For the Record

Fake YouTube Accounts Proliferate:

A spam campaign originating in Southeast Asia earned millions of views on YouTube by altering the preview graphics of footage drawn from CNN and Fox News to include false and inflammatory content. The accounts "exploited a YouTube feature that automatically creates channels on certain topics," according to Donie O'Sullivan of CNN, enabling the campaign to "game YouTube's algorithm." Natural language processing and artificial intelligence startup Plasticity "found nothing to suggest that the channels were linked to a state-backed campaign or that they were part of a coordinated influence campaign."

Wrap Non-Compete Lawsuit Dismissed:

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Young dismissed a lawsuit from The Wrap Tuesday alleging that reporter Matt Pressberg was "wrongfully poached" by The Information in violation of a non-compete clause. According to Eriq Gardner of The Hollywood Reporter, the news organization convinced Young that it had "no knowledge of Pressberg's contract when it hired him, but perhaps more notably, that Pressberg's non-compete violated a California code that voids 'every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind.'" A spokesperson for The Wrap told Gardner that it is considering an appeal.

Jones, Watson of InfoWars Deposed in Sandy Hook Lawsuit:

Attorneys representing the father of a Sandy Hook victim released November depositions of InfoWars founder Alex Jones and Editor-at-Large Paul Joseph Watson Thursday. The depositions were taken as part of the discovery phase of an ongoing lawsuit. In the recording, Jones said that "journalism is a very small part of what we do" and likened himself to a "talk show host" while admitting that he went through a period where he "[saw] almost everything as staged." According to Dan Solomon of Texas Monthly, he also invoked his scrutiny of Jeffrey Epstein as "an example of how his on-air speculating is sometimes accurate, or at least not as unpopular as it has been with the Sandy Hook case." While conceding their First Amendment rights, Watson distanced the media company from its previous reliance on sources like Jeff Rense and James Fetzer, likening their advocacy of false storylines to "very obscure conspiracy theories."

AJC, Warners Trade Barbs Over "Richard Jewell":

According to Joe Pompeo of Vanity Fair, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has hired attorney Marty Singer to represent the publication in a dispute with Warner Bros., director Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray over the portrayal of late journalist Kathy Scruggs in "Richard Jewell," a biographical drama about the security guard falsely accused of perpetrating the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996. Despite no corroborating evidence, the film suggests that Scruggs (then the publication's "star police reporter") received information from an FBI agent in the context of an intimate relationship. "We're interested in the audience understanding the truth of what really happened," said former Pulitzer Prize juror and Editor in Chief Kevin Riley. "I was hoping that Warner Bros. and Clint Eastwood were just as interested in this."

Chris Wallace Critiques Trump:

During an event at the Newseum in Washington, Fox News host Chris Wallace said, "I believe that President Trump is engaged in the most direct sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history." He continued: “He has done everything he can to undercut the media, to try and delegitimise us, and I think his purpose is clear: to raise doubts when we report critically about him and his administration that we can be trusted. Back in 2017, he tweeted something that said far more about him than it did about us: ‘The fake news media is not my enemy. It is the enemy of the American people.’”

Bloomberg Terminal Endures:

Michael Bloomberg's eponymous company continues to derive as much as $9.9 billion in annual revenue from Bloomberg Professional, a $20,000-$24,000/year subscription service that utilizes the company's proprietary Bloomberg Terminal. Although the service (which was introduced in 1982) recalls the pre-World Wide Web Internet in its text-based format and array of chat rooms, "it's still the place a lot of traders, analysts and executives prefer to do their work," according to Emily Stewart of Vox.

Post-Gazette Labor Issues Continue:

Twenty members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and nine managers have left the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the last year amid the hiring of Executive Editor Keith Burris and ongoing labor disputes with John Block, the publication's owner and publisher. The Guild recently approved a vote of no confidence against management and instituted an indefinite byline strike following the recent elimination of enterprise positions. "We have a number of ways to fight back against their unconscionable actions," said Post-Gazette reporter and Guild President Mike Fuoco. "Physically striking the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it is an arrow in our quiver, but we are not the point now to take such action."

Tribune Employees Sign Anti-Alden Petition:

According to Joshua Benton of NiemanLab, 432 Tribune Publishing employees have signed a petition "urging the company’s board of directors to recommit to preserving newsrooms and prioritizing quality journalism" following Alden Global Capital's recent acquisition of 32% of the company. The petition "also asks the board to bring to shareholders and support a resolution backed by six of the company’s unions" stipulating the preparation of an annual report "detailing the company’s commitment to its core product — news."

American Journalism Project Announces Grantees:

The American Journalism Project announced its first 11 grantees Tuesday. Recipients include Bay Area local news site Berkeleyside (which will expand to Oakland with a matching $1.56 million grant from the Google News Initiative), Puerto Rican nonprofit news organization Centro de Periodismo Investigativo and Vermont nonprofit news site VTDigger. The Project, which was co-founded by Chalkbeat's Elizabeth Green and The Texas Tribune's John Thornton, has raised a $46 million endowment over the past year from a range of sources, including Emerson Collective, Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the Knight Foundation.

Bipartisan Consensus on Space Declassification Emerges:

During a panel at the Reagan National Defense Forum Saturday, Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett and House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Mike Rogers (R-Alabama) "agreed [...] on the need to declassify a large amount of information about America's military space programs," echoing recent sentiments from former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon and Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner (D-Virginia). "The lack of an understanding really does hurt us in doing things that we need to do in space," said Barrett. "There isn't a constituency for space even though almost everyone uses space before their first cup of coffee in the morning."