Mediagazer: Press and broadcast coalition warns against changes to contempt law (Josh Halliday/Guardian)

8:05 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: The Daily Caller and Wall Street Journal

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: New York Times, The New Republic, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, AdAge, Inside TV, Guardian, The Week, Los Angeles Times, @jackshafer, The Daily Dish, Tampa Bay Times, DealBook, TVLine, Business Insider and Deadline.com

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

Jeanine Poggi / AdAge:

New Cable Channels Keep Coming Despite Content-Cost Crackdown — Players ranging from WWE to ABC News and Univision will again try to elbow their way onto pay-TV program guides this year. But 2013 may prove particularly inhospitable for upstart networks as cable and satellite distributors …

Discussion: Globe and Mail

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Questions Linger for Hosts After Sale of Current TV — Eliot Spitzer, Jennifer Granholm, Joy Behar and the other hosts on Current TV have no idea what comes next. — On Wednesday, their television home was sold to Al Jazeera, which plans to remake Current into an international news channel …

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Bad news for cord cutters: Al Jazeera America won't be live streamed online — Cord cutters won't be able to tune into Al Jazeera America, the new cable news network that was announced Wednesday in conjunction with the news that Al Jazeera has purchased Al Gore's Current.tv.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, AllThingsD, DealBook, Business Insider and The Stream

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

Discussion: @rafat and ABCNEWS

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: VentureBeat and Guardian

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

Discussion: Pressthink, The Daily Dish, GigaOM, The New York Observer, The Atlantic Online, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, PSFK and Felix Salmon

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: BuzzFeed, Bloomberg, Fortune, Adweek and Hollywood Reporter

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

Discussion: AdAge, FishbowlNY, NetNewsCheck Latest and SocialTimes

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.

Discussion: Associated Press

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

Discussion: TechCrunch and China Law & Policy

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Digital Cracks 50% of Ad Revenue at Wired Magazine — First for the Title Is an Encouraging Sign for the Industry — Digital contributed half of all ad revenue at Wired magazine in the final three months of 2012, a first for the title and an encouraging sign for an industry …

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Press and broadcast coalition warns against changes to contempt law — National papers and broadcasters oppose law change that could see courts given power to order removal of archive web stories — A coalition of national newspapers and broadcasters are to warn against proposed changes …

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Legimi Wants To Be The ‘Spotify For Ebooks’ With A Business Model That Relies On You Reading Less — Legimi is definitely a startup I'll be watching closely in 2013. Put simply, it aims to be the ‘Spotify for ebooks,’ in which for a monthly subscription, users get access to a potentially infinite library …