Mediagazer: At the ‘Times,’ a new mission statement (Joe Pompeo/Capital New York)

10:00 AM ET, August 17, 2012

Top News:

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Apple, Microsoft, Google and the sad state of TV — The latest news on Apple's plans for the future of television is that the company is in talks with big pay TV operators to carry their live programming. This would turn a future Apple TV product into a kind of set-top box, reported the Wall Street Journal Wednesday.

Discussion: /Film, professional.wsj.com, ReadWriteWeb and CNET

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Because That's Where The Content Is — When asked why he robbed banks, legend has it that Willie Sutton said, “because that's where the money is.” — I'm reminded of this quote today when reading the reports that Apple is in talks with the cable operators about their television plans.

Discussion: Techland, Business Insider, The Next Web, Fortune and Daring Fireball

Wall Street Journal:

Apple's TV Vision: Sharing, Full On-Demand, Icons — TV Device Interface Would Simplify Programming; Company Faces Hurdles With Cable Operators — Apple Inc.'s vision for a new device that can be used as a set-top box includes features designed to simplify accessing and viewing programming …

Discussion: MacRumors, WebProNews, GigaOM and VentureBeat

Reuters:

New York Times Co CEO stands to make $5 million next year — (Reuters) - Mark Thompson, the newly appointed chief executive of The New York Times Co (NYT.N), stands to make up to $5 million by 2013, according to a regulatory filing on Friday. — Thompson, outgoing director-general …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and @romenesko

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: NetNewsCheck Latest, Bloomberg, CJR and The Journalism Foundation

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:
New York Times Has Enough Cash To Go Private

Discussion: @edmundlee and Poynter

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Thrillist Raises $13 Million From Oak, Lerer Ventures, Pilot Group — In 2008, Fred Harman and Oak Investment Partners bet big on Ken Lerer and the Huffington Post, and that worked out pretty well. Now Harman is putting his money into another Lerer project.

Discussion: Betabeat and paidContent

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: Forbes, @jayrosen_nyu, Trends in the Living Networks, Kirk LaPointe's …, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Huffington Post, TheBlaze.com and TVSpy

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Georgia student journalists begin producing alternate publication — Student journalists who walked out from the newsroom of the University of Georgia's independent student newspaper the Red & Black on Wednesday returned for an off-the-record meeting Thursday afternoon with publisher Harry Montevideo and a board member.

Discussion: Red and Dead, Gawker and splc.org

Andrew Jacobs / New York Times:

China's News Media Are Making Inroads in Africa — NAIROBI, Kenya — China's investment prowess and construction know-how is widely on display in this long-congested African capital. A $200 million ring road is being built and financed by Beijing. The international airport is undergoing …

Discussion: CJR

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Techdirt and the value of the velvet rope approach to media — We've argued before that many media companies seem to be taking the easy way out by implementing paywalls — hoping to duplicate the New York Times' experience — instead of trying a more membership-based “velvet rope” type of model.

Discussion: Techdirt and eMedia Vitals, Thanks:@mathewi

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

More Guardian paid content - photos go freemium — Slowly but surely, The Guardian is starting to charge for more of its digital content. An upgrade to its popular Eyewitness photography iPad app last night adds a new professional photographer tip for each daily photo - and an Eyewitness Premium option.

Katherine Fung / The Huffington Post:

Fareed Zakaria Cleared By Time, CNN In Plagiarism Investigation — Fareed Zakaria is off the hook at both Time magazine and CNN after he was accused of plagiarism last Friday. — Zakaria, Time's editor-at-large, was suspended for a month over his most recent column, which shared suspicious similarities …

Discussion: Erik Wemple, CNN and NewsBusters.org

Steve Myers / Poynter:
Time: Fareed Zakaria's plagiarism was unintentional, isolated incident

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Media Decoder, Politico, The Atlantic Wire, TVNewser, Inside Cable News, Guardian, JIMROMENESKO.COM, FishbowlNY and The New York Observer

Erin Griffith / PandoDaily:

Songza's Founders Realized They Weren't Thinking Radically Enough-Here's How They Changed That — Songza worked on its music streaming product for over a year before it struck gold. Since launching its “Concierge” service in March, the service has blown up.

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.