Mediagazer: Looking Deeper into MPAA's Copyright Agenda (Mitch Stoltz/Electronic Frontier …)

3:30 AM ET, June 19, 2013

Top News:

Tim Dickinson / Rolling Stone:

Michael Hastings, ‘Rolling Stone’ Contributor, Dead at 33 — The bold journalist died in a car accident in Los Angeles — Michael Hastings, the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, Rolling Stone has learned.

BuzzFeed:

Statement On Michael Hastings — BuzzFeed is saddened to report that Michael Hastings died in a car accident early this morning in Los Angeles. He was 33. — Ben Smith, BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief, said in a statement: — We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone.

Eric W. Dolan / The Raw Story:

Journalist Michael Hastings dies in car crash — The journalist and author Michael Hastings died at the age of 33 on Tuesday morning. According to his employer BuzzFeed, Hastings was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles. — “We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone …

Discussion: Slate, WorldViews, Business Insider, Daily Mail, @nbj914, @jeremyscahill, @lyramckee, @feldmaniac, @katz, BuzzFeed, @stefanjbecket, @circa, @scottleadingham and @nikhilgoya_l

Craig Timberg / Washington Post:

Google challenges U.S. gag order, citing First Amendment — Google is preparing to ask the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government.

Discussion: Forbes, Reuters, The Verge, VentureBeat, The Next Web, AllThingsD, Guardian, Mercury News, The Daily Beast, Hillicon Valley, @rajunarisetti, Quartz, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Salon, @eff, ReadWrite, Engadget, RT, Wired, TechCrunch, CNNMoney.com, @samgustin, Mashable, Techdirt, GigaOM, CNET, Digits, The Daily Caller, @trevortimm and ZDNet

Salvador Rodriguez / Los Angeles Times:
Yahoo discloses how much government data requests it gets

Discussion: Business Insider, Valleywag, Engadget, Christian Science Monitor, TechRadar.com, Bloomberg, The Register, The Independent, ZDNet, TIME, CNNMoney.com, BBC, Reuters and Guardian

Isaac Chotiner / New Republic:

“What Part of ‘Politico’ Do You Not Understand?” — A conversation about the dark art of driving the conversation — The dominant mode of Washington journalism tends to both reflect and entrench the values of its era. The eminent writers and editors of the immediate postwar age …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Poynter, Gawker, The Huffington Post, Politico, @bcappelbaum, Mediaite, FishbowlDC and @jayrosen_nyu

Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:
Nate Silver: Politico Co-Founders Lack ‘Curiosity For The World Outside Of The Bubble’

Discussion: @evgenymorozov and The Huffington Post

Janko Roettgers / paidContent:

Yet another YouTube funding: Bedrocket invests in Shira Lazar's What's Trending — Thought there was no money in producing original content for YouTube's audience? The folks at Bedrocket Entertainment beg to differ — and just invested in What's Trending.

Discussion: The Next Web, Variety and Guardian

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

More on the Plane That Didn't Crash, and ‘Truthiness’ — A few weeks ago, I wrote about the plane that didn't crash - that is, about a Lives piece in The Times Magazine that has drawn significant criticism from aviation experts including Patrick ("Ask the Pilot") Smith and from James Fallows …

Sam Biddle / Valleywag:

Tumblr's Media Director Quits — Tumblr brought Mark Coatney aboard from Newsweek to bolster the site's editorial side—"to show how [Tumblr] can be key to connecting journalists and readers." Three years (and a Yahoo acquisition) later, and another early employee is gone. That's two in only a few weeks.

Discussion: Still Not Going To Do …, CNET, Business Insider and Betabeat

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

AOL's Patch Limps Toward Profitability — After more than five years of reporting on school-board meetings and community bake sales, AOL Inc. (AOL)'s Patch is now at the center of another story: whether the company's bet on local news can be profitable. — Patch, with more than 900 sites …

Discussion: Street Fight

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Photographer sues BuzzFeed for $3.6M over viral sharing model — A photographer says BuzzFeed should pay copyright damages not only for an unauthorized photo that appeared on its site — but for the dozens of other sites on which the photo appeared. — An Idaho photographer, Kai Eiselein …

Discussion: Poynter, The Awl, WebProNews, Guardian and FishbowlNY

Mitch Stoltz / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Looking Deeper into MPAA's Copyright Agenda — It's time to rethink copyright law, say the U.S. Register of Copyrights and the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Hearings, speeches, and lots of quiet maneuvering have begun to shape “the next great copyright act.”

Brett Logiurato / Business Insider:

Fox Business Terminates Contract With Contributor Who Was Paid $50,000 To Boost A Stock — Fox Business Network has terminated the contract of contributor Tobin Smith, who was paid $50,000 to tout the stock of Petrosonic Energy, a network spokesperson told Business Insider.

Discussion: MarketWatch and TVNewser

Edward Wyatt / New York Times:

F.C.C. Nominee Favors Competition Over Regulation — WASHINGTON — President Obama's nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission told a Senate committee on Tuesday that his top priorities, if he is confirmed, would be consumer protection, increasing competition …

Discussion: Hillicon Valley, Radio & Television …, Mashable and @jbflint

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch splits empire but keeps faith in tomorrow's newspapers — Mogul to hive off entertainment and publishing assets but believes newspaper businesses will emerge stronger than ever — Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation will be split in half on Wednesday as the mogul hopes to build …

Discussion: Guardian and Big News Network.com