Mediagazer: Songza's Founders Realized They Weren't Thinking Radically Enough-Here's How They Changed That (Erin Griffith/PandoDaily)

5:35 AM ET, August 17, 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.

@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: @davidallengreen, @producermatthew and @foreignoffice

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 and CJR

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

Discussion: Poynter

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: Red & Dead, College Media Matters, The Red and Black and Athens Daily News

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 and Dead, JIMROMENESKO.COM, New York Times, The Huffington Post, Gawker, splc.org and College Media Matters

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: Trends in the Living Networks, NetNewsCheck Latest, TheBlaze.com and TVSpy

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

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, Softpedia News, The Next Web and VentureBeat

Josh Lowensohn / CNET:
Apple TV could double as cable box, report says

Discussion: TechCrunch, GigaOM, /Film, VideoNuze Analysis, ReadWriteWeb, Media Money …, AdAge and Multichannel News

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

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 …

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.

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

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, Thanks:@mathewi

Erik Wemple:

Ryan tick-tocks: A case of mass stenography? — On Saturday morning, Rep. Paul Ryan joined presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in front of the USS Wisconsin to cement the ticket that'll challenge President Obama in November. The next day, a blitz of media accounts detailed just how Ryan had arrived at the spot.

Discussion: CJR