15 PM
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Deloitte: 150M+ people will cancel a paid streaming subscription in 2022, leading to a 30% global churn rate, including 38% in the US, driven by Gen Z
1:45 PM
Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
By carving out a loophole to let Chris Cuomo interview Andrew Cuomo on air, CNN created the slippery slope that let him help in his brother's crisis management
1:10 PM
Mack DeGeurin / Gizmodo:
Unlike traditional conservative outlets, Newsmax and OANN support Biden's FCC nominee Gigi Sohn due to her record of favoring independent programmers
12:30 PM
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
TikTok adds monetization tools for creators, including Stripe-powered Tips and Video Gifts, starting in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain
12:15 PM
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: SDNY investigated whether the National Enquirer extorted Bezos by threatening to publish his private photos, but closed the probe without charges
12:00 PM
Riley Van Steward / The Streamable:
HBO launches a free iOS game based on its original series Insecure, after Netflix rolled out free Android and iOS games in November
11:15 AM
Wayne Friedman / MediaPost:
Cross-screen data service Advocado acquires Kantar's BVS ad verification unit
10:55 AM
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Wirecutter Union says it can pay every member for overtime hours missed during the five-day Black Friday holiday strike after raising $43,000 in donations
10:05 AM
Mark Kleinman / Sky News:
Sources: LadBible Group, a UK-based youth-focused digital publisher, is targeting a £360M valuation; revenue grew 35%+ annually for four years to ~£30m in 2020
9:15 AM
Meridith McGraw / Politico:
Trump allies are launching a publishing imprint, Winning Team Publishing; sources say major publishing houses balked at fact-checking Trump's unwritten memoir
8:20 AM
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
UK's Archant plans to close two-thirds of its newsrooms by the end of March, after “very low” numbers of staff return because they prefer working from home
November 30, 2021
8:20 PM
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Twitter should consider changing its business model as its ad revenue remains weak, despite its locked-in userbase, indispensability, and impenetrable moat
6:55 PM
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Executives at digital media companies that want to go public are closely watching investors' response to BuzzFeed's expected stock market debut on December 6
6:31 PM
New York Times:
CNN suspends Chris Cuomo pending further evaluation, saying new docs point to a “greater level of involvement in his brother's efforts than we previously knew”
5:40 PM
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Analysis: 60% of 48K online news articles and 47% of 5.5K TV clips in the UK mentioning Muslims or Islam made negative associations with the religion
5:00 PM
Seb Joseph / Digiday:
UK's Association of Online Publishers debuts a protocol to help members contact other publishers if citations for the member's exclusive content are missing
4:30 PM
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Future, the owner of Marie Claire and TechRadar, reports pre-tax profit doubled to £107.8M and revenue rose 79% YoY to £606M in FY 2021
3:25 PM
Jon Lafayette / nexttv.com:
MoffettNathanson: the number of pay-TV households will drop from 83M today to 73.2M by 2024, as cord-cutting continues at a 4% to 5% annual pace
1:15 PM
Karen Rundlet / Knight Foundation:
Knight Foundation will fund NewsMatch for three more years with $3.5M; INN: in 2020, NewsMatch helped 260 nonprofit newsrooms raise $47M+
12:20 PM
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Vox Media signs a deal with WNYC to distribute Today, Explained on public radio and poaches NPR's Noel King as editorial director and co-host for the show
11:50 AM
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Twitter bans sharing private images and videos without consent, with exceptions for newsworthiness and public figures, and will remove content that users report
11:20 AM
Poynter:
Alden nominates three directors for Lee Enterprises' eight-person board, like it did before acquiring Tribune; nominees will be considered at Lee's next meeting
10:25 AM
Todd Spangler / Variety:
ViacomCBS says it will sell CBS Studio Center for $1.85B to investment firms Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management