Microsoft and others are creating a coalition for expanding rural access to broadband →

“In 1896 my great-great-grandfather left his hometown, Chattanooga, and traveled north to purchase a small, fading newspaper in New York. The moment was not unlike our own.”

“A metric ton of newsprint in the U.S. cost about $570 as of Dec. 26, according to FOEX Indexes Ltd., a provider of global pulp and paper data. Prices are the highest since December 2014 and are up 4.8 percent since Oct. 3, after the U.S. began investigating imports of Canadian newsprint.”

“I’m finding myself telling reporters, ‘You drove subscriptions,’” said Rick Berke, Stat’s executive editor. “This is the new world we’re in. They like it. I don’t say, ‘Do this story because people will subscribe.’ You want them to think about the quality of what they’re doing and not get caught up in the numbers. But we’re looking at the data to see which are most popular.”

The site had warned it would shut down if 3,000 people did not sign up for $5 monthly subscriptions. It gained more than 1,600 supporters but vowed to press on.

“Facebook has reportedly recruited several hundred staff in Germany to deal with reports about content that breaks the NetzDG and to do a better job of monitoring what people post. The law has been controversial in Germany with some saying it could lead to inadvertent censorship or curtail free speech.”

From finstagrams to Patreon: “Rather than the enormous platforms that couldn’t decide if, let alone how they had contributed to the election of a deranged narcissist or the rise of the virulently racist alt-right or a pending nuclear holocaust, why not something smaller, safer, more immediately useful?”

Meanwhile, Buzzfeed’s Craig Silverman shared some feelings about “fake news.”