Mediagazer: Amol Rajan is made editor of The Independent as Chris Blackhurst becomes group content director (William Turvill/Press Gazette)

7:35 AM ET, June 17, 2013

Top News:

Big News Forges Its Own Path — During a visit to Toronto last week, I noticed the entire city was pivoting around a story by Gawker, a site that has a broad range of interests, but at its core is dedicated to detailing the running silliness of life in Manhattan.

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @antderosa, Guardian, Washington's Blog, Electronic Frontier Foundation, ZDNet and Mashable

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of Hearst Magazines' one million new customers — Take this quiz. The era of paying for digital access (a.k.a. digital circulation or paywalls) is about: — Getting more money out of core subscribers; — Getting new money out of new subscribers; or — Getting money any way you can.

Discussion: @macloo

Sky News:

No Agreement Over Julian Assange's Future — The British and Ecuadorian governments have failed to reach an agreement over the future of Julian Assange after talks in London. — Ecuador's foreign minister Ricardo Patino had travelled to Britain to discuss what to do about the Wikileaks founder …

Discussion: RT, ABC News, Agence France Presse, The Independent, The Register, Reuters, Daily Mail, BBC, HeraldSun, National Updates, BelfastTelegraph.co.uk and Channel NewsAsia

Mark Harris / PopWatch:

Arrested Development and the case against binge-watching — The best TV is as addictive as a tub of ice cream, but as Jenny Craig and the new Arrested Development episodes remind us, moderation is wise. — How strange that it already feels too late to talk about the return of Arrested Development.

William Turvill / Press Gazette:

Amol Rajan is made editor of The Independent as Chris Blackhurst becomes group content director — Owner of The Independent Evgeny Lebedev has revealed new editors for both The Independent and i. — Former Independent Voices editor Amol Rajan will take charge of The Independent …

Discussion: The Independent, Guardian, New Statesman and Huffington Post

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Netflix Links Up With DreamWorks Again for More Kids Shows — More kids stuff for Netflix, this time via another DreamWorks Animation deal. — The Web video service will have exclusive, worldwide, first-run rights to a new batch of original programming from the studio …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Variety, Reuters and The Next Web

Michelle Salemi / Variety:

Can Local News Take On Watchdog Role? — Some observers think the Web is better-placed to report on civic issue — Can local TV news really fill the watchdog role in the 21st century that local newspapers did in the 20th? — CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer advanced the theory …

Adrian Chen / Gawker:

The Journalist's Guide To Not Getting Charged With Espionage — Journalists nationwide were miffed on Wednesday after New York Congressman and Super Mario Bros. Mini-boss Peter King explicitly called on the Department of Justice to go after Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald …

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Will Launch A News Reader At June 20th Press Event — The upcoming death of Google Reader and the addition of hashtags signal Facebook will likely launch a new way to discover and read news at the June 20th press event it's just sent out mysterious invites to.

Discussion: GigaOM, Monday Note, Softpedia News, Business Insider, GeekWire, SlashGear, CNET, AllFacebook, Engadget, ABCNEWS and The Verge

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Media, administration deal with conflicts — It's all but a journalistic commandment: Thou shalt not have a vested interest in the story you're covering. Otherwise, a personal entanglement could color a reporter's neutrality or cloud public perceptions of fairness.

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Politics: some / Politics: none. Two ways to excel in political journalism. Neither dominates. — “Edward Snowden's decision to leak to Greenwald, and Glenn's domination of newsland for several days, tells us that politics: none is not the only way of excelling in journalism.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, @jayrosen_nyu, The Huffington Post, Guardian, Kirk LaPointe's … and Pressing Issues

Jon Evans / TechCrunch:

Can BuzzFeed Be Stopped? — It's been a good week for old media. The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal have all done a superb job of reporting on the NSA/PRISM revelations. Unfortunately it has also been a terrible decade for them.

Discussion: @peretti