Mediagazer: Inside Digg's Race to Build the New Google Reader (Mat Honan/Wired)

2:55 AM ET, June 23, 2013

Top News:

U.S. charges Snowden with espionage — Federal prosecutors have filed a sealed criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of documents about top-secret surveillance programs, and the United States has asked Hong Kong to detain …

Jake Miller / CBS News:

White House: “We expect” Hong Kong to comply with Snowden extradition — White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told CBS News Saturday that the U.S. government has asked Hong Kong authorities to extradite Edward Snowden, the man behind the recent leaks of classified government surveillance programs …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Reuters, The Next Web, The Verge, CNET, New York Times and AllThingsD

Philip Bump / The Atlantic Wire:
Army: Freedom of Information Does Not Include Edward Snowden's Military File

Discussion: BBC

David Goetzl / mediapost.com:
NSA Snooping Could Impact Media Research

Discussion: Guardian, Reuters and CNET

Noreen Malone / New Republic:
Sources of Discomfort — National security reporting in the age of leak hunts

Discussion: Poynter

Meenal Vamburkar / Mediaite:
The Guardian Responds To Sen. McCaskill's Charge Of Promoting ‘Agenda’ Through NSA Reporting

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Politico

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Respond to this: The Boston Globe wants to offer iPhone users a native app and a cheap price — In the debate over native apps versus mobile websites, The Boston Globe is officially hedging its bets. And in the how-much-to-charge paywall debate, it's going surprisingly low.

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Makes Google News In Germany Opt-In Only To Avoid Paying Fees Under New Copyright Law — Google News in Germany will soon change. Starting August 1, it will only index sources that have decided to explicitly opt-in to being shown on the search giant's news-aggregation service.

Discussion: Forbes, Marketing Land, Softpedia News, Engadget, The Verge and The Next Web

Wall Street Journal:

Data Group Ends Peeks After Leaks — WASHINGTON—A private-sector group that produces a leading consumer-confidence survey is suspending its practice of giving media organizations an early preview because it fears the information may be leaking to traders before the public.

Discussion: Business Insider

Peter Osnos / The Atlantic Online:

An Egyptian Journalist's Nightmare — The ordeal of Yehia Ghanem, who was convicted in Egypt's notorious NGO trial. — In a long and distinguished career in Egyptian journalism, Yehia Ghanem has been a foreign correspondent and an editor for Al-Ahram, the country's most respected newspaper.

Mat Honan / Wired:

Inside Digg's Race to Build the New Google Reader — Andrew McLaughlin is, like, California-enthusiastic. Like, we're-totally-going-to-do-this- guys enthusiastic. The 43 year-old CEO of the recently re-imagined Digg is a believer in the way the Internet can make the world better.

Discussion: AllThingsD

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Disappointing Fall for ‘Rock Center,’ a News Program With Big Ambitions — If “Rock Center With Brian Williams” has proved anything in the last year and a half, it is this: However hard it is to gather an audience for any kind of show in prime time, for news programming, the task is even harder.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and TVNewser

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Cord cutters alert: 60 million Americans now use an antenna to watch free TV — Antennas aren't just for grandma's boob tube anymore: 19.3 percent of all US TV households get their TV fix from free over-the-air broadcasts, according to a new GfK study released this week.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times

Marianne Brown / Voice of America:

Vietnam Urged to Release Bloggers on Journalism Day — HANOI — While journalists working for Vietnam's state-run media are receiving gifts for Revolutionary Journalism Day, bloggers and Internet activists are not so lucky. The Vietnamese government seems eager to celebrate the role …

Christie Smythe / Bloomberg:

Gawker's Unpaid Interns Sue After Fox Searchlight Ruling — Gawker Media LLC was sued by unpaid interns who allege the online publisher violated minimum-wage law, 10 days after a federal judge ruled in a similar case that interns at Fox Searchlight Pictures Inc. should have been paid.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, New York Post, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, TeleRead, The Wrap, @internjustice, Business Insider, @edmundlee, @robynurback, BU Today and @sarahw

Floyd Norris / New York Times:

Tribune Falls Afoul of Its Own Tax Strategy — It was perhaps the cleverest corporate tax strategy ever devised: no matter how much money the company made, neither it nor its shareholders would ever owe a penny in federal income taxes. — “In conception, it was brilliant,” said Robert Willens …