Mediagazer: Olbermann Who? MSNBC Abandons Neutrality Pose For Convention Coverage (Jeff Bercovici/Forbes)

6:40 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, ZDNet, BBC, 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: Athens Daily News, Red & Dead, Gawker, splc.org, The Huffington Post 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.

Discussion: CJR

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 and Bloomberg

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, Business Insider, Forbes, Bloomberg, Media Money …, AdAge and Multichannel News

Wall Street Journal:
Apple's New Front in Battle for TV

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

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Olbermann Who? MSNBC Abandons Neutrality Pose For Convention Coverage — Here's one indication of how much the news landscape has changed in the past four years: In 2008, with the presidential election heading into the home stretch, MSNBC pointedly took its top on-air personality …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable

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.

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

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

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: The New York Observer, Media Decoder, Politico, The Wrap, TVNewser, JIMROMENESKO.COM, The Atlantic Wire and Poynter

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