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

2:45 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.

Lizzy Davies / Guardian:

Julian Assange Ecuador embassy row - live coverage — 9:23 BST More from professor Eileen Denza, who has been a legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Though she was involved in drafting the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act, which the British embassy in Quito quoted …

Discussion: VentureBeat, BBC, @antderosa, @skynewsbreak, Agence France Presse, Mediaite, The New Yorker Blog, Gawker, The Wrap, AllThingsD, @wyliecatherine, @ggreenwald, @ggreenwald, @skynewsbreak, The Age, @tomjharper and Pressing Issues

@wikileaks:

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

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, ZDNet and Media Law Prof Blog

AAP:

Assange to appeal if Britain blocks exit — WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange will appeal to the International Court of Justice if Britain blocks his exit to Ecuador, renowned Spanish rights lawyer Baltasar Garzon says. Garzon, who is helping Assange's defence, told Spanish newspaper El Pais …

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

Discussion: @davidallengreen, @producermatthew and @foreignoffice

Reuters:
Ecuador says Britain threatened to raid embassy over Assange

Discussion: Guardian, Firedoglake, @foreignoffice, National Review, Reuters, Wired, @wikileaks and CNET

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: The Huffington Post, Red & Dead, splc.org and Athens Daily News

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

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.

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.

Discussion: Bloomberg

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

Discussion: The Journalism Foundation, Poynter, Bloomberg 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: Forbes, VideoNuze Analysis, Media Money …, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Broadcasting & Cable, AdAge and Multichannel News

Jim Gallagher / St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Warren Buffett increases stake in Lee Enterprises — Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has nearly doubled its stake in newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises, the parent company of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Lee's shares jumped nearly 20 percent on the news Wednesday, closing at $1.59, up 26 cents.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Lewis DVorkin / Forbes:

Inside Forbes: A New Language of Journalism Speaks to the Rebirth of a Profession — As chief product officer, I spend a lot of time talking with people outside FORBES about our unique model for journalism. Here's one question I get asked all the time: “What exactly are you guys up to?”

Discussion: Talking To Strangers

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

13 ways of looking at Medium, the new blogging/sharing/discovery platform from @ev and Obvious — [With apologies to Wallace Stevens, the finest poet to ever serve as vice president of the Hartford Livestock Insurance Company.] — I. — Medium is a new online publishing platform from Obvious Corp. It launched yesterday.