Mediagazer: Robert Feder partners with Tribune (Robert Channick/Chicago Tribune)

9:25 AM ET, August 16, 2013

Top News:

Barton Gellman / Washington Post:

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds — The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Carol D. Leonnig / Washington Post:

Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited — The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government's vast spying programs said that its ability do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.

Discussion: Techdirt, Electronic Frontier Foundation, @csoghoian, @ramez, @randyebarnett, The Verge, @micahflee, @washingtonpost, @privacyint, The Switch, @inego_, @digiphile, Gawker and @jayrosen_nyu

Mollie Reilly / The Huffington Post:

How The Washington Post Slapped Back The White House — The Washington Post gave a peek on Thursday night into the ways in which it brushed back the White House during contentious negotiations over its bombshell story about the National Security Agency's repeated privacy violations.

Discussion: Techdirt, emptywheel and Hit & Run

Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune:

Robert Feder partners with Tribune — Longtime Chicago media columnist Robert Feder is launching a standalone media blog next month through a partnership with the Chicago Tribune. — The editorially independent Web site, RobertFeder.com, will be owned by Feder, but licensed and marketed …

Discussion: @robertfeder, @robertfeder, @markedwards, @lynnemarek, @romenesko, @martindave and @mathewi

Gavriel Hollander / Press Gazette:

Nick Davies joins Paul Lewis in Guardian's US team as paper bolsters stateside reporting corps — Investigative reporter Nick Davies is set to move to Los Angeles to join The Guardian's burgeoning US team. — Davies, the author of Flat Earth News, shot to prominence with his revelations …

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Edward Snowden To HuffPost: Media Being Misled — NEW YORK — National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden wants to set the record straight after individuals associated with his father have, in his words, “misled” journalists into “printing false claims about my situation.”

Discussion: CNN, New York Magazine and Techdirt

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:
Snowden downloaded NSA secrets while working for Dell, sources say

Discussion: ZDNet and Hillicon Valley

Jack Shafer:

News never made money, and is unlikely to — Sometime in the mid-1990s, the Web began to peel from the daily American newspaper bundle its most commercial elements, essentially the editorial sections against which advertisements could be reliably sold. Coverage of sports, business and market news …

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Sony and Viacom Reach Tentative Internet TV Deal — Viacom has tentatively agreed to let its popular cable channels — like Nickelodeon and MTV — be carried by an Internet TV service in the works at Sony, a deal that could signal the start of a new era of competition for entrenched cable and satellite providers.

Discussion: Forbes, GamesIndustry International, ZDNet, C21Media, @claytonmorris, The Huffington Post, CNET, 24/7 Wall St., Variety, The Verge and @brianstelter

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Viacom-Sony TV Is a Big Deal. It's Also the Same Deal We Already Have.

Discussion: @jbflint, @pkafka, Engadget, @shaliniwsj, @tomgara, AllThingsD and GigaOM

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:
Fox Sports 1 will launch with DirecTV, Dish and Time Warner Cable

Discussion: Variety, Variety, PhoneArena, Engadget, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Reuters, Reuters, BWW TV Stories, Sporting News Bob …, Fox Sports and @auerheat

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

BBC payoffs will not be investigated by Metropolitan police — Conservative MP Rob Wilson had called for an inquiry into six-figure severance payments to former corporation executives — Scotland Yard has decided not to mount a criminal investigation into severance payments at the BBC …

Anadolu Agency:

Foreign journalists not to be accredited without approval of intelligence in Egypt — Egypt will give accreditation to foreign journalists with the approval of Egyptian intelligence and Ministry of Interior as of August 15 ANKARA (AA) - Egyptian authorities Friday made amendments …

Discussion: @katalystprods

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
Were Journalists Deliberately Targeted In Egypt?

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, freemedia.at, Al Jazeera Blogs and Washington Post

Zeke J Miller / TIME:

GOP Will Vote To Punish Networks Over Clinton Projects Friday — The vote to boycott CNN and NBC as debate sponsors is expected to pass easily — Republican leaders will vote Friday to centralize party control over presidential primary debates in the name of punishing two networks …

Discussion: @poniewozik and New York Magazine

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

Medium: One year of publishing ‘things that matter’ — Since launching in private beta last year, Medium has been building up its platform, which aims to offer a simple but ‘beautiful’ reading and writing experience — Read more — Other top stories — Also on Journalism.co.uk...

Discussion: @fmanjoo

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

The Next Web sheds key staff amid shift in editorial priorities — The Next Web, a leading tech blog, has fired or farewelled five of its top editorial staff in recent weeks as it shifts its editorial strategy to one that depends less on breaking news and more on reviews and analysis.