Mediagazer: Al Jazeera's new channel struggles for U.S. distribution (Reuters)

11:15 AM ET, January 4, 2013

Top News:

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Gore Went to Bat for Al Jazeera, and Himself — Al Gore at the Current TV studios in San Francisco in 2005. He said Al Jazeera's coverage was “thorough, fair and informative.” — Al Gore's Current TV was never popular with viewers, but it was a hit where it counted: with cable and satellite providers.

Discussion: Mediaite, TVNewser, Politico, Erik Wemple, The Daily Beast, CEPR, The Raw Story, Business Insider, The Daily Caller, @ggreenwald and Wall Street Journal

Reuters:

Al Jazeera's new channel struggles for U.S. distribution — (Reuters) - Al Jazeera's announced plans to establish a new U.S. cable news channel via the purchase of Current TV isn't even 48 hours old and already it finds itself in a vicious battle to retain distribution rights.

Discussion: PandoDaily

David Zurawik / Baltimore Sun:

Why Al Jazeera buying Current is a good thing for media, country — Forget the vapid personality chatter about Al Gore and Glenn Beck — I don't care if Al Gore got more money than he ever deserved for his pathetic channel, or Glenn Beck got the short end of the stick in trying to buy …

Wall Street Journal:

Al Jazeera Embraces Cable TV, Loses Web — Al Jazeera used the Web to build a following in America, which it hopes to exploit on cable television through Wednesday's purchase of Current TV. But to keep cable operators happy, Al Jazeera may have to make a difficult bargain: Giving up on the Web.

Discussion: MarketingVox News & Trends

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Time Warner Cable Says It Will Keep ‘Open Mind’ on Reinstating Al Jazeera — Time Warner Cable minced no words when it announced on Wednesday night that it was dropping Current TV, just hours after Al Jazeera acquired the channel. “Our agreement with Current has been terminated …

Discussion: Mediaite, The Huffington Post, AdAge, Inside TV, Politico, The Week, @jackshafer, The Daily Dish, Guardian, Tampa Bay Times, Business Insider, Los Angeles Times, DealBook and The Stream

New York Times:
Al Jazeera in America

Discussion: The New Republic, The Wrap and Los Angeles Times

Jeanine Poggi / AdAge:
New Cable Channels Keep Coming Despite Content-Cost Crackdown

Discussion: Globe and Mail

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder: Questions Linger for Hosts After Sale of Current TV

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Bad news for cord cutters: Al Jazeera America won't be live streamed online

Discussion: Media Decoder, Bloomberg, The Daily Caller, DealBook and AllThingsD

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:
Al Jazeera will face hurdles to succeeding with Current TV

Discussion: @rafat and ABCNEWS

Mathew Ingram / paidContent:

Why Tumblr and BuzzFeed are on a collision course in 2013 — The decline and fall of traditional media empires is one side of the ongoing turmoil within the industry, but the other side is the rise of disruptive new players, and two of the most prominent names in that category are BuzzFeed and Tumblr.

Discussion: Fortune, Adweek, Hollywood Reporter, The Next Web, Forbes, Elapsed Time and parislemon

Tom Gara / Corporate Intelligence:

Inside BuzzFeed's Old Media Business Model — After BuzzFeed's announcement of a new $19 million round of venture funding yesterday, we had a chat with Jonah Peretti, the company's co-founder. He was pretty tight-lipped about the numbers - what the company is worth, or how much revenue it's pulling in …

Discussion: Guardian and Digiday

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:
BuzzFeed Is Now Valued At ~$200 Million, But Investors Think It Has Billion-Dollar Potential

Discussion: VentureBeat, AdAge, NetNewsCheck Latest and FishbowlNY

Patrick Smith / TheMediaBriefing:
Cats, politics, $46 million in funding and a UK launch: It's time to start taking Buzzfeed seriously

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Corporate Intelligence, eMedia Vitals and Bloomberg

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Andrew Sullivan on Going Back to Future as an Indie Blogger — On Wednesday, Andrew Sullivan, one of the pioneers of the blogging Web, decided to end his relationship with The Daily Beast, and by the way, with advertising as well. His decision made quite a splash, in part because others wonder whether …

Discussion: Pressthink, Mashable! and The Atlantic Online

Ann Friedman:

Journalism Is Personal — You probably read this post at Gawker, in which Hamilton Nolan aims to put the fear of Cronkite into the aspiring Thought Catalog contributors of America. You probably also read that Andrew Sullivan is striking out on his own, hoping his readers will pony …

Discussion: The Buttry Diary and Guardian

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:
Sullivan's new Dish raises $333,000 from over 11K people in first 24 hours

Discussion: The Daily Dish, GigaOM, VentureBeat, The New York Observer, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, PSFK, The Next Web, The FJP and Felix Salmon

Associated Press:

China says New York Times reporter was not expelled, says his visa application was incomplete — BEIJING — The Chinese government said Friday that it did not expel a New York Times reporter who had to leave mainland China this week after he failed to obtain new press credentials.

Associated Press:
Journalists confront China censors over editorial

Discussion: Big News Network.com

Evan Osnos / The New Yorker Blog:
China, the American Press, and the State Department

Discussion: TechCrunch and China Law & Policy

Adrienne LaFrance / Washington Post:

Library of Congress has archive of tweets, but no plan for its public display — In the few minutes it will take you to read this story, some 3 million new tweets will have flitted across the publishing platform Twitter and ricocheted across the Internet. The Library of Congress is busy archiving …

Discussion: Library of Congress Blog and BuzzFeed

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Rockland County Sheriff: Keep gun permits from media — If there's a movement to prevent media outlets from procuring information about gun permits in New York state, count Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco among its supporters. “I don't see any upside to everybody knowing that,” says Falco.

Discussion: Poynter and Slate