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Inforwars' contributor is connected with a doctored video of a tussle between CNN’s Jim Acosta and a White House intern over a microphone. The interaction occurred during president Trump’s contentious Nov. 7 press conference and was a major reason cited by the White House for the suspending of Acosta’s press pass. The doctored video appears to speed up the motion of Acosta’s arms to emphasize the severity of his gestures. The video, which was shared on Twitter by White House communications chief Sarah Sanders, was previously shared by Paul Joseph Watson, who has produced conspiracy-theory videos for Infowars, according to the Washington Post. While Watson calls charges that the video was doctored a “brazen lie,” several other sources told the Post that it looked like some part of the video had indeed been altered. CNN vp of communications Matt Dornic criticized Sanders’ “absolutely shameful” sharing of the video in a Tweet. “You released a doctored video—actual fake news,” he added. “History will not be kind to you.”
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Discovery’s acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive took a bite out of its third-quarter earnings, but the company reports that factors including U.S. advertising growth exceeded expectations, sending its stock to a 52-week high. The company posted earnings of $117 million (16 cents per share) for Q3 2017, compared with $218 million (38 cents per share), in the year-ago period. Discovery acquired Scripps earlier this year, adding such networks as HGTV, Travel Channel and Food Network to a stable that included the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC and OWN. In September, the bulked-up Discovery signed deals with both Sling TV and Hulu to carry its programming.
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Dish Network, which has at least temporarily stopped carrying HBO and Cinemax on its Dish TV and Sling TV services due to a dispute over carriage fees, lost 341,000 total subscribers in the third quarter. That’s considerably higher than the consensus estimate of 232,000 net customer losses reported by research firm FactSet. While Sling TV, which lets users livestream broadcast and cable content, gained 26,000 subscribers, Dish TV suffered a 367,000 subscriber drop. According to a CNBC report, 2.5 million of Dish’s 13 million customers subscribe to HBO or Cinemax. AT&T, which owns both HBO and Cinemax also owns DirecTV, a satellite TV rival to Dish.
Versant Media Group, the NBCUniversal cable TV spin-off, today reported its first financial results as 2025 revenues dipped 5.3 percent to $6.7B and standalone EBITDA dropped 9.1 percent to $2.2B.
Trump Media & Technology Group is discussing a spin-off of the Truth Social platform following the expected closing of its $6B merger deal with TAE Technologies... Condé Nast sells off Them, the digital LGBTQ-focused platform it launched in 2017, to Equalpride, publisher of Out, The Advocate, Out Traveler, Health PLUS Wellness and Pride.com... CBS News has parted ways with longevity influencer Peter Attia, one of the 19 contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss brought on as part of her plan to present a wider variety of voices on the platform. 
Symbolic.ai forms a partnership with News Corp to begin using the company’s AI-native publisher platform in the newsrooms of News Corp publications to augment research, writing and publishing... Mediaite launches a newsletter that promises to give readers a summary of—media newsletters... The Fund for American Studies launches the Journalism Excellence Fellowship, a program that will provide promising young journalists the opportunity to work alongside top writers, reporters, and media professionals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
