Mediagazer: TIM ARMSTRONG: I Made An Emotional Mistake Firing That Guy (Steve Kovach/Business Insider)

7:40 PM ET, August 13, 2013

Top News:

How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets — This past January, Laura Poitras received a curious e-mail from an anonymous stranger requesting her public encryption key. For almost two years, Poitras had been working on a documentary about surveillance, and she occasionally received queries from strangers.

Peter Maass / New York Times:

Q. & A.: Edward Snowden Speaks to Peter Maass — In the course of reporting his profile of Laura Poitras, Peter Maass conducted an encrypted question-and-answer session, for which Poitras served as intermediary, with Edward J. Snowden. Below is a full transcript of that conversation.

Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

TIM ARMSTRONG: I Made An Emotional Mistake Firing That Guy — AOL CEO Tim Armstrong just sent out the following memo to AOL staff, which we've obtained from a source inside the company. — The memo is in reference to Armstrong's firing of Patch creative director Abel Lenz on an all-hands conference call last week.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Valleywag, Poynter, JIMROMENESKO.COM, CNET, New York Times, CNNMoney.com, Mashable, @ezraklein, @morningmoneyben, @pkafka, @charlesjb12 and The FJP

Jim Romenesko:

Patch ad sales down since it was announced that layoffs and site closings are coming — “Over the last 5 sales days, we have amassed our worst results of the year,” Patch director of U.S. sales Jim Lipuma tells his ad-sales force in a memo he put out today.

Discussion: Capital New York, Business Insider, Valleywag, @romenesko and @jyarow

Gavriel Hollander / Press Gazette:

First post-paywall figures reveal slump in Sun website market share — The Sun's website lost more than a third of its market share of internet visitors in the first ten days following its move behind a paywall, new research suggests. — In the first indication of reader behaviour since …

Discussion: @domponsford

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:

Journalism Has Entered A Golden Age — CNN host Brian Stelter was kind enough to have me on his show, “Reliable Sources,” over the weekend. In response to one question, I said that journalism has entered a “golden age.” — Judging from the Twitter reaction, many of Brian's viewers agreed.

Discussion: @mmasnick

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Bleacher Report Co-Founder Bryan Goldberg Raises $6.5 Million To Launch A Site For Women, Bustle — Bryan Goldberg co-founded Bleacher Report, a sports media company that was acquired by Turner Media last year for more than $200 million. He's finally ready to announce his new venture, Bustle.

Discussion: PandoDaily, Business Insider, @mslopatto, @thestalwart, FishbowlNY, @jamilsmith, @antderosa, @lock, Pulse 2.0 and @bgoldberg

Brian Morrissey / Digiday:

For Media Now, ‘Talent Trumps All’ — NBC News yesterday announced it acquired Stringwire. The purchase added a user-generated streaming video platform but also buffed up the media organization's tech ranks with Stringwire founder Phil Grossman, who will join NBC News as a product lead out of its San Francisco office.

Discussion: @digiday and @vouchey

Dseyler / Radio & Television Business Report:

California senators call for end to CBS-TWC sparring — Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) believe that subscribers are the big losers in the ongoing retransmission consent impasse between CBS and Time Warner Cable and have called for an end to the hostilities.

Discussion: Forbes, Variety, Home Media Magazine, IVCPOST, voices.mydesert.com, TVSpy and USA Today

Jay Barmann / SFist:

S.F. Chronicle Finally Abandons Paywall? — It appears that the Chronicle's exclusive content, which has been locked behind that dreaded subscriber paywall since they launched it in late March, has magically appeared today again for free on SFGate, without much fanfare.

Discussion: SF Appeal, The Snitch, @musicsf and @caseynewton

Brian Ries / The Daily Beast:

Syrian Electronic Army Strikes Again, Hits SocialFlow, New York Post — You might want to change your Twitter password. On Tuesday, the Syrian Electronic Army hacked Twitter accounts belonging to SocialFlow and The New York Post, writes Brian Ries. — It seems no one's safe from the Syrian Electronic Army.

Discussion: @haroonmeer and @saramorrison

Tom Ramstack / Reuters:

U.S. WikiLeaks judge overrules objections on classified testimony — (Reuters) - The judge hearing the court-martial of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier convicted of giving classified documents to WikiLeaks, on Tuesday overruled defense attorneys' objections over classified testimony against their client.