Mediagazer: TV Crews Struggle in Egyptian Chaos (Brian Stelter/Media Decoder)

10:30 PM ET, January 28, 2011

Top News:

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

TV Crews Struggle in Egyptian Chaos — Television crews in Cairo fought to stay on the air on Friday as protests enveloped major cities in Egypt. — Egyptian authorities adopted various tactics to halt live broadcasts from the capital city, but for the most part networks like CNN and NBC were able to send signals out.

Discussion: GigaOM, Lost Remote, Poynter, Broadcasting & Cable, CNN, The Huffington Post, Multichannel, The Wrap, Wilshire & Washington and Josh Braun's Blog

Curt Hopkins / ReadWriteWeb:

Al Jazeera Releases Egypt Coverage Under Creative Commons (UPDATED) — Qatar-based news service Al Jazeera has a long relationship with Creative Commons licensing. Now, for its coverage of the Egyptian uprising, it has released photographs via Flickr and video on a CC license.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Epicenter and ShortFormBlog, more at Techmeme »

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:
NYT interviews Egyptian blogger via Skype

Discussion: Mediaite, About.com Journalism, Multichannel, Broadcasting & Cable, The Lede and NYConvergence.com

New York Times:
Seizing a Moment, Al Jazeera Galvanizes Arab Frustration

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:

Exclusive: The next generation of WikiLeaks — (Reuters) - All across Europe, from Brussels to the Balkans, a new generation of WikiLeaks-style websites is sprouting. — Like their forerunner, the fledgling whistle-blowing sites are a chaotic mixture of complex systems engineering, earnest campaigning, muckraking and self-promotion.

Discussion: Poynter, The Nation and Future of Journalism

Adam L. Penenberg / Washington Post:

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: ‘Anarchist,’ ‘agitator,’ ‘arrogant’ and a journalist — The State Department called Julian Assange, the founder of the stateless anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, “an anarchist.” Sarah Palin taunted him as “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.”

Discussion: Gawker, The Firewall, The Huffington Post and SlashGear

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:

Spotify Close To A Deal With EMI — Spotify, a digital music service that has been popular in Europe but met roadblocks in its plans to enter the American market, is inching closer to its goal. A week after it signed an arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment for distribution in the United States …

Discussion: Globe and Mail

Greg Sandoval / CNET News:

Spotify exec eyes Apple with suspicion — Do Spotify executives believe Apple had anything to do with their company's inability to make the leap to the United States? — An interview given at the start of this week by Faisal Galaria, Spotify's chief of global business development, sure gave that impression.

Discussion: GigaOM, more at Techmeme »

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

MoJo's Egypt explainer: future-of-context ideas in action — This week's unrest in Egypt brings new relevance to an old question: How do you cover an event about which most of your readers have little or no background knowledge? — Mother Jones has found one good way to do that.

Discussion: Give Peace A Chance, Daily Kos and Mediaite

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

NPR probe of Juan Williams firing questions Ellen Weiss's management style — When Vivian Schiller became NPR's chief executive in early 2009, she knew enough to know that she didn't know very much about producing radio news. For that, Schiller, who formerly headed the New York Times' cable …

Discussion: Poynter, Gawker and On Media's Blog

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Zucker-Katie redux — Former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, expected to set up shop Monday on Park Avenue, is already lining up his next gig — he's talking about starting a syndicated talk show featuring CBS News anchor Katie Couric, according to three separate sources.

Discussion: Gawker, Company Town, rbr.com, TVNewser, TVWeek.com, MediaPost, Chickaboomer and New York Magazine

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Drama Is A Go At HBO With Pilot Order, Scott Rudin Producing — EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Sorkin long-gestating drama set behind the scenes of a nightly cable news show is becoming a reality. HBO has closed a deal for a pilot order to the project, which reunites …

Discussion: From Inside the Box, On Media's Blog, The Wrap and AintItCool

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Would you ‘like’ (or dislike) a TV commercial? — You're liking lots of stuff on Facebook, why not “like” a commercial you see on TV? Google TV executive Mark Piesanen threw out that idea at the NATPE conference this week, explaining that technology under development by Canoe Ventures could power it.

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

NBC News Digital Chief: Video News Consumption is Bigger Than Ever — Powered by a “billion” cameras, coupled with new devices for viewing, more consumers are watching video news than ever before, says Mark Lukasiewicz, NBC News VP for Specials and Digital.

Discussion: msnbc.com, WebNewser and Josh Braun's Blog

Rachel Rose Hartman / Yahoo! News:

Biden thinks The Onion's spoofs of him are ‘hilarious’ — A mock photo of Vice President Joe Biden washing a Trans-Am shirtless. Strange? Distasteful? Crossing the line? — Not so, Biden says. — “I think it's hilarious,” Biden told Yahoo! in a wide-ranging interview Thursday.

Discussion: Poynter, The Atlantic Wire, The Wire, Mediaite, Political Punch, Gawker, Indecision Forever, Washington Post and TPMDC

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

New York Times, ProPublica explain how e-books help monetize old news, grow audience — New e-books from The New York Times and ProPublica highlight the potential for journalists to find new audiences, and possibly new revenue, for long-form reporting. — The two e-books launched this week …

Discussion: Epicenter and bookforum.com

Brett Pulley / Bloomberg:

New York Times Fixes Paywall Glitches to Balance Free vs Paid — New York Times Co. has been working to fix about 200 glitches in the technology for charging online readers of its namesake newspaper, just weeks before the project is scheduled to debut, said a person familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Poynter, WebNewser and Talking Biz News

MediaShift Idea Lab:

How WNYC Used Texts from Citizens To Map Snowstorm — The radio station WNYC is creating on-air and online stories using two things that are very familiar to people in the Northeastern United States: mobile phones and snow. — A snowstorm over the holidays was the heaviest December snowfall in six decades.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Gizmodo:

How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World — Hulu is a terrific service. Who could argue with free, current episodes of primetime TV on your computer? But for months now, Netflix has been eating Hulu's lunch. And Hulu's plan to fight back sounds more like a swan song.

Discussion: GigaOM, MediaPost, Mediaweek and VideoNuze