Tootfinder

"As per Trumpian fantasy, the ringleader of the narco-terror operation is none other than Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro himself.
"Never mind that Venezuela has approximately zero to do with drugs entering the US and doesn’t even produce fentanyl."
The US is already at war with Venezuela | Donald Trump | Al Jazeera

The US is already at war with Venezuela
Trump’s violent new tactics build on years of US sanctions and intervention that have devastated ordinary Venezuelans.

The US, following a directive from President Trump, is withdrawing from several key international cybersecurity and hybrid threat organisations, citing concerns over mismanagement and conflicts with national sovereignty. Experts are worried about the impact on global cybersecurity.
https://www.

US withdraws from international cyber bodies under Trump directive
The US, following a directive from President Trump, is withdrawing from several key international cybersecurity and hybrid threat organisations, citing concerns over mismanagement and conflicts ...

The Paris agreement is 10 years old today.
How time flies. But how little really has changed.
"Paris Climate Change Agreement, 2015: the good, the bad and the ugly."
https://steadystatemanchester.net/2015/12/1…

Paris Climate Change Agreement, 2015: the good, the bad and the ugly.
A lot has been written on the Paris international agreement on climate change.  To try and cut through all those words to the essential issues, here is our very brief analytic summary. The good Asp…

Moody Urbanity - Relations V 🪢
情绪化城市 - 关系 V 🪢
📷 Minolta Hi-Matic AF
🎞️ Shanghai GP3 400 Pan
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite

Troubleshooting the GPU implementation of the CDR PLL in ngscopeclient.
They're supposed to be basically the same just parallelized.
But instead we can see that the GPU version seems to have narrower bandwidth (the p-p of the frequency is significantly smaller) plus a large spike in the jitter histogram at time zero.
The complex dynamics of this make it *very* challenging to troubleshoot. I found and fixed a few unrelated bugs in other blocks and the GUI along the way b…

UK #GDP figures.
Growth is dead. Embrace it and find another way.
https://mstdn.social/@markhburton/115705775839092427

Phishing alert
If you have #Wordpress sites, beware emails telling you that you need to renew your subscription.
They look authentic til you notice the sender address.
#scams #phishing

In court docs, celebs and public figures targeted by a web of reputation-smearing sites blame a publicist, a digital fixer, and a well-known Hollywood lawyer (Gary Baum/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

Inside the Secret Smear Machine That’s Targeting Hollywood
A shadowy network of anonymous slander sites is attacking players in high-profile entertainment scandals — from Blake vs. Baldoni to a Rebel Wilson film fiasco to an ugly K-pop feud. Critics allege they’re all the handiwork of a small circle of operatives.

Survey: 80% of Americans say being informed about the news is essential to voting, but only 8% say people in the US have a responsibility to pay for news (Pew Research Center)
https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2026/02/11/americans-complica…

Americans’ Complicated Relationship With News
Most say being informed is essential for voting. Yet views differ on the importance of following news – and many say they're worn out by it.

ReformUK and their ilk keep claiming it is easy for asylum seekers. Like if they eventually get settled status, the Home Office immediately makes them homeless. So easy for them, our beneficent welfare system. That's after living on a pittance while awaiting a decision, so no spare money to put down for a deposit.
Andy Burnham makes demand after claims government policies creating homelessness - Manchester Evening News

Andy Burnham makes demand after claims government policies creating homelessness
It comes after the government set out a new plan to tackle homelessness

We need peace in Ukraine - CND https://cnduk.org/we-need-peace-in-ukraine/?link_id=0&can_id=fa41d46fda326186a7dd2445f763d020&source=email-tb…

We need peace in Ukraine - CND
CND Chair Tom Unterrainer assesses the UK government’s likely response to peace proposals to end the war in Ukraine. CND has consistently called for an end to the war in Ukraine. We do so because – yes – we are opposed to war in general, but we are particularly concerned about the stark increase in … Continued

As Storm Byron grips the Gaza Strip, heavy winter rains are turning fragile shelters and flooded streets into life-threatening locations. Families are facing freezing winds, soaked tents, and overcrowded spaces that offer little protection.
Please consider making a donation to UNRWA.
Support Palestine Refugees: UNRWA End-of-Year Appeal 2025 https://<…

Disney agrees to pay $2.75M to settle California AG Rob Bonta's 2024 lawsuit alleging Disney violated CCPA by failing to honor consumers' data opt-out requests (Alyssa Ray/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/publ

Disney Settles Streaming Data Suit From CA Attorney General for $2.75 Million
Disney settled the streaming data suit brought about by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, with the entertainment conglomerate set to make a $2.75 million payout.

"The Venezuelan people, already suffering under economic collapse and political repression, now face the prospect of becoming collateral damage in someone else’s power consolidation project."
Venezuela’s crisis is not an oil grab but a power grab | Donald Trump | Al Jazeera

Venezuela’s crisis is not an oil grab but a power grab
Trump has manufactured the Venezuela crisis, not to grab more oil but to expand his executive power.

US FTC chair urges Tim Cook to review Apple News' terms and curation after a study claimed the app promoted "leftist outlets" and suppressed conservative ones (Michael Acton/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/0c25de53-4668-4ddf-9e28-f8c4fc34940e

The MPA urges ByteDance to curb its AI video model Seedance 2.0, saying the model engages in unauthorized use of US copyrighted material "on a massive scale" (Gene Maddaus/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/motion-…

Motion Picture Association Denounces 'Massive' AI Infringement
The MPA denounced Bytedance's new AI video model, saying it had led to 'massive' copyright infringement like an AI Tom Cruise-Brad Pitt video.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation says its news brand, Context, will be "phased down", some staffers will lose jobs, and the site will remain up as an archive (Antonio Zappulla/Thomson Reuters Foundation)
https://www.trust.org/2026/02/12/statement-…

Statement on the closure of Context News Brand
A statement on the Closure of the Context News Brand from Antonio Zappulla, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Meta and Snap report minimal impact from Australia's teen social media ban as it affects a small number of users who aren't high-value targets for advertisers (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-02…

SAG-AFTRA signs an agreement with Netflix covering The Pete Davidson Show as a podcast, after talks about whether it should be treated as a TV show or a podcast (Todd Spangler/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/pete-davidson-show-sag…

The Pete Davidson Show: SAG-AFTRA Signs Podcast Agreement With Netflix
Netflix has described its recently released "The Pete Davidson Show" as a "video podcast" -- and now SAG-AFTRA has signed an agreement with the streamer that covers the production as such.

Casey Wasserman will remain chair of the LA Olympics committee after a review of his ties to Epstein and Maxwell; multiple entertainers have left his agency (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/us/wasserman-epstein-la-olympics-2028.html…

Casey Wasserman Will Stay as Head of 2028 Olympics Despite Epstein Ties, Organizers Say
Casey Wasserman exchanged flirtatious messages over 20 years ago with Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein. The 2028 board said its review found no other indiscretions related to Mr. Epstein.

Scott Borchetta, who founded Big Machine Records and signed Taylor Swift in 2006, is leaving Hybe America, which bought Big Machine in 2021; Hybe retains assets (Jem Aswad/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/music/news/scott-borchetta-exit…

Scott Borchetta to Exit Hybe America, Relaunch Big Machine Records
Hybe America has announced that Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta is leaving the company. He will relaunch his Big Machine Records.

Memo: The Banner in Maryland plans to expand sports staff to cover Washington, DC, teams, hiring beat reporters to cover the Nationals and Commanders, and more (Brendon Kleen/Awful Announcing)
https://awfulannouncing.com/newspapers/balt…

Baltimore Banner to cover Washington, D.C., sports after shuttering of WaPo sports desk
The Baltimore Banner will do daily coverage of the Commanders and Nats starting soon, seeking to fill the hole left by the Washington Post.

Current and ex-CPJ staffers say the nonprofit scrapped its Global Impunity Index in 2025 because Israel would have been ranked near the top or first, for years (Ali Abunimah/The Electronic Intifada)
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/a

YouTube and the NFL's second annual Creator Flag Football game drew 14M live views around the world, up from 6M in 2025, as the NFL seeks to export the sport (Kayla Cobb/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/streaming/super-bo…

Super Bowl LX's Creator Flag Football Game Scores 14 Million Views on YouTube | Exclusive
YouTube and the NFL's second annual Super Bowl Creator Flag Football game delivered over 14 million live views

Roku reports Q4 revenue up 16% YoY to $1.39B, vs. $1.35B est., and an $80.5M net income, vs. a $35.5M loss in Q4 2024; ROKU jumps 9% after hours (Lucas Manfredi/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/business/roku-earnings-q4-2025/

Roku Shares Pop 13% After Swinging to $80.5 Million Profit in Q4
The streaming hardware maker forecasts 16% revenue growth in 2026

Sources: Paramount CEO David Ellison met with Trump last week for two conversations; Trump has said he will stay out of Netflix-Paramount competition for WBD (Brian Stelter/CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/12/media/david-ellison-tr…

Trump met with David Ellison days before saying he’s ‘not involved’ in Paramount’s Netflix battle
The timing of the meetings — early last week — is notable because Trump was asked by NBC’s Tom Llamas on Wednesday about Paramount and Netflix’s battle for WBD, and he said, “I haven’t been involved.”

The Virginia State Bar rejects a disciplinary complaint from a press freedom group against a DOJ lawyer over the raid of WaPo reporter Hannah Natanson's home (Charlie Savage/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/us/politics/virgini…

Bar Punts on Ethics Complaint Over Application to Search Reporter’s Home
A press freedom group accused a prosecutor of violating an ethics rule by not telling a judge about a law limiting searches for journalistic work product.

Letter: the EU launched a new probe into Google for potentially "artificially increasing the clearing price" of ad auctions "to the detriment of advertisers" (Samuel Stolton/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Anna's Archive has quietly begun releasing millions of music files from its scrape of Spotify, despite an injunction against distribution of copyrighted works (Ernesto Van der Sar/TorrentFreak)
https://torrentfreak.com/annas-archive

An interview with Lachlan Cartwright on the one-year anniversary of Breaker, his profitable newsletter-first outlet, which has 40K paid and unpaid subscribers (Alice Brooker/Press Gazette)
https://pressgazette.co.uk/newsletters

Lachlan Cartwright matches 'legacy media' salary one year in with own newsbrand
Media news newsletter Breaker has hit profitability within a year with more than 40,000 paid and unpaid subscribers.

Universal Music Group signs a licensing deal with rights platform ClicknClear, easing the licensing process for athletes using music in choreographed sports (Agnieszka Flak/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/sports/universal-music-clicknc…

US DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater says she is leaving, in a departure viewed as a victory for tech giants over some of MAGA's more populist voices (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/12/justice-antitrust-chief-gail-slateer-resigns

Justice Department antitrust chief resigns
It's being viewed as a victory for big business over some of MAGA's more populist voices.

E.W. Scripps is expected to make layoffs in the near future as it seeks to grow adjusted earnings by up to $150M over three years; in 2024, it had 5K staff (Todd Spangler/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/scripps-layoffs-cos…

Scripps Layoffs Loom as Local TV Company Sets Cost-Cutting Plan
E.W. Scripps is expecting to make layoffs in the near future as the company, which operates more than 60 local TV stations in the U.S., has embarked on a plan aimed at boosting adjusted earnings by up to $150 million over the next three years.

ByteDance's new AI video generation model Seedance 2.0 goes viral in China; the model was designed for film, advertising, and e-commerce productions (Eduardo Baptista/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-tel

UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy refers DMGT's proposed acquisition of the Telegraph to Ofcom and CMA over concerns about consolidation of rightwing papers (Michael Savage/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/…

In a call, Tim Davie says the BBC plans to cut ~10% of its costs in the next three years, leading to job and programming cuts; 2025's operating costs hit £2B (Daniel Thomas/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/450324cf-ba61-4d50-9e66-446f9c538543

Trump's lawsuit against the BBC is set for trial in Feb. 2027; discovery must proceed though the judge has not ruled whether the Florida court has jurisdiction (Michael Savage/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/12…

Trump’s multibillion lawsuit against BBC over Panorama edit set for Florida trial in 2027
Corporation denies defamation but must hand over revealing documents after judge dismisses jurisdiction argument

Google is testing a new ad format in AI Mode that displays retailers selling the products a user is searching for in a Sponsored box (Vidhya Srinivasan/Google Ads & Commerce Blog)
https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/agentic-commerce…

New tech and tools for retailers to succeed in an agentic shopping era
An overview of Google’s new open standard for agentic commerce and AI tools to help retailers connect with shoppers and drive sales.

An H1B visa filing list indicates Will Lewis' base salary as WaPo CEO was $3M per year in 2025, or enough to pay ~27 of the 300 reporters who were laid off (Gene Weingarten/The Gene Pool)
https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/three-million-reasons-to-facepalm

Three Million Reasons to Facepalm
— So.

A CBS News producer quits, saying stories may now be evaluated "on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations", causing self-censorship (Alyssa Ray/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/journalism…

CBS News Producer Quits in Fiery Note Lambasting Bari Weiss’ Break From ‘Journalistic Merit’
Alicia Hastey has departed CBS News as a producer after four years with the network, blasting Bari Weiss' break from "journalist merit" in a fiery note.

Artforum EIC Tina Rivers Ryan plans to step down at the end of February; Executive Editor Rachel Wetzler and editor Daniel Wenger will be co-editors (Michaela Towfighi/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/arts/design/artforum-editor-tina-riv…

Artforum’s Top Editor Will Step Down
The magazine announced that two other editors there will jointly replace Tina Rivers Ryan, who has been in the role since 2024.

NYT's Zach Seward details the "Manosphere Report", an in-house LLM-powered tool that summarizes new episodes from about 80 podcasts with largely male audiences (Andrew Deck/Nieman Lab)
https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/how-the-

How The New York Times uses a custom AI tool to track the “manosphere”
The daily podcast round-up is just one way the Times is adopting in-house AI transcription and summarization tools.

Q&A with Washington Post sports reporter Les Carpenter, who chose to keep covering the Winter Olympics for the outlet after receiving his layoff news in Milan (Ivan L. Nagy/CJR)
https://www.cjr.org/the-interview/les-carpenter-washingto…

A look at Kari Lake's 11 months as US Agency for Global Media de facto head, as she wasted money and blocked work to bring reliable news to repressive countries (The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/

What Is Kari Lake Trying to Achieve?
The Arizona politician has wasted millions of dollars while blocking U.S. efforts to bring reliable news to repressive countries.

Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson plans to invest $124M on venue space and a production campus in Louisiana; the state agreed to provide $50M in infrastructure funding (Erik Hayden/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

50 Cent’s Studio Plans $124 Million Investment In Louisiana Complex
The 'Power' producer's G-Unit Film & Television has finalized a deal with the state on a development plan for three entertainment venues.

A bipartisan bill agrees to provide $653M to USAGM, down from $867M in 2025, but over Trump's $153M request, as part of a package needing Congressional approval (Scott Nover/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/13/vo…

Congress agrees to fund Voice of America, bucking Trump shutdown order
The Trump administration has tried to eliminate funding for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. Appropriators in Congress have had other ideas.

Fanatics, the Michael Rubin-led sports company, partners with OBB Media to launch Fanatics Studios, starting with a Tom Brady docuseries (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/busi…

Sports Powerhouse Fanatics Pushes Into Entertainment With Launch of Fanatics Studios
The joint venture with OBB Media is launching with a Tom Brady docuseries, a deal to produce the ESPY Awards and deals with LA28, MLB and the WWE.

Analysis: YouTube surpassed the BBC in monthly audience reach in the UK for the first time in Q4 2025, with 51.9M viewers in December, above the BBC's 50.8M (Jake Kanter/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2026/01/youtube-beating-bbc-barb-viewing-ratings-1236…

YouTube Makes UK Ratings History By Beating BBC On Audience Reach
YouTube continues to upend the natural order of television in the UK, officially unseating the BBC as the nation's most-watched service, per Barb.

HBO Max nears a complete Europe rollout after launching in eight countries, including Germany and Italy; the streamer is now available in 100 territories (Jesse Whittock/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2026/01/hbo-max-europe-launches-prime-video-deal-1236680…

HBO Max Nears Complete Euro Rollout With Prime Video Deal In Place For Germany, Italy & Austria
HBO Max just went live in eight more countries, and unveiled a distribution pact with Prime Video in Germany, Italy and Austria.

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, syndicated to ~2K newspapers at its peak and dropped after he made racist comments in 2023, has died at 68 (Richard Sandomir/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/arts/scott-adams-dead.html

Scott Adams, Creator of the Satirical ‘Dilbert’ Comic Strip, Dies at 68
His chronicles of a corporate cubicle dweller was widely distributed until racist comments on his podcast led newspapers to cut their ties with him.

Sources: French production company and MasterChef-owner Banijay is in advanced talks with All3Media-owner RedBird IMI to merge their TV production businesses (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-tel

Dan Bongino, who stepped down as the deputy director of the FBI this month, says he will restart his podcast on February 2, streaming daily on Rumble (Reggie Ugwu/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/arts/dan-bongino-fbi-podcast.html

Dan Bongino, No Longer at the F.B.I., Will Return to Podcasting
The former F.B.I. deputy director, who had hosted a right-wing, pro-Trump podcast, will restart the show after a rocky tenure at the law-enforcement agency.

NYT editor Joe Kahn says the paper didn't withhold a story on the US plan to capture Nicolšs Maduro at Trump administration's request, citing unverified details (Corbin Bolies/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/journalism…

NY Times Didn’t Hold Maduro Capture Story at Trump Admin’s Request, Editor Says
New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn said the paper did not withhold a reported story on the U.S. operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at the Trump administration’s request.

A profile of David Ellison, who is trying to build a media empire that could dwarf even the Murdochs' with help from his father and Oracle founder Larry Ellison (Reeves Wiedeman/Vulture)
https://www.vulture.com/article/larry-david-e…

Can Larry and David Ellison’s Oracle Money Buy Hollywood?
With help from his father, Larry, and their billions in Oracle money, David Ellison is trying to become the biggest studio mogul in Hollywood history.

Penske Media sues Google for allegedly monopolizing the digital ad market and depriving publishers of billions in revenue, following a 2025 US court ruling (Josh Dickey/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/public-polic…

Penske Media Sues Google Over Accusation of Digital Ad Market Manipulation
Penske Media Corp., the publisher of major entertainment and culture brands including Rolling Stone, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, sued Google on Monday, accusing the tech giant of illegally monopolizing the digital advertising market and depriving publishers of billions of dollars in revenue.

Corporate and foreign interests that once relied on paid Washington lobbyists are now spending heavily on pro-Trump influencers, often without disclosures (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/washin

Axios' Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen reflect upon their 20 years as media entrepreneurs together and how the media landscape changed since Politico's 2007 launch (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/13/politico-founders-axios-media-vandehei-allen

Behind the Curtain: 20 years of media revolution
We alone didn't start this fire. But we surely lit or fanned it — and then had front-row seats to witness the blaze.

Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone and other execs discuss the challenges Netflix faces in streaming live events, after broadcasting 200 live events since March 2023 (Isabelle Bousquette/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/…

Sources: Bari Weiss has privately been deeply frustrated by the negative reaction to her CBS tenure and has blamed subordinates for not stanching the criticism (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/business/media/cbs-evening-news-bari-weiss.ht…

‘We Need to Be the News’: Inside Bari Weiss’s Bumpy Revamp at CBS
Her reimagining of “CBS Evening News” is under heavy scrutiny, and even became a punchline on her own network on Sunday at the Golden Globes.

Sources: OpenAI plans a 60-second Super Bowl ad during NBC's broadcast, the second straight year of doing so; ad buyers say clients pay $8M for just 30 seconds (Suzanne Vranica/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/super-b

Interviews with Spotify founder Daniel Ek on his CEO exit, and new co-CEOs Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström, who face algorithmic fatigue and angry artists (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/20

The BBC files a motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit over how his January 6 speech was edited in Panorama, saying the Florida court lacks "personal jurisdiction" (Yang Tian/BBC)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c394x4z8kpdo

BBC will aim to have Trump's $5bn defamation lawsuit thrown out
Court papers filed on Monday show the broadcaster will argue the Florida court lacks "personal jurisdiction" over the BBC.

An investigation finds 50 apparently fake experts who offered commentary to the UK press in recent years, getting featured 1,000 times in various articles (Rob Waugh/Press Gazette)
https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/named-50-experts-and…

Named: 50 'experts' and linked brands publishers should treat with caution
Experts and brands associated with more than 1,000 likely faked stories.

CNBC names Sally Shin as its EVP of Growth and Partnerships; her previous tenure at CNBC included launching the tech-focused program Squawk Alley (Lauren Skowronski/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/12/sally-shin-named-execu…

David Letterman calls CBS News a "wreck", and says its integrity "has been trampled on, pissed on, and eviscerated by these idiots that have taken it over" (Anna Betts/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/12/david-lett…

Paramount says it will nominate directors for election at WBD's annual meeting, usually held in June, to vote against the approval of WBD's deal with Netflix (Mark Sweney/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/

Chartbeat data: global Google search referrals to publishers fell by 33% in the year ending November 2025, with US-specific organic search traffic down 38% (Charlotte Tobitt/Press Gazette)
https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-…

Google traffic dropped by a third in 2025, new Chartbeat data show
Google search traffic was down globally by a third in the year to November, according to new Chartbeat data.

Reuters Institute survey: 38% of media leaders are confident about journalism in 2026, 44% say newsroom AI efforts are showing "promising" results, and more (Nic Newman/Reuters Institute)
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac…

Circana BookScan: US print book sales hit 762.4M units in 2025, up 0.3% YoY, settling at levels higher than before the pandemic; graphic novels saw a 9.2% rise (Jim Milliot/Publishers Weekly)
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-top

Print Book Sales Rose Slightly in 2025
A mild rebound in children’s book sales helped to offset softness on the adult side, resulting in a 0.3% increase in unit sales of print books in 2025 over 2024. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins was last year’s top-selling title.

Morgan Stanley survey of audio habits in the US: 50% to 60% of listeners aged 18 to 44 reported listening to AI-generated music for 2.5 to 3 hours per week (Luke Kawa/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/markets/morgan-stanley-most-…

Morgan Stanley: Most Gen Zers and millennials in the US listen to about three hours of AI music a week
That’s enough AI music to last the run time of “Avatar.”

Good Hang with Amy Poehler won the inaugural Golden Globes podcast award, beating five other nominees, including Call Her Daddy, SmartLess and NPR's Up First (Todd Spangler/Variety)
https://au.variety.com/2026/digital/news/amy-poehler-golden-globe-be…

Amy Poehler Wins Golden Globe for Best Podcast
Good Hang With Amy Poehler' won the inaugural Golden Globes award for best podcast at the 2026 awards ceremony.

Eddy Cue says 2025 was a "record-breaking year" for Apple services: Apple TV set a monthly engagement record in December, with total hours viewed up 36% YoY (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

Eddy Cue Calls Out Top Apple TV Shows and Movies In Year-End Memo Pledging “Innovation”
The Apple services executive released a note saying that Apple TV set new monthly engagement records, while Apple Music has hit subscriber records.

In a letter to WBD shareholders, David Ellison says Paramount filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court seeking information in its hostile takeover attempt (Lillian Rizzo/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/12/paramount-skydance-warner-bros-discovery-su…

Ampere Analysis expects streamer content spending to grow 6% YoY in 2026 to $101B, crossing $100B for the first time; overall global content spend will grow 2% (Max Goldbart/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2026/01/streamer-spend-landmark-figure-202…

Streamer Spend To Top $100B For First Time In 2026 – Report
Streamer content spend will top $100B in 2026, an Ampere Analysis report has said, with big spend on 'Stranger Things' and sports strategies.

Golden Globes review: the show tried to expand its reach and profitability in often clumsy ways, and the host was nearly derailed by Polymarket predictions (Alison Herman/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/reviews/golden-globes-2026-review-1236629162/

Golden Globes 2026 Review: Derailed by Distracting Stunts
The 83rd Golden Globes were nearly derailed by distracting stunts, despite strong winners and a capable host in returning MC Nikki Glaser.

Netflix's Adolescence won four Golden Globes at the 83rd awards, the most of any TV show, and KPop Demon Hunters won two; Apple's The Studio won best TV series (Variety)
https://variety.com/lists/golden-globes-2026-winners-on…

Golden Globes 2026 Winners: One Battle After Another Wins Big
See the winners of the Golden Globes 2026 awards, including 'One Battle After Another' which won four awards.

A look at Netflix House in Philadelphia, a new 100K sq. ft. location for in-person experiences, which resembles a Disneyland attraction and a Dave & Buster's (Sarah Holder/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/20

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 (Aidan Ryan/The Boston Globe)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/12/business/nanc…

Boston Globe editor Nancy Barnes to step down
In a note to the Globe newsroom, Barnes said she is stepping down at the end of next week and will stay on staff as an editor-at-large.

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 (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/b14490d9-3ac9-45ce-bce5-df6c39db472f

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 (Sam Roberts/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/business/media/arthur-carter-dead.html

Arthur L. Carter, 93, Dies; Investment Banker Founded a Cheeky Newspaper
After making a fortune on Wall Street, he bought The Nation magazine and founded The New York Observer, which one writer called a “maypole of Manhattan gossip and intrigue.”

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 (Ann Gehan/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/live…

Livestream Shopping App Whatnot Nears $1 Billion in 2025 Revenue
Livestream shopping app Whatnot is targeting close to $1 billion in revenue for 2025, according to a person with knowledge of the company’s finances. The six-year-old company has quietly grown into one of e-commerce’s hottest companies, raising more than $500 million in new funding this year and boosting its valuation to $11.5 billion. Whatnot originally started as a place for collectors of Funko

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 (Carmen Arroyo/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-12/musk…

Sources: DMGT has locked down funding for its £500M acquisition of the Telegraph, in a funding package expected to comprise equity and debt (Daniel Thomas/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/beff1427-c291-496b-8823-457f01e293f8

YouTube launches an option for US-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2025/12/11/youtube-paypal-google-stablecoin-payouts-pyusd/

Exclusive: YouTube launches option for U.S. creators to receive stablecoin payouts through PayPal
Google, which owns YouTube, has already used PayPal’s stablecoin to receive payments from customers using its cloud computing service.

Sources: WBD chose Netflix partly fearing limited recourse if Paramount's bid failed, since Larry Ellison has not provided a personal guarantee (Lauren Hirsch/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/business/paramount-warner-bros-netflix-dea…

Paramount Says Money Is No Object. Warner Bros. Isn’t Convinced.
Larry Ellison is backstopping Paramount’s bid for Warner Brothers, but Warner Brothers is concerned that the billionaire has not provided a personal guarantee to pay.

In a letter to the Trump administration, the GOP Senatorial Committee Chair Sen. Tim Scott said the Netflix-WBD deal raises "significant antitrust problems" (Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/12/12/2025/opposition-to-netfli…

Opposition to Netflix-Paramount deal grows in Washington
Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican with close ties to the White House, joined the mounting opposition in Washington to Netflix’s takeover of Warner Bros.

R. Bruce Dold, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the Chicago Tribune, where he became editor-in-chief and publisher, is dead at 70 (Trip Gabriel/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/us/politics/bruce-dold-dead.html

R. Bruce Dold, Chicago Tribune Publisher and Pulitzer Winner, Dies at 70
As head of the editorial page, he encouraged The Tribune’s support of Barack Obama, resulting in the paper’s first endorsement of a Democrat running for the White House.

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 (Pamela McClintock/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/zootopi…

Box Office Annihilation: ‘Zootopia 2’ Zooms Past the $1 Billion Mark Globally in Only 17 Days
Disney's year-end holiday tentpole achieved the feat faster than any Holllwood animated film in history, as well as any PG-rated film.

Google has removed dozens of AI videos from YouTube that depicted Disney characters, after Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter flagging the links (Gene Maddaus/Variety)
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/google-removes-ai-videos-disney…

Google Removes AI Videos of Disney Characters After Cease and Desist
Google has taken down dozens of AI-generated videos of Disney-owned characters after the studio sent a cease and desist letter on Wednesday.

An interview with Nikita Bier, who wants to lure journalists back to X with a rebuilt recommendation algorithm with no keyword suppression or manual downranking (Alex Heath/Sources)
https://sources.news/p/x-wants-its-haters-back

X wants its haters back
Product chief Nikita Bier's message to journalists who left: “We have to earn their trust.”

Reddit files a lawsuit against Australia over its social media ban for under-16s, saying the ban "infringes the implied freedom of political communication" (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/reddit-files-…

The Washington Post's new Your Personal Podcast, which offers AI-generated customizable podcasts, was developed under a multiyear agreement with ElevenLabs (Sara Guaglione/Digiday)
https://digiday.com/media/the-washington-post-debu…

The Washington Post debuts AI-personalized podcasts to hook younger listeners
The Washington Post used AI to build a pick-your-own-format news podcast, letting listeners choose the topics, hosts and duration.

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 (Max Tani/Semafor)
https://www.semafor.com/article/12/11/2025

Exclusive: Washington Post’s AI-generated podcasts rife with errors, fictional quotes
Errors in the Post’s new AI-generated podcasts have frustrated the paper’s journalists.

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 (Todd Spangler/Variety)
https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/…

Disney’s OpenAI Deal 'Appears to Sanction' AI Company's 'Theft of Our Work,' WGA Says
The Writers Guild of America said that Disney's huge licensing deal with OpenAI appears to "sanction" the AI company's "theft of our work."

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 (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/11/paramount-wbd-voting-rights

Scoop: Original Paramount bid for WBD didn't exclude foreign voting rights
Paramount has now made a hostile bid after WBD accepted Netflix's offer.

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 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-11/appl…

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 (Alice Brooker/Press Gazette)
https://pressgazette.co.uk/the-wire/me

Guardian poaches from Netflix for first vice president of product
Netflix director of product Allan Donald has been named as The Guardian's first vice president of product.

Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service launches on "eligible" Comcast and Rogers X1 and Xfinity stream boxes in the US and Canada (Jay Peters/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/842201/amazon-luna-comcast-xfinity-rogers-cable-boxes

Comcast cable boxes are getting Amazon Luna cloud gaming
Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service is coming to cable boxes from Comcast and Rogers. Amazon recently relaunched Luna to put more of a focus on party games.

[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 (Gergely Orosz/@gergelyorosz)
https://x.com/gergelyorosz/status/1999241496005066755

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 (Emma Roth/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/news/842978/amazon-prime-video-ai-fallout-recap<…

Amazon Prime Video pulls AI-powered recaps after Fallout flub
Amazon Prime Video has pulled its AI-powered Video Recaps after viewers noticed errors in Fallout’s season one summary.