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

4:05 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, The Stream, @skynewsbreak, BBC, @antderosa, Agence France Presse, The Wrap, The New Yorker Blog, @wyliecatherine, @ggreenwald, @ggreenwald, @skynewsbreak, @tomjharper, Mediaite, The Age, Gawker, AllThingsD and Pressing Issues

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, AJE and Media Law Prof Blog

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

AAP: Assange to appeal if Britain blocks exit

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

Discussion: @foreignoffice, @producermatthew and @davidallengreen

Reuters:
Ecuador says Britain threatened to raid embassy over Assange

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

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

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

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

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

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: The Journalism Foundation, Bloomberg, Poynter 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

Jim Edwards / Business Insider:

Huffington Post Ad Sales Chief Ousted Over 9-Year-Old Arrest Warrant — Huffington Post sales head Moritz Loew was dismissed from his job after only three months when a background check turned up a DWI charge from 2003, according to Ad Age: — He also confirmed that his dismissal centered around …

Discussion: AdAge

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: Hillicon Valley