Mediagazer: Publishers launch sponsored content factories, but ethics are unclear (Kira Witkin/WAN-IFRA)

7:40 AM ET, August 15, 2013

Top News:

Dan Gillmor / Guardian:

What we can all learn from the New York Times website outage — The more we rely on digital information, the more vulnerable we are. Everyone needs a Plan B, independent of third-party hosts — Several hours after the New York Times website and mobile app went offline on Wednesday morning …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, USA Today, NPR, New York Times, @mattseaton, @dangillmor, Bloomberg and The Hairpin

Seth Fiegerman / Mashable:

‘New York Times’ Publishes Articles on Facebook During Site Outage — The New York Times' website and iOS apps went down for more than two hours Wednesday due to an internal issue, but that didn't stop the paper of record from publishing breaking news. — At first, the Times took page …

Discussion: The Next Web

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:

Time Warner Cable Slapped With Class Action Suit Over CBS Blackout — Three Southern California residents demand restitution over retransmission standoff — The stakes in the standoff between CBS and Time Warner Cable have just been upped once again — and this time it's angry viewers who are doing the upping.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline.com and Broadcasting & Cable

Elizabeth Spiers / Flavorwire:

How Not to Launch a Site for Women: An Open Letter to Bustle.com Founder, Bryan Goldberg — Yesterday BleacherReport.com founder Bryan Goldberg announced that he had received $6.5 million in funding for a new women's site called Bustle.com from a variety of investors including Social+Capital Partnership …

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

CNN Plans ‘Complete Overhaul’ Of Digital Operation For Fall — CNN is planning its most significant changes to CNN.com and the CNN digital platforms in more than a decade for the Fall. The channel is preparing to launch a redesigned site that not only looks different to users …

Discussion: Mashable, Variety, eMedia Vitals, Lost Remote, Adweek, NewscastStudio and AdAge

Sara Morrison / The Wrap:

Grim Day for Journalists: 3 Killed in Egypt, 1 Missing in Syria 365 Days Now — Three journalists were killed in Egypt on Wednesday as violence between ousted president Mohamed Morsi's supporters and police and military escalated. The deaths marked two grim milestones in journalistic freedom …

Discussion: Associated Press, New York Times, RT and TVNewser

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
Committee To Protect Journalists Marks Grim Milestone Of 1,000 Killed

Discussion: Gulf News, Committee to Protect …, National Updates and Telegraph

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

Full Fact launches online fact-finding tool — Journalists can use the platform - which is called Full Fact Finder - to find out where to locate accurate facts and figures on a range of subjects The UK-based fact-checking website Full Fact has launched an online finder which journalists can use to track down accurate information.

Joan E. Solsman / CNET:

Aereo CEO: Service will turn a profit before turning in 1M subscribers — The upstart online TV service will have a “fabulous” business at 1 million users and an “extremely fabulous” one at 5 million, but registrations need only be in the hundreds of thousands for it to be profitable, its CEO says.

Discussion: The Verge

Kristin Bergman / Digital Media Law Project:

After On-Air Mishaps, Embarrassed Newscasters Turn to Copyright Law — Whether we consider the purpose of copyright to be to protect economic rights or moral rights, copyright is a powerful yet dangerous instrument. Abuse of copyright, particularly using the Digital Millennium Copyright …

Wenqian Zhu / CNNMoney.com:

Journalist jobs are picking up — Jobs for journalists are on the upswing. — That's good news for an industry in upheaval. Just this month, there's been a flurry of deals involving struggling marquee American publications. Amazon ( AMZN, Fortune 500) founder and CEO Jeff Bezos bought …

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:

AMC is succeeding by breaking the rules of legacy television — It's good to be AMC Networks right now. — The season premiere of AMC's Breaking Bad drew 5.9 million viewers in the United States on Sunday night, double the figure for its premiere a year ago.

Kira Witkin / WAN-IFRA:

Publishers launch sponsored content factories, but ethics are unclear — A number of news organizations, including The Huffington Post and Wired, have recently launched in-house creative agencies to amp up lucrative sponsored content offerings. But the ethics in this new territory are unclear …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, @liquidstateteam and Kirk LaPointe's …

Eric Celeste / FrontBurner:

Dallas Morning News Will Get Rid of Its Paywall and Debut New Premium Site in September — I asked some head honchos today about what newsroom sources have been telling me for weeks: that the DMN is switching to a “premium” site for subscribers and will do away with its paywall in September.

Discussion: GigaOM and @mathewi