Mediagazer: Koch Eyeing Potentially Profitable Newspapers (Wall Street Journal)

6:55 PM ET, June 5, 2013

Top News:

Dylan Byers / Politico:

EIC Kerry Lauerman to exit Salon.com — Kerry Lauerman, the editor-in-chief of Salon.com, is leaving the website after thirteen years to partner with Lerer Ventures on a new start-up, POLITICO has learned. — Lauerman's start-up, a ‘content and commerce’ site, is expected to launch this fall …

Discussion: The New York Observer, Gawker and @marcatracy

Steven Mufson / Washington Post:

Washington Post to phase in a paid online subscription model — The Washington Post will phase in a paid online subscription model for Web content starting June 12, charging some readers $9.99 a month for access to more than 20 articles a month on desktop and mobile devices.

Discussion: Ask The Post, Poynter, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Guardian, Wonkblog, Slate, The Huffington Post, @rajunarisetti, NetNewsCheck Latest, DCist, Nieman Journalism Lab and Journalism.co.uk

Anna Clark / Columbia Journalism Review:

Watch out, watchdogs — GOP-led Wisconsin legislature moves to push investigative journalists off campus — DETROIT, MI — At the conclusion of a marathon overnight session, Wisconsin legislators early this morning added a provision to the state budget that would expel the Wisconsin Center …

Discussion: JSOnline and WisconsinWatch.org

Andy Mannix / The Blotter:

Wisconsin Republicans want to kick investigative journalism center off UW campus — Rep. John Nygen (left) says the center can find housing elsewhere; Andy Hall, the nonprofit's executive director, says he was “blindsided” by the news. — Wisconsin Republicans want to boot …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, WisconsinWatch.org, @brizzyc and FOI FYI

Wall Street Journal:

Koch Eyeing Potentially Profitable Newspapers — WICHITA, Kan.-Charles Koch confirmed that his company, Koch Industries Inc., is looking into the possibility of acquiring newspapers, but he said it would do so only if he believed they could be operated profitably.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Poynter and NetNewsCheck Latest

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Met police officer jailed for selling celebrity tip-offs to the Sun — Paul Flattley made £7,600 from providing information about stars including Kate Middleton and Zara Phillips to the red-top — A former Metropolitan police officer who had access to private information …

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
Rebekah Brooks Pleads Not Guilty to Phone-Hacking, Corruption Charges

Discussion: Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, The Independent, The Huffington Post, BBC, New York Times, Reuters, FishbowlNY, The Daily Beast, Telegraph, thehindubusinessline.com, NPR, @eelarson, Associated Press, Daily Mail and Guardian

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

The CIA Invests in Narrative Science and Its Automated Writers — Narrative Science has already proven that its robot writers can make sentences that are good enough for newspapers and internal company reports. Now they're going to work for the CIA. — The Chicago-based startup …

Discussion: Poynter, VentureBeat, GigaOM, Motherboard, Mashable, Ubergizmo and PolicyMic

Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:

Bloomberg Begins Fund to Invest in Start-Ups — SAN FRANCISCO — In the increasingly clubby world of Silicon Valley, some might say it was almost inevitable that Bloomberg L.P., the parent of Bloomberg News, would start its own venture capital firm to invest in start-ups, including some that its technology reporters write about.

Discussion: Forbes, The Corsair, @edmundlee, Talking Biz News, Poynter, The New York Observer, RT, The Week, peHUB, PandoDaily, AllThingsD, TechCrunch and DealBook

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Bradley Manning Trial Mostly Ignored By TV — Media coverage of the Bradley Manning trial appears to be dropping off considerably, and many outlets were not covering it very extensively to begin with. — Manning is fighting charges that he “aided the enemy” by passing military documents to WikiLeaks.

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog and The Castro Biscuit

David Dishneau and Eric Tucker / Associated Press: Bradley Manning Trial Characterized By Secrecy, Security

Wall Street Journal:

Verizon Wireless Pads NFL Deal — Multiyear, $1 Billion Deal Will Give Customers Access to Local Games on Phones — Verizon Wireless will pay $1 billion for rights to air more NFL games over its customers' smartphones, placing a big bet on changing viewer habits as Americans watch …

Discussion: SportsBusiness Daily, @jbflint, App Advice, Light Reading and Corporate Intelligence

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Baba Shetty out as Newsweek CEO — Newsweek/Daily Beast CEO Baba Shetty is stepping down after just nine months on the job, according to a staff memo from editor-in-chief Tina Brown. — The news comes one week after Brown and Shetty confirmed reports that parent-company IAC was eyeing …

Meg James / Los Angeles Times:

Global spending for media and entertainment to rise steadily — PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that global spending for media and entertainment will reach $2.2 trillion in 2017, compared with $1.6 trillion in 2012. — Digital media ¿ fueled by the expansion in ownership …

Discussion: AdAge, paidContent and Kirk LaPointe's …

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

Reader-funded journalism — This model is vital in sustaining real journalism: it fosters independence, invests readers in the work that is done, and keeps journalists accountable to individuals — Many news outlets around the world, in the age of the internet, have struggled to find …

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Paywalls or No Paywalls, Newspaper Revenue Declines Seen Through 2017 — Total Revenue Expected to Keep Declining Over the Next Four Years — Despite the promise of online paywalls and gains in digital readers, newspapers' total revenue will continue to decline through at least 2017, a new report said.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and eMedia Vitals

Steve Donohue / FierceCable:

Britt: Time Warner Cable talking to Apple, Microsoft, Samsung about streaming video deals — Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) is talking to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Samsung about streaming video deals similar to its pact with Roku, CEO Glenn Britt said Tuesday at an investor conference in London.

Discussion: Cult of Mac, App Advice, MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com and Electronista

Ruma Paul / Reuters:

Bangladesh lifts ban on YouTube, blocked after anti-Islam film — (Reuters) - Bangladesh on Wednesday lifted a ban on video-sharing site YouTube which has been blocked since September after an online anti-Islam movie spawned violent protests across the Muslim world.

Discussion: YouTube News

AFP:

Turkey police detain protesters over ‘libellous’ tweets — Turkey police detained at least 25 people early on Wednesday in the western city of Izmir for tweeting ‘misinformation,’ state-run Anatolia news agency reported, as anti-government protests raged for a sixth day across the country.

Discussion: RT, paidContent, The Atlantic Wire, The Hindu, Motherboard, PressTV, The Independent, International Business Times, Legal news from FindLaw …, Telegraph, Associated Press and Telegraph

Josh Feldman / Mediaite:
Turkish Protestors Take To IndieGoGo, Raise Over $50,000 For Full-Page New York Times Ad

Discussion: Slate, RT, iMediaConnection Blog, Bloomberg, RT, nbcbayarea.com, Forbes, The Huffington Post, VentureBeat and New York Times

Brian Womack / Bloomberg:

Google's YouTube Triples Mobile Sales Amid Wireless Shift — Google Inc.'s YouTube has tripled advertising sales on mobile devices in the past six months, the company said, contributing as much as $350 million to the video-sharing website's revenue. — About a quarter of YouTube's 1 billion global users …

Discussion: paidContent

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Readmill partners with Guardian, Atavist and Livrada and adds a free book section to its app — Berlin-based e-reading startup Readmill has added a free books section to its iOS app, and also announced partnerships with The Atavist, The Guardian and Livrada.