Mediagazer: College Football's Most Dominant Player? It's ESPN (New York Times)

1:30 PM ET, August 25, 2013

Top News:

College Football's Most Dominant Player? It's ESPN — The nation's annual rite of mayhem and pageantry known as the college football season begins this week, and Saturday will feature back-to-back-to-back marquee matchups. At the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, last year's national champions …

Discussion: @michaelluo, @dangillmor, @nycjim, @jsablichnyt, @ryanchittum and Mother Jones

Nick Bilton / NYT Bits:

Disruptions: A Blogger Mocks the Denizens of Silicon Valley — SAN FRANCISCO — Sam Biddle may have one of the easiest jobs in technology journalism. That is, easy if you have the stomach for his line of work. — Every morning, he wakes up in his Brooklyn apartment, checks Twitter on his smartphone …

Discussion: @tcarmody, @amatthiesen, @katienotopoulos, @adrjeffries, @owenthomas and @stevekovach

Steve Coll / New Yorker:

Obama, Holder, journalists, and their sources. — In October, DreamWorks plans to release “The Fifth Estate,” an international thriller about WikiLeaks. The director is Bill Condon, who made two of the “Twilight” vampire movies; Benedict Cumberbatch plays Julian Assange.

Discussion: Big News Network.com

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:

The Truth About Marissa Mayer: An Unauthorized Biography — On the morning of Thursday, July 12, 2012, Yahoo's interim CEO, Ross Levinsohn, still believed he was going to be named permanent CEO of the company. — He had just one meeting to go. — That meeting was a board meeting …

Discussion: @hblodget, @philosophybites, @karaswisher, @chrishughes, @daddy_san, @mikeisaac, @alexismadrigal, @xeni, The Next Web, @andreahanis and @katie_roof

Press Gazette:

Fleet Street rivals may not like The Guardian, but they should care about attacks on individual and press freedom — Miranda, left, and Greenwald. Photograph by cbc.ca — The Guardian has never been the most popular player in the Fleet Street squad. The wiry leftwinger is capable …

Discussion: Guardian, @glynmoody, BBC, Firedoglake and Yahoo! News

Politico:

Plagiarism or coincidence? Writer, WSJ square off — In late July, Daniel Flynn, a conservative author and columnist, submitted an essay to the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Review called “The War on Football,” which laid out the case against banning the sport at the youth level.

Discussion: American Spectator, @20committee, @maxblumenthal, @drgrist, @blakehounshell, @jimmysky, @dandrezner, @timmathews, @joshuafoust, @bungdan and Talking Biz News

Maggie Lange / Gawker:

Leave Easter Eggs Out of My Books, Please — Marisha Pessl's new 600-page thriller Night Film centers on a fictional recluse named Stanislas Cordova, who made films so horrifically, soul-destroyingly evil they were effectively banned in the U.S. When his beautiful young daughter mysteriously dies …

Guardian:

Surveillance and the state: this way the debate goes on | Editorial — Thanks to Edward Snowden, the world now has a debate about the dramatic change in the contract between state and citizen — “Spies spy! Who knew?” Thus the world-weary shrug from too many people who ought …

Discussion: Telegraph, @selingirit, @claudi, @jayrosen_nyu, @pnh, @damiengwalter, @ggreenwald, @jcstearns, @jeffjarvis, @julijuxtaposed and BuzzFeed

Josh Stearns / Mediashift:
Lessons from Manning and Miranda: Press Freedom Advocates Must Fight Back

Discussion: @pbsmediashift, @jcstearns and @johncusack, Thanks:@mediatwit

Daniel Miller / Los Angeles Times:

The spectacular rise and surprising exit of a Hollywood executive — (Illustration by Joel Kimmel / For The Times) … Adult film actress Sarah Shevon drove up the Pacific Coast Highway one spring evening last year to a job she said her talent agent had booked for her at a gated Malibu estate on Dume Drive.

Discussion: @guyadams, @misterfleming, @mattgarrahan, Gawker and The Wrap

Ilya Somin / The Volokh Conspiracy:

Political Ignorance and the Weakness of Consumer Demand for “Hard News” — Media writer Jack Shafer and economics columnist Megan McArdle have interesting pieces discussing the weakness of the market for “hard news.” Shafer notes that producing “hard news” has never been very profitable …

Abraham Moussako / Columbia Journalism Review:

NewsHour at a crossroads — As PBS prepares to launch a weekend edition of the NewsHour, observers doubt the program's continued viability — After a two-year holding pattern following the gradual retirement of Jim Lehrer from on-air duties, PBS NewsHour is entering a transformative period.

Discussion: @jaredbkeller

Todd Woody / Quartz:

The petrodollar-funded Al Jazeera America has become the climate-change news network — The debut yesterday of Al Jazeera America has prompted plenty of chatter among the chattering classes about whether a nation accustomed to a steady cable news diet of hype, shouting heads and celebrity shenanigans …

Discussion: The Verge, The Green Optimistic, Ruby Cramer and TakePart

Sara Morrison / The Wrap:

5 Takeaways from New York Magazine's Profile of the New York Times — From Nate Silver's departure to David Carr's license to gab, here's what New York Magazine dug up about NYT's new CEO Mark Thompson — New York Magazine's profile of New York Times CEO Mark Thompson came out on Friday …

Discussion: @jonswaine, @dianemame, Poynter and New York Magazine