Mediagazer: Former Sun-Times owner ordered to pay $4.1 million (Reuters)

12:40 PM ET, August 16, 2013

Top News:

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

AOL Starts Patch Cuts, and Up to 500 People May Lose Their Jobs — AOL has begun making mass layoffs at its Patch unit. — By the time the cuts are over, AOL could end up reducing the local news network's 1,000-worker labor force by half, according to people familiar with the plans.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Poynter, @romenesko, Media & Entertainment, TechCrunch, Street Fight, GigaOM, Reuters, Bloomberg, Business Insider, @hollywoodspin, @romenesko and @abeaujon

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.

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Post, Forbes, The Switch, Guardian, msnbc.com, Hillicon Valley, GigaOM, The Week, WebProNews, Engadget, The Dish, @astepanovich, @umairh, CNN, Hit & Run, Firedoglake, ComPost, @washingtonpost, @davidfrum, Wired.co.uk, @justinbrookman, @zeigor, @antderosa, Softpedia News, Techdirt, TechCrunch, @xeni, @alexjamesfitz, @bartongellman, @privacyint, @petersuderman, @7im, New York Magazine, @davewiner, @samgustin, @laurenweinstein, @astepanovich, @blakehounshell, WJLA-TV, @gmarkham, @loteck, @tonyphyrillas, @occupyoakland, The Daily Caller, VentureBeat, @declanm, The Verge, Business Insider, Mediaite, @feardept, The Next Web, BBC, @onekade, @katecrawford, TechCrunch, @mattblaze, @jamilsmith, emptywheel, @d_seaman, @wiretapped, @quinnnorton, Mother Jones, @dangillmor, @kristinaribali, Mashable, @radleybalko, @cmuratori, @boingboing, NPR, ReadWrite and IRE.org

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, Hit & Run, @csoghoian, The Switch, Electronic Frontier Foundation, @randyebarnett, @ggreenwald, The Verge, @washingtonpost, @privacyint, Gawker, @inego_, @ramez, @micahflee, @digiphile and @jayrosen_nyu

Zeke J Miller / TIME:

GOP Votes To Punish Networks Over Clinton Projects Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/08/16/ gop-will-vote-to-punish-networks-over- clinton-projects-friday/#ixzz2c985qBdX — The vote to boycott CNN and NBC as debate sponsors is expected to pass easily — Republican leaders will vote Friday …

Discussion: Mediaite, The Huffington Post, Variety, Vanity Fair, @poniewozik, New York Magazine and TheBlaze.com

Dylan Byers / Politico:

RNC's NBC, CNN boycott win for Univision — In a highly anticipated move, the Republican National Committee voted unanimously on Friday to deny NBC and CNN the rights to host or sponsor a Republican primary debate unless they cancel their respective Hillary Clinton film projects.

Discussion: Mediaite

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: Poynter, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN, FP Passport, @jayrosen_nyu, Techdirt and New York Magazine

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:
When you're in a Fourth Estate situation

Discussion: @jjn1, @ggreenwald and The Drum

Reuters:

Former Sun-Times owner ordered to pay $4.1 million — The Securities and Exchange Commission has banned former Sun-Times owner Conrad Black from acting as a director of a U.S. company and said he must pay $4.1 million in restitution in a settlement that ends a long-standing lawsuit …

Discussion: Guardian, @kevglobal, GlobalPost and Canadian Press

BBC: Conrad Black fined and banned by US

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 …

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 …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

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, @martindave, @mathewi and @romenesko

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 …

Meg James / Los Angeles Times:

CW launches CW Seed digital studio — The CW television network on Thursday launched with four Web series, including “The P.E.T. Squad Files,” about a group of misfits searching for ghosts. (CW) — CW Seed, an experimental digital entertainment studio and website, launched Thursday with four original Web shows.

Discussion: Examiner, C21Media, TBI Vision, tv.broadwayworld.com and The Wrap

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 and Al Jazeera Blogs

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: Hillicon Valley, msnbc.com, The Week, GigaOM and Techdirt

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.