Mediagazer: 'Aaron's Law' Proponents Talk About Restraining Prosecutorial Abuse (Scott Shackford/Hit & Run)

7:30 AM ET, June 21, 2013

Top News:

FBI says journalist Michael Hastings was not under investigation — LAPD also says no foul play appears to have been involved in the one-vehicle crash that killed Hastings. The reporter was known for an article leading to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter

Joe Coscarelli / New York Magazine:
Michael Hastings, the FBI, and WikiLeaks: Death of Journalist Sparks Conspiracy Theories

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Mediaite, The Informer, Gawker, The Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, LAist, Fox News, Daily Mail, The Rancid Honeytrap, The Wrap, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post and New York Magazine

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Columbia's Sreenivasan Bolts for New Digital Job at New York's Metropolitan Museum — Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Sree Sreenivasan, a longtime presence at Columbia University — first at its Graduate School of Journalism, and then more recently as its first chief digital officer …

Discussion: Capital New York, Columbia University … and @atompkins

Mark Glaser / Mediashift: Columbia J-School Looks to Shed ‘Old School’ Image with Curriculum Revamp

Sara Morrison / The Wrap:

Wired's Danger Room Blog Is in Danger — The heavily-trafficked national security blog's core writers have moved on and Wired is still looking into its options — Is Wired.com's Danger Room blog done? It sure looks like it. — All four of the national security blog's core contributors …

Christopher Mims / Quartz:

It's no accident Facebook made Instagram's new videos exactly as long as a television commercial — Facebook is going to get us all watching television ads again. — Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook acquired last year, just added the ability to share videos, as well.

Discussion: Slate

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Journalists in exile 2013 — Somalis, Syrians flee violence; Iran crackdown deepens — Fifty-five journalists fled their homes in the past year with help from the Committee to Protect Journalists. The most common reason to go into exile was the threat of violence, such as in Somalia and Syria …

Discussion: Voice of America

Andrew Kirell / Mediaite:

Howard Kurtz Joining Fox News To Anchor New Version Of Fox News Watch — Mediaite has learned that Fox News is expected to announce today that Howard Kurtz will join the network. — Kurtz is currently the anchor of CNN's Sunday morning media criticism show Reliable Sources.

Tom Wright / India Real Time:

India Media Buries Paid News Report … A major new report on the phenomenon of paid news in India's media is, well, hardly making big news. — The report, submitted to Parliament last month by the Standing Committee on Information Technology, is pretty racy stuff.

Discussion: WAN-IFRA

Scott Shackford / Hit & Run:

'Aaron's Law' Proponents Talk About Restraining Prosecutorial Abuse — After open access activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide while facing federal prosecution for downloading academic journals from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Rep. Zoe Lofgren began crafting “Aaron's Law.”

Discussion: Wired, Slate, The Huffington Post, Hillicon Valley, Techdirt and Mashable

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

WomenEdsWeLove creator: Female editors ‘are not invisible’ & 'they're not that hard to find' — Port Magazine's recent cover, featuring all male magazine editors, prompted journalists to ask an obvious question: Where are all the female editors? — Wanting to show there are plenty of them …

Amanda Hess / Slate: Here's Why Women's Magazines Don't Produce “Serious” Journalism

Erica Ogg / GigaOM:

iTunes users spend a lot on apps and music, not so much on ebooks (chart) — On Wednesday morning Apple revealed the latest stats on iTunes video: users have downloaded 1 billion TV episodes and 380 million movies total, at the rate of 800,000 TV episodes and over 350,000 movies per day.

Discussion: Billboard, AllThingsD and AppleInsider

Marissa Mayer / Yahoo!:

Tumblr. + Yahoo! — It's Officially Official. — We're excited to announce that our deal to acquire Tumblr has closed... it's official! — As promised, Tumblr will continue to operate as a separate business, led by David Karp as CEO. Their product roadmap, their team …

Discussion: Guardian, NetNewsCheck Latest, VentureBeat, Guardian, The Next Web, Business Insider, Engadget, Softpedia News, Mashable, The Verge and ReadWrite

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Closes Its Purchase Of Tumblr For $1.1B, Reconfirms Karp At The Helm Of Social Site

Discussion: Yahoo, AdAge, AdExchanger, NYT Bits, CNET, Business Insider and mUmBRELLA

Devanshi Garg / Mediashift:

Warning: Your Hasty Move to Responsive Design Could Backfire — Want to stay current on media and technology from around the web? Get MediaShift's Daily Must Reads in your in-box! — A recent study by Nielsen found that in the U.S., 61 percent of mobile phone users own smartphones.

Thanks:@mediatwit

New York Times:

Warner Brothers Studio Chief Said to Be Weighing Exit — LOS ANGELES — The president of the Warner Brothers Pictures Group, Jeff Robinov, was in still-unresolved discussions late Thursday to leave the studio, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Deadline.com, Variety, @elmayimbe, @davidpoland and Deadline.com

Chad Bray / Wall Street Journal:

Apple Makes Closing Arguments in E-Book Trial — Apple Inc. acted independently, for its own legitimate business purposes, when it entered into agreements with five major U.S. publishers to sell electronic books shortly ahead of the introduction of its iPad tablet in 2010 …

Discussion: Associated Press and Digits