Mediagazer: Can Pay Walls Work for Hyper-Local Business News Sites? (Eric Mark Do/MediaShift)

9:50 PM ET, January 19, 2013

Top News:

Memo: The Atlantic president explains Scientology advertorial ‘screw-up’ — The Atlantic president Scott Havens sent this staff memo about the Scientology advertorial “screw-up” shortly after 6 p.m. Friday: — From: Havens, Scott — To: companywide.TheAtlanticMonthly — Dear Atlantic Staff,

Discussion: @jackshafer, @ckrewson and Poynter

Tim Carmody / The Verge:

Wikileaks claims Aaron Swartz was an ally and possible source, breaking anonymity — Unsubstantiated statements implicate US Secret Service in his prosecution and break the organization's own rules by ‘doxxing’ Swartz — Aaron Swartz died a week ago, from suicide.

Discussion: emptywheel, @tcarmody, emptywheel, @jason_pontin, @dangillmor, @wikileaks and @wikileaks

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Senator John Cornyn Asks Eric Holder To Explain DOJ Prosecution Of Aaron Swartz — While we've seen some politicians in Congress speak out about the prosecution against Aaron Swartz, for the most part, it had been the “usual crew” of folks who had formed the core of the anti-SOPA alliance — Reps. Lofgren, Issa and Polis.

Discussion: Lessig Blog, v2, The Public Domain, The Huffington Post, The Verge, emptywheel and United States Senator …

Patrick B. Pexton / Washington Post:

The Post uses someone else's words — again — Has technology made us all plagiarists? The Internet and Google have enabled every reporter, blogger and columnist to have what amounts to a million encyclopedias at their fingertips. We can search for material on virtually any subject …

Discussion: @jswatz, @macloo, Top Digital Journal News, @rajunarisetti, The Wrap and Poynter

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

YouTube halts funding for WSJ and Reuters channels; Reuters cuts positions — YouTube has cut off funding to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters that formed part of its $150 million dollar plan to help launch more than 100 premium channels. The termination of the one-year deals …

Drew Olanoff / TechCrunch:

Circa Raises $750K From Group Including Lerer Ventures To Revolutionize Mobile News Delivery — We've learned today that mobile news-delivery company Circa has raised another $750K on top of the $900K raised previously. The company launched its app of the same name, which allows you to follow …

Eric Mark Do / MediaShift:

Can Pay Walls Work for Hyper-Local Business News Sites? — Canada's largest newspaper company is launching two hyper-local business sites in a bid to duplicate the success of one of Canada's only profitable online news operations. YourMississaugaBiz.com launched several months ago, and YourHamiltonBiz.com will go live this month.

David Folkenflik / NPR:

The Manti Te'o Story: Why The News Media Let Its Guard Down … One of the top collegiate football players in the country, Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, was lionized by the media amid stories of his perseverance on the field after both his grandmother and his girlfriend died.

Discussion: ESPN, Forbes, Deadspin, L.A. NOW and The Sherman Report

Nieman Journalism Lab:

Across the world, money to support journalism startups comes from a variety of sources — Editor's note: Late last year, a team of researchers put out a usefully comprehensive report on how digital journalism is being financed. The project was called Submojour — sustainable business models …

Ann Friedman / Columbia Journalism Review:

Is the homepage dead? — A friend of mine who is a Web editor at a political publication recently complained to me that his outlet's clunky CMS made updating the homepage difficult, and he was worried this was hurting traffic to the top pieces of the day. I laughed at him!

Discussion: Garcia Media

Hunter Walker / Politicker:

How Ed Koch Helped Make Nikki Finke a Reporter — Nikki Finke during her days in Mr. Koch's office as depicted in a 1974 New York Times engagement notice. — Former New York Mayor Ed Koch has had an influence in Hollywood as well as the Big Apple. Before coming to City Hall …

Discussion: @penenberg

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Why news sites benefit from having writers with legal backgrounds — Instagram's famous new terms of service go into effect Saturday. News organizations just got a serious warning about plucking photographs from Twitter. Wouldn't this be a great time for a news org to have a copyright lawyer on staff?