Mediagazer: As time ticks down, publishers and Authors Guild slam ebook settlement (Laura Hazard Owen/paidContent)

5:15 PM ET, August 16, 2012

Top News:

Ecuador Grants Asylum to Assange, Defying Britain — CARACAS, Venezuela — The government of Ecuador is prepared to allow Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, to remain in its embassy in London indefinitely under a type of humanitarian protection, a government official said in the capital, Quito, on Wednesday night.

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

As Ecuador Grants Assange Asylum, Former UK Ambassador Says Embassy Raid Is Coming — As Ecuador puts its weight behind protecting Julian Assange, tension is building in the tug-of-war between the small South American country and the United Kingdom over the WikiLeaks founder's fate.

Discussion: Guardian, BBC, ZDNet, AJE and Media Law Prof Blog

@wikileaks: ANNOUNCEMENT: Julian Assange will give a live statement infront of the Ecuadorian embassy, Sunday 2pm.

Mohammed Abbas / Reuters:
Hague says will not give Assange safe passage

Discussion: @foreignoffice, @producermatthew and @davidallengreen

AAP: Assange to appeal if Britain blocks exit

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Students walk out on University of Georgia newspaper — Student journalists at University of Georgia newspaper The Red & Black walked out after the university put its faculty advisor, Ed Morales, in charge of the paper's editorial content. The students have set up a blog and a Twitter account, which has been suspended.

Discussion: Gawker, Athens Daily News, Red & Dead, The Huffington Post, splc.org and College Media Matters

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Georgia students will return to newspaper for meeting — Some of the student journalists who walked out on the University of Georgia student newspaper The Red & Black on Wednesday will return for a meeting Thursday afternoon, publisher Harry Montevideo said in a phone interview.

Discussion: College Media Matters

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

At the ‘Times,’ a new mission statement — Some new corporate jargon is being tossed around at The New York Times Company's 8th Avenue headquarters: A growth strategy known as “Invest in the Times.” For a company named after its flagship newspaper, “Invest in the Times” may not actually sound like much of a strategy.

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

New York Times Has Enough Cash To Go Private — New York Times Co. (NYT), after losing $7 billion in market value since 1999 amid plummeting industry advertising sales, is better positioned than ever to go private as Mark Thompson takes the reins. Thompson, who slashed more than $1.6 billion …

Discussion: Poynter

Michael Wolff / Guardian:
Mark Thompson at the New York Times: the enviable position of being Arthur Sulzberger's No 2

Discussion: Free Press, The Journalism Foundation, Bloomberg, Poynter and The New York Observer

Josh Lowensohn / CNET:

Apple TV could double as cable box, report says — Apple wants to make its streaming set top box double as a cable box, and is in talks with operators, according to a new report. — Apple's set top box could be destined to stream live TV channels, according to a new report.

Discussion: TechCrunch, VideoNuze Analysis, Forbes, Media Money …, ReadWriteWeb, Bloomberg, Multichannel News and AdAge

Wall Street Journal:

Apple's New Front in Battle for TV — Apple Inc. is in talks with some of the biggest U.S. cable operators about letting consumers use an Apple device as a set-top box for live television and other content, according to people familiar with the matter. — The talks represent Apple's …

Discussion: AllThingsD, The Next Web, TechCrunch, Fortune, App Advice, TUAW and Mashable!

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Time: Fareed Zakaria's plagiarism was unintentional, isolated incident — Time magazine has finished reviewing Fareed Zakaria's columns after he lifted a few lines from a New Yorker story. The magazine is “entirely satisfied that the language in question in his recent column was an unintentional error and an isolated incident.”

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Politico, The Atlantic Wire and The New York Observer

Joel Mathis / The Philly Post:

The Inky Should Go Online Only and Other Radical Ideas to Save Philly Newspapers — The Inquirer and Daily News have survived ownership changes and staff reductions. Now it's time for them to try something startlingly new. — It's time to do something different—radically different—to save Philadelphia's major daily newspapers.

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

Further Decline in Credibility Ratings for Most News Organizations — OVERVIEW — For the second time in a decade, the believability ratings for major news organizations have suffered broad-based declines. In the new survey, positive believability ratings have fallen significantly for nine of 13 news organizations tested.

Discussion: TheBlaze.com and TVSpy

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

As time ticks down, publishers and Authors Guild slam ebook settlement — On Wednesday, the Authors Guild, publishers Penguin and Macmillan, and Apple filed their opposition to the Department of Justice's proposed ebook pricing settlement with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster.

Discussion: GeekWire, Hillicon Valley and paidContent

Charlie Warzel / Adweek:

Overdosing on HuffPost Live Streaming network innovates, though lacks gravitas — On Monday morning, at 10:00 am EST, a stopwatch timer finally ticked to zero and Arianna Huffington's trademarked accent broke the silence from a burgundy-colored leather couch to launch a next-level experiment that …

Discussion: Globe and Mail and Beet.TV