Mediagazer: Journalists and activists report having their Skype calls tapped (Russell Brandom/The Verge)

9:45 AM ET, January 24, 2013

Top News:

Julian Assange attacks new WikiLeaks movie — Speaking during an Oxford Union debate, the WikiLeaks founder described The Fifth Estate as a ‘massive propaganda attack’ — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has described a forthcoming Hollywood film about him as a “massive propaganda attack” …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Sky News, The Independent, Telegraph, Guardian, Australian Times, Mirror Online and Huffington Post UK

Marlow Stern / The Daily Beast: Alex Gibney On His WikiLeaks Documentary: Julian Assange Got Corrupted

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Netflix Shares Jump 30% After Hours, As It Beats The Street With Revenues Of $945M And 2M New Subscribers — Netflix had a stellar fourth quarter, posting revenues and subscriber numbers well above analyst estimates. That has got investors excited again, driving the stock up 25 percent in after hours trading.

Discussion: New York Times, Forbes, GigaOM, Home Media Magazine, Quartz, The Verge, Broadcasting & Cable and Fortune

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Netflix Talks a Little Trash About the Competition

Discussion: Media Decoder, The Verge and Home Media Magazine

Austin Carr / Fast Company:
Inside Netflix's Project Griffin: The Forgotten History Of Roku Under Reed Hastings

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Home Media Magazine, Broadcasting & Cable, GigaOM, Forbes, The Next Web, AdAge, Engadget, paidContent, VentureBeat, Gizmodo and TechCrunch

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Sports Editor Joe Sexton Leaving The New York Times? — New York Times sports editor Joe Sexton is expected to leave the paper for ProPublica as a voluntary buyout deadline approaches Thursday afternoon, sources tell The Huffington Post. Sexton did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:
New York Times Classical Music Critic James Oestreich Takes Buyout

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, The Huffington Post, Politico, The New York Observer and Slipped Disc

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

McGraw-Hill Acquires 20% Stake In Area9, The Adaptive Learning Company Behind Its New Smart eBooks — As a 95-year-old publishing company primarily known for its textbooks, McGraw-Hill is not usually the type of exhibitor one finds at the Consumer Electronics Show, let alone one to make a splash.

Eliza Kern / paidContent:

Quora gets into the publishing business with new blogging platform — Newspapers might be dying, but there is no shortage of companies who want to get into the publishing business. Or the blogging business, at least. Quora plans to announce Wednesday that it's rolling out a new blogging platform …

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, CNET, The Next Web, SocialTimes, VentureBeat, Fast Company, AllThingsD, The Verge, TechCrunch and WebProNews

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Journalists and activists report having their Skype calls tapped — EFF and others call out the service for lack of transparency and collaborating with Chinese censors — In an open letter this morning, a group including EFF, Greatfire.org and Reporters Without Borders called out Skype for …

Discussion: Forbes and Slate

Jim Romenesko:

More than 70 newspapers respond to reality series casting call — More than 70 editors and publishers have responded to NBC Peacock Production's casting call for a reality series about a small-town newspaper. Producer Cara Biega “noted that she was impressed with how amazing their stories are …

Discussion: 10,000 Words and The Newspaper Guild

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Gawker Expects at Least 10% of Revenue From E-Commerce This Year, Says Denton Memo — Seeking ‘Commerce Specialists’ for Gawker Sites — Apparently, Gawker Media is serious about its e-commerce business. In a memo to his employees today outlining some business-side promotions and departures …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Kelly Fiveash / The Register:

Phone-hack saga: Cops cuff ex-health worker in pre-dawn swoop — A 59-year-old ex-healthcare worker was arrested today by cops probing allegations of bribes paid to public officials and police alongside an investigation into phone-hacking by journalists. The Met said its officers cuffed …

Discussion: Sky News, Telegraph, Guardian and BBC

Christine Haughney / Media Decoder:

Rolling Stone Lays Off Two Noted Staff Members — 6:02 p.m. | Updated Rolling Stone, amid a variety of magazines responding to a troubled advertising environment by trimming staff, laid off two of its bigger names this month. — Eric Bates, the magazine's executive editor who had worked …

Janko Roettgers / paidContent:

Global TV platform Viki widens its reach with Amazon Instant partnership — Somewhere in Turkey, someone is working on a hit TV show right now — a show that viewers in the U.S. could fall in love with, if they only had the chance to see it. That's the core belief behind Viki …

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Battling Kobo, Amazon launches Kindle e-readers and store in Canada — Toronto-based Kobo is Canada's leading e-reading company, but Amazon hopes that won't be the case for long as it ramps up its Canadian presence. Canadians have long been able to buy the most basic Kindle from across the border …

Discussion: Amazon.com, Softpedia News, CNET, Melville House Books and The Next Web

Untitled:

X-Surface: Don't believe everything you read. — I am a gamer. I don't work for Microsoft. — I, like most other gamers, am sick of seeing endless rumours and speculation citing “anonymous sources” or “insiders” with no evidence, no proof, no guarantee that they've been fact-checked or can be relied on.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Pocket-lint, Gizmodo UK and VG247

Dave Thier / Forbes: Random Gamer Punks Major Blogs on Xbox Rumors

Reuters:

Guardian-owner ends talks on Auto Trader sale-FT — The publisher of Britain's Guardian and Observer newspapers has ended talks on selling its stake in Trader Media Group because the price offered fell short of expectations, the Financial Times said on Thursday.

Discussion: pressgazette.co.uk and Financial Times

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

iPads replace newspapers in Boston Globe's school donation program — Many newspapers let readers donate the proceeds of their subscriptions to an education fund when they go on vacation. These funds have gone to provide newspapers and digital subscriptions to local classrooms …

Discussion: TUAW and Poynter

John Koblin / Deadspin:

Report: ESPN Suspends Two Producers For Cutting Away From Notre Dame AD's Te'o Presser Last Week — Just about four hours after we broke the Manti Te'o story, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick held that extremely weird presser. He got choked up.

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Los Angeles Times and New York Times

Barbara Goldberg / Reuters:
Te'o tells Katie Couric he lied to maintain hoax

Discussion: Fast Company, ABCNEWS, Deadspin, NPR, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, Inside TV, Reuters and Associated Press

Katy Bachman / Adweek:

CBS' Hopper Award Knock Could Set Back Media Ownership Rules — When CBS torpedoed CNET's planned “best of show” award for Dish's Hopper, it may have also blown to bits broadcasters' best chance for looser media ownership rules at the Federal Communications Commission.