Mediagazer: To Protect Its Empire, ESPN Stays on Offense (New York Times)

5:10 PM ET, August 27, 2013

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

NYTimes.com Goes Dark For Second Time In Two Weeks — The website of the New York Times probably doesn't go out of service more than any big site, but when it does, boy do people notice. — For the second time in two weeks, nytimes.com is returning an error message, at least for a large segment of visitors.

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

NYTimes.com down for some users; paper suspects “external attack” — The New York Times website is experiencing an outage, at least for some users, as of 4:00 pm ET on Tuesday. This outage comes about two weeks after a larger outage where the site went down for everyone.

Discussion: Politico, @nyteileen, Gawker, Bloomberg, The Atlantic Wire, Business Insider, The Verge, @jeffbercovici, CNBC, @harrisj, Digits, @huffpostmedia, @jaesonschultz, @laurahazardowen and @nytimes

Fortune:

AllThingsD nears split with Dow Jones — FORTUNE — The future of influential tech website All Things Digital is close to being decided. Reuters reported in February that AllThingsD co-executive editors Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg had begun discussions with owner Dow Jones …

Discussion: GigaOM, It's a Gadget, Talking Biz News, @jayrosen_nyu, @rafat, @peterlauria3, @benpopper, @antderosa, @rafat, FishbowlNY, @mccarthyryanj, ZDNet, @mdudas, @nytimesbits and @felixsalmon

Russ Buettner / New York Times:

Officer Is Indicted on Charges of Lying About Photographer's Arrest — A New York City police officer who had arrested a photographer working for The New York Times has been indicted on three felony counts and five misdemeanors accusing him of fabricating the reasons for the arrest, the Bronx district attorney announced on Monday.

Discussion: Poynter, New York Post, Hit & Run, FishbowlNY, @joshuahol, @scottbix, @jason, @timcast, ANIMAL, @dangillmor, @brianstelter, @bydanielvictor, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine and CBS New York

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:

Brian Lewis Speaks Out: Roger Ailes and Fox News Should Fear Him — Brian Lewis's attorney Judd Burstein just provided this statement to Gawker: … Fox News President Roger Ailes fired Lewis in late July following accusations of “financial irregularities” and “multiple, material and significant breaches of his employment contract.”

Discussion: Politico, The Wrap, TVNewser, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, msnbc.com, @jesseberney, @nowwithalex, @davidfolkenflik, @nickconfessore, @byrontau and @johnjcook

Cindy Royal / Mediashift:

We Need a Digital-First Curriculum to Teach Modern Journalism — At the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, one panel addressed adding programming skills to the curriculum: “Why All Your Students Must Be Programmers.”

Discussion: @newswhip, @toddmundt, @pbsmediashift, @stevebuttry and @derekwillis, Thanks:@pbsmediashift

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Al Jazeera America Launch Ratings — Al Jazeera America launched last week, and we have the ratings from Nielsen Media Research for its first few days. — Not surprisingly given the low-rated channel it replaced (Current TV), and the fact that it lost a few million homes from AT&T before launch …

Discussion: Mediaite, Lost Remote, The Huffington Post and TVSpy

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Huffington Post deletes 75 percent of incoming comments — The Huffington Post will soon no longer allow anonymous comments. In a post published Monday afternoon, HuffPost Media Group Managing Editor Jimmy Soni said the news organization “recognizes that many people are not in a professional …

Discussion: The Huffington Post and The Newspaper Guild

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Apple TV Bulks Up Again, With New Apps From Disney, Weather Channel, Vevo — Apple's TV hobby continues to expand in scope: Apple has added five more apps to its Web TV box, from providers including Disney, the Weather Channel and Vevo. — Some of the apps are free, and offer on-demand programming …

Discussion: VEVO.com, MacRumors, @pkafka, Broadcasting & Cable, @nsj, GigaOM, CNET, The Next Web, BGR, TechCrunch, Engadget, 9to5Mac and stratechery

Jack Dickey / TIME:

Olbermann's New Sports Talkshow Pulls No Punches (Well, Maybe Just a Couple) — God bless Keith Olbermann; the man always comes out swinging. — Olbermann, his daily hourlong talk show, debuted live Monday night on ESPN2 without introductory credits. It seemed like a glitch.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, TVNewser, Deadspin, The Atlantic Wire, Deadline.com, The Big Lead, Mediaite, @richarddeitsch, @jackdickey, @time, Variety, Los Angeles Times and The Wrap

New York Times:

To Protect Its Empire, ESPN Stays on Offense — ESPN likes to call itself the Worldwide Leader in Sports, and by most every measure it is in a league of its own. The network produced 35,000 hours of programming in 2012, including at least half of all live athletic events televised in the United States.

James Grubel / Reuters:

Australian press watchdog chides Murdoch media — Australia's newspaper regulator on Tuesday weighed in on a row over bias by Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in the country's election campaign, telling editors to provide an accurate account of public issues. — The Australian arm …

Discussion: Sydney Morning Herald, @davidfolkenflik and Kirk LaPointe's …

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

Google calls book scanning “transformative” in latest push for fair use ruling — Google and the Authors Guild's eight-year legal fight over digital books is coming to a head once again, as both sides prepare to make their final case next month about whether Google's scanning …

Discussion: PublishersWeekly.com, @inafried, @mphoulihan, @yunghi and @tcarmody

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Author Of UK's Terrorism Act Says It Was Never Meant For Situations Like David Miranda — In the US, we've had one of the key authors of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner, speak out strongly, saying that the NSA interpretation of the law appears to be completely different than what was meant when the bill was written.