Mediagazer: After Scientology Debacle, The Atlantic Tightens Native Ad Guidelines (Lucia Moses/Adweek)

3:05 PM ET, January 30, 2013

Top News:

Matt K. Lewis / The Week:

Why I hate Twitter — The social sharing tool was once a vision. Now it's a prison — S — oren Dayton and Rob Bluey — two conservative tech geniuses — talked me into joining Twitter during a lunch Ed Morrissey organized at an Iraqi restaurant in Minneapolis during the 2008 Republican convention.

Discussion: The Awl, @mlcalderone, @mikeisaac, @juliemmoos and The Daily Caller

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

Time Inc. Said to Eliminate About 6% of Workforce — Time Inc. (TWX), the largest magazine publisher in the U.S., is eliminating about 500 positions, or 6 percent of its workforce, according to two executives with direct knowledge of the firings. — The job cuts occurred across …

Discussion: The New York Observer, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Poynter, Folio, AdAge, The Wrap, Media Decoder, AllThingsD, FishbowlNY, mediabistro.com and @tcarmody

Wall Street Journal:

Time Inc. Cutting Staff — Time Inc. began a wave of staff reductions Wednesday morning that are expected to eliminate about 500 jobs, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the country's largest magazine group grapples with declines in print advertising.

Discussion: @keachhagey, Politico and The Huffington Post

Jon Bernstein / Press Gazette:

'We're not trying to beat the Huffington Post' — Chris Hughes, from Facebook to New Republic — Question: How do you reinvigorate a 98-year old US news and current affairs magazine for the digital age? — Answer: Hire a 29 year-old former Facebook executive. Naturally.

Discussion: NPR, Jon Bernstein and Canadian Magazines

Jack Shafer:
Unsolicited advice for New Republic owner Chris Hughes

Discussion: Daily Download and @jayrosen_nyu

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

After Scientology Debacle, The Atlantic Tightens Native Ad Guidelines — A little over two weeks after The Atlantic got egg on its face over a sponsored Web post by the Church of Scientology, the media brand has issued new guidelines for so-called native advertising. They're live on the brand's site now.

Discussion: Poynter, The Huffington Post and eMedia Vitals

The Huffington Post:

Fox News Ratings Hit 12-Year Demo Lows In January Cable News Figures — At the end of each month, cable news ratings are released to the public. And, like clockwork, Fox News dominates the top 13 or so programs, far outstripping its competitors. — January was ... a little different.

Discussion: Politico, The Week, TVNewser, BuzzFeed and The Raw Story

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Amazon Makes Murmurs About Its Video Business — Netflix added a bunch of streaming video subscribers in the last quarter. How did rival Amazon do? — Who knows? Amazon is fiercely dedicated to the notion that it won't say squat about its business, and things stayed true to form during yesterday's earnings call.

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:
Bezos: With ebook sales up 70% in 2012, Amazon has hit “transition” it expected

Discussion: Slate, New York Times, Forbes, NetNewsCheck Latest, PublishersWeekly.com, Softpedia News, Mercury News, Home Media Magazine, AllThingsD, CNET, Pocket-lint, VentureBeat, TechCrunch and GalleyCat

Tim Carmody / The Verge:
Amazon rides a razor-thin wave back to profit in first full quarter of new Kindles

Discussion: ZDNet and The Next Web

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

Al Jazeera America Has Received More Than 8,000 Applications — Lots of competition for just 160 positions. — Within 24 hours of posting openings for the majority of their new positions, Al Jazeera America received 5000 applications for open positions, a number that has grown to 8,063 …

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

Kill the pageview: 29th Street Publishing looks to profit off small and good — Maura Johnston, founding editor of Gawker's now-defunct Idolator and more recently the music editor at the Village Voice, is now a micro-publisher. The independent writer is four issues into her new periodical …

Discussion: magCulture.com/blog

Jim Romenesko:

Washington Post gives scholarships to computer programmers at Medill — The Washington Post announced today that it's giving scholarships to computer programmers studying at Medill. The paper joins the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in supporting the Northwestern University scholarship program.

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Guardian CEO Andrew Miller on paywalls, mobile, and going global — The story of the news industry at the moment is the interplay between contraction and expansion. As publishers reduce the size of their operations, they're also looking outward to new products, new coverage areas — or new geographies.

David Holmes / PandoDaily:

Washington Post's Truth Teller and the future of robots doing journalism — At some point in the history of letters, fact-checking went from a foundational part of journalism to a specialization practiced by few to a buzzwordy media trend, alternately praised and dismissed depending on what politician was getting called out.

Discussion: 10,000 Words, paidContent and Poynter

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle — Like plenty of music fans, Sam Broe jumped at the chance to join Spotify two summers ago, and he hasn't looked back. — Spotify, which began streaming music in Sweden in 2008, lets users choose from millions of songs over the Internet free …

Discussion: Fortune, Quartz and Business Insider