Mediagazer: CBS President On ‘Illegal’ Aereo: 'We Don't Think It's Catching On At All' (Jeff Bercovici/Forbes)

5:55 AM ET, August 1, 2013

Top News:

Will Bunch / Philly.com:

The de-newspaperization of America — It used to be there were local newspapers everywhere. If you wanted to be a journalist, you could really make a good living working for your hometown paper. Now you have a few newspapers that make a profit because they are national brands …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Columbia Journalism Review, Crain's Cleveland Business, Columbia Journalism Review, GalleyCat, @majorcbs, @franklomonte, @adamwagner1990, @johnrobinson, @jmartnyt, @jfdulac, @tom_derrico, @will_bunch, @urvaksh, Facebook, Associated Press, Erik Wemple and Poynter

David Batty / Guardian:

Twitter bomb threats to female journalists — Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman and Independent writer Grace Dent among women threatened — Police are investigating bomb threats made on Twitter against several female journalists, including Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman.

Discussion: @billbarnwell, The Huffington Post, Jezebel, @thestephmerritt, @ladysnarksalot, @saralang, @lauraslattery, @robmanuel, @mickpuck, @mjrobbins, @kevinbakhurst, @lindasgrant, @dawnhfoster, @vivelebeeve, @mwilliamsthomas, @benisdangerous, @leftstandingup and @orwellupgraded

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

CBS President On ‘Illegal’ Aereo: 'We Don't Think It's Catching On At All' — Considering how hard his company has been trying to obtain a legal death warrant for Aereo, CBS president Les Moonves affected a suspiciously nonchalant air when talking about the streaming TV service on Wednesday's earnings call.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Comcast and CBS Post Strong Results, Aided by Web — Judging by the second-quarter earnings reported by two major media companies on Wednesday, the good times are still rolling in the television business. — Comcast reported that its earnings rose to $1.7 billion from $1.35 billion …

Reuters:

CBS Earnings Beat Expectations, Sumner Redstone Endorses Les Moonves — CBS Corp. reported a greater-than-expected 14 percent rise in quarterly earnings on Tuesday, helped by healthier results from its television business, and boosted its dividend. — The first-quarter report sent CBS shares …

Discussion: Radio & Television …, CBS Corporation, AdAge, Los Angeles Times, @jboorstin, @dana_mcclintock, @megjameslat, @dana_mcclintock, @jlafayette, @jboorstin, Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.com

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’ — • XKeyscore gives ‘widest-reaching’ collection of online data — • NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches — • Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Did the media drop the ball on the Bradley Manning trial? — “The corporate media coverage of this trial, which is arguably one of the most important cases in modern American history, has been utterly shameful,” Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill said on “Democracy Now!”

Discussion: @sulliview, @piratenpartij, @abeaujon, Foreign Policy, @niemanlab, Mediaite, Variety, Democracy Now, Committee to Protect … and @lukewearechange

David Carr / New York Times:
Whistle-Blowers in Limbo, Neither Hero Nor Traitor

Discussion: Guardian, CNN and AAP

Brian Fung / The Switch:
Senators lash out at NSA for excessive secrecy

Discussion: Mashable, Hit & Run and BBC

Christopher Mims / Quartz:

Google is testing a local news product for Google Now — Google has hatched a plan to boost the visibility of its existing local news product, and in the process is testing a whole new way to get people to pay attention to the news that is geographically most relevant to them.

Discussion: TechnoBuffalo, GigaOM, The Verge, @vincos, Search Engine Land, SlashGear, Engadget, @tscurrie, @jason, TechCrunch, @laureni, @digiphile, Pocket-lint, Yahoo! News, @mathewi and @niemanlab

Christopher Flavelle / Bloomberg:

If Politics Is So Easy, Why Can't Journalists Do It? — Chrystia Freeland, a columnist and senior editor at Thomson Reuters, said last week that she's quitting her job to run for political office in Canada, where she was born. Freeland is an accomplished journalist and the author of a book …

Discussion: @edmundlee, @scroll, @scottbix, @bloombergview and @adwooldridge

Ryan Singel / Wired:

Now That It's in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality — In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don't give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections …

Discussion: GigaOM, BGR, Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Free Press, Electronista, @ericmann, DSLreports, Gizmodo, @benedictevans, Forbes, @benwoz, @clmazin, @shipilev, Mashable, The Verge and Boing Boing

Sara Morrison / The Wrap:

Fox News Sues TVEyes for Copyright Infringement — Says subscription service sells access to its content without permission nor compensation — Fox News Channel sued TVEyes, a $500-per-month TV and radio broadcast search service, for copyright infringement on Tuesday.

Discussion: Courthouse News Service, @mattcover and @buzzfeedandrew

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Making TVs smart: why most smart TVs still feel pretty dumb — Making TVs smart is a three-part series that looks at why smart TVs have failed to take off — and what needs to happen for these devices to realize their vast potential. Look for parts two and three on Thursday and Friday.

Discussion: @codeandtheory

Linda Kinstler / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Dis bonjour à LesEchos360, a French Techmeme for biz news — A news site in 2013 can't be flat. That's why French business daily Les Echos is gearing up to release LesEchos360, an aggregation tool that will cull articles from around the web to provide readers with an “expert filter” of business news.

Andy Meek / BuzzFeed:

Amazon, Overstock Race To Bottom In Book Price War — The two e-commerce retailers are aggressively trying to undercut each others' book prices, which is great for consumers but not so much for authors. — Screenshot of Amazon page for Sheryl Sandberg's book “Lean In.” Via: amazon.com

Discussion: GigaOM

Mia Shanley / Reuters:

Music streamer Spotify doubles 2012 revenues after expansion — (Reuters) - Music streaming web service Spotify more than doubled revenues in 2012 to 435 million euros ($577 million) as it expanded to new markets and almost doubled its users, documents showed on Wednesday.

Discussion: VentureBeat, TechCrunch and hypebot