Mediagazer: Robot reporters: A look at the computers writing the news (Sarah Marshall/Journalism.co.uk)

4:10 PM ET, March 12, 2013

Top News:

Tanner Colby / Slate:

Regrettable — The troubling things I learned when I re-reported Bob Woodward's book on John Belushi. A little more than a week ago, during an interview with Politico, Bob Woodward came forward to claim he'd been threatened in an email by a “senior White House official” …

Discussion: Poynter, @jonfine, Hit & Run, @noahkravitz, @kdonhoops, @craabdem, @7im, @joshuafoust, @womzilla, @josheidelson, Quotes and Snippets and The Daily Beast

Hillel Aron / LA Weekly:

Are the Koch Brothers Trying to Buy the Los Angeles Times? — The latest rumor about the next owner of the L.A. Times, which is for sale, is a doozy. A bombshell. It's a doozy wrapped in a bombshell exploding inside a Drudge siren. — Multiple sources tell L.A. Weekly that Charles and David Koch …

Discussion: Poynter, Politico, JIMROMENESKO.COM and NetNewsCheck Latest

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Kochs: No comment on Tribune rumors — Conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch are declining to confirm or deny a report that they are considering a bid for The Tribune Company papers, including the Los Angeles Times. — “As an entrepreneurial company with 60,000 employees around the world …

Discussion: BuzzFeed

Mike Shields / Adweek:

Vevo Launches Linear Web Network With an Eye on Cable — Music videos are coming back to your TV, 24 hours a day. MTV has nothing to do with it. And neither do any computer algorithms. — Instead, Vevo, which was built as the ultimate on-demand hub for music videos on the Web …

Discussion: VentureBeat, paidContent, NetNewsCheck Latest and The Next Web

Andy Fixmer / Bloomberg:

Vevo Starts 24-Hour Ad-Supported Music Television Network — Vevo LLC, a provider of music videos on Google Inc. (GOOG)'s YouTube, started a 24-hour music TV network that begins online and will expand to at least one pay- TV system later this year. — The broadcast-style network starts today …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Guardian, AdAge, Fast Company, The Verge and @ryanlawler

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Politico hits 1,000 Pro subscriptions and plans to launch a magazine — Over a thousand organizations are now using subscription site Politico Pro, the politics website announced Tuesday. Politico says the site reaches 7,000 professionals per month and has a renewal rate of 96 percent.

Discussion: Beet.TV, Folio, NetNewsCheck Latest, FishbowlNY and Nieman Journalism Lab

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

Finally: hear Bradley Manning in his own voice — A full audio recording of the whistleblower is released today despite a court prohibition on such recordings — The court-martial proceeding of Bradley Manning has, rather ironically, been shrouded in extreme secrecy …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Wired, The Raw Story, Towleroad News #gay, Boing Boing, The Nation and Pressing Issues

Raf Sanchez / Telegraph:

WikiLeaks: recording of Bradley Manning court testimony leaked — A leaked recording of Bradley Manning's testimony in a military court has given the public its first chance to hear the young soldier justifying his decision to leak hundreds of thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks.

Discussion: Pressing Issues

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Telegraph group cuts 80 print jobs as daily and Sunday titles merge — The Telegraph group is to shed 80 of its 550 editorial staff as part of what the chief executive, Murdoch MacLennan, calls a root and branch restructure of the business. It will mean the complete merger of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph as a seven-day operation.

Discussion: pressgazette.co.uk and The Wall Blog

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Mobile Publishing Platform Pressly Raises $1.5 Million, Launches To Public At Last — Pressly, the mobile publishing platform and former TechCrunch Disrupt finalist which makes websites smartphone and tablet-friendly, is today launching to the public, accompanied by $1.5 million in outside funding …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Globe and Mail, Market Wire and The Next Web

Paul Sloan / CNET:

Spotify: Growing like mad, yet so far to go — The digital music service has added another 1 million subscribers since December, bringing its global total of paying customers to 6 million. — AUSTIN, Texas — It's not a bluegrass jam on the legendary Austin City Limits stage …

Discussion: VentureBeat, GigaOM, WebProNews, The Verge, AllThingsD and Softpedia News

Andy Fixmer / Bloomberg:
Spotify Said Expanding Pandora-Like Web Radio Worldwide

Discussion: Benzinga, hypebot and The Verge

Tim Carmody / The Verge:

Can anyone turn streaming music into a real business? — After ten years of struggle, nobody has figured out how to make music pay — “The subscription model has failed so far,” Steve Jobs said in April 2007. “People want to own their music.” At that time, Apple had solved the problem …

Discussion: The Billfold, @pkafka and Gizmodo

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:

Robot reporters: A look at the computers writing the news — When a 3.2-magnitude earthquake struck in California at 5.28am on 1 February, the Los Angeles Times reported the news. The story was published at 5.36am, just eight minutes later, complete with a map showing the epicentre of the quake.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Bryan Goldberg / PandoDaily:

Gawker admits defeat, tries to replicate Bleacher Report and Huffington Post — I don't cover news for PandoDaily, but I figured that I would give it a shot today. — Gawker has thrown in the towel on their old model. Today, their popular Deadspin blog has announced that they are creating a …

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …