Mediagazer: Why Apple is the stumbling block in Amazon's ebook transition (Laura Hazard Owen/paidContent)

9:30 PM ET, January 30, 2013

Top News:

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

Wall Street Journal:
Time Inc. Cutting Staff

Discussion: paidContent, @keachhagey, Politico and The Huffington Post

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, mediabistro.com, FishbowlDC, The Daily Caller, @mikeisaac, @mlcalderone and @juliemmoos

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:

Matt Buchanan Leaving BuzzFeed For The New Yorker — In a move that is a reverse of the hordes of journalists leaving old school jobs for BuzzFeed, Matt Buchanan, the editor of FWD, the site's tech vertical, is leaving for the more august shores of The New Yorker.

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 …

Discussion: The Huffington Post

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 Erik Wemple

Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:

Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months — SAN FRANCISCO — For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees.

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Why Apple is the stumbling block in Amazon's ebook transition — Nobody can predict the future, but Amazon thinks that when it comes to ebooks the writing is on the wall. — “We're now seeing the transition we've been expecting,” CEO Jeff Bezos said in the company's fourth-quarter earnings report, released Tuesday.

Discussion: PublishersWeekly.com, Softpedia News and CNET

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, The Raw Story and BuzzFeed

Jim Romenesko:

SPJ kills print edition of conference newspaper — Buried in the Society of Professional Journalists president's winter meeting notes is news that SPJ will no longer produce a print version of its Working Press newspaper at SPJ's annual conference. … SPJ will still offer …

Discussion: Freedom of the Prez

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.

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Afghan Media Faces Uncertain Future As U.S. Withdraws — Danish Karokhel, like all Afghan journalists, couldn't report freely during Taliban rule in the 1990s. The Islamic fundamentalist regime allowed only a single, state-run outlet, Radio Sharia, on the air.

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.