Mediagazer: Inventing ‘Sharknado’: Inside Syfy's Booming B-Movie Factory (Claire Suddath/Businessweek)

11:30 AM ET, July 14, 2013

Top News:

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

Inside look at the internal strife over Al Jazeera America — As the new US network is finally set to launch, serious concerns arise about its brand and intent: especially from within the organization — When Al Jazeera last December purchased Current TV in order to launch its own …

emptywheel:

In Bid to Placate Legacy Media, DOJ Moves Closer to Instituting Official Press — The First Amendment was written, in part, to eliminate the kind of official press that parrots only the King's sanctioned views. But with its revised “News Media Policies,” DOJ gets us closer to having just that, an official press.

Discussion: @jeffjarvis, Boing Boing and @dangillmor

Evan Perez / Wall Street Journal:
Justice Department Tightens Rules on Media-Leak Probes

Discussion: New York Times, rcfp.org, The Huffington Post, Washington Post, Politico, @dylanbyers, @digiphile, RT, Los Angeles Times and USA Today

Claire Suddath / Businessweek:

Inventing ‘Sharknado’: Inside Syfy's Booming B-Movie Factory — Last night, on the Syfy channel's made-for-TV movie Sharknado, Ian Ziering killed an airborne shark with a chain saw. Erik Estrada microwaved a tiny chupacabra in last year's Chupacabra vs. the Alamo.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Wonkblog, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Noah Brier dot Com, io9, The TV Guy, io9 and The Atlantic Wire

Simon Rogers / Twitter Blog:
When a #Sharknado attacks! How the phenomenon happened on Twitter

Discussion: Fast Company, The Atlantic Wire, @digiphile, @thefix, Mashable and Los Angeles Times

Abraham Moussako / Columbia Journalism Review:

Who will bear witness? — Photojournalists share their experiences of covering the Iraq War — Wednesday night at the Brooklyn Brewery, Steve Hindy, former war correspondent for the Associated Press and founder of the microbrewery, looked back at the Iraq War and discussed the state …

Matthew Garrahan / FT Magazine:

Google invests in YouTube studio in LA — High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http …

Discussion: Businessweek and Deadline.com

Niki Kitsantonis / New York Times:

Greece Resumes Official State TV Programming — ATHENS — Exactly a month after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras of Greece closed the state television network ERT in a cost-cutting move that almost brought down his fragile coalition government, a bare-bones version of the service was back on the air on Thursday.

Discussion: CNN, euronews, DW.DE, WorldScreen.com and FRANCE 24

Dean Starkman / Columbia Journalism Review:

A chat with Lionel Barber — The editor of the Financial Times on what it means to be “digital first” and other topics … Dean Starkman: The FT came up with a strategy called “digital first,” which in the U.S. actually has more than one meaning. In some circles, it's associated with free content …

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

KTVU-TV apologizes after incorrectly naming Asiana pilots, NTSB admits to wrongdoing — KTVU-TV in San Francisco issued an apology after incorrectly naming the pilots of Asiana Flight 214. Anchor Tori Campbell listed the offensive names, which you can see listed in this video:

Discussion: NTSB, Gannett Blog, New York Magazine, Gawker, Mashable, CNN, The Desk, USA Today, Politico, Los Angeles Times and Deadline.com

Nathan Olivarez-Giles / The Verge:

Hulu isn't being sold, but Time Warner Cable might still nab a stake — While Hulu's owners — 21st Century Fox, NBCUniversal, and The Walt Disney Company — said Friday that they won't be selling the streaming video service after months of talks with suitors, they're reportedly …

Discussion: Variety, Hollywood Reporter and Bloomberg

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Hulu's New Plan: Compete With Netflix and Amazon. How Is Hulu Going to Pay for That?

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, PandoDaily, The Wrap, Softpedia News, jessica lessin, BuzzFeed, @jessicalessin, @seidman, The Atlantic Wire, Variety and PhoneArena

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Archie Comics makes digital comics available for free through new ad model — Archie Comics is becoming the first comic book publisher to make digital versions of its comics available for free through a new monetization model. The deal with mobile ad firm Tapjoy will allow comic book makers …

Robert Mackey / The Lede:

Parents Mourn Photographer Killed in Cairo — The parents of Ahmed Assem, a 26-year-old photographer for a Muslim Brotherhood newspaper who was killed on Monday in Cairo shortly after recording video of an army sniper, described their grief in an emotional interview broadcast by CNN on Friday.

Jim Romenesko:

Barry ('King of the A-heds') Newman retires from Wall Street Journal — Newman has written over 500 A-heds in his 43 years at the paper. (The page one Journal feature is called an A-hed.) His first ran on Dec. 3, 1970, and his most recent — a piece on apostrophes — was published in the print edition on May 16.

Discussion: @davidfolkenflik