Mediagazer: Updated: NYTimes.com down; paper suspects “external attack” (Laura Hazard Owen/GigaOM)

1:00 AM ET, August 28, 2013

Top News:

Christine Haughney / New York Times:

Times Web Site Affected by External Hacking Attack — The New York Times Web site was unavailable to readers on Tuesday afternoon following an attack on the company's domain name registrar, Melbourne IT. The attack also required employees of The Times to stop sending out sensitive e-mails.

Discussion: New York Times, The Next Web, CNET, GigaOM, Guardian, @elanazak, The Verge, @mattblaze, CNET, New York Times, @nicoleperlroth, @nickkristof, @nycjim, @dick_nixon, @bennyfactor, WorldViews, Business Insider and Daily Dot

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.

Discussion: VentureBeat, GigaOM, AllThingsD, Gawker, Businessweek, FishbowlNY, @jeffbercovici, Media & Entertainment and ZDNet

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

Syrian Electronic Army attack suspected on New York Times; group also claims Twitter hack — View Photo Gallery — A brief history of key military interventions by the United States: Since the Vietnam War, the United States has engaged in several military interventions.

Discussion: Twitter Status, TechCrunch, SocialTimes, @emilydparker, @chaughney, The Verge and The Daily Caller

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Updated: NYTimes.com down; paper suspects “external attack” — The New York Times website is experiencing an outage as of around 1 PM PT on Tuesday. (As of 6:20 PM PT, the site is still down.) This comes about two weeks after another outage. Unlike the previous outage …

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:
Wall Street Journal Kicks The New York Times While It's Down

Discussion: @stefanjbecket and @nycjim

Michael Lee / ZDNet:
Hackers had Melbourne IT reseller credentials to attack NYT, Twitter

Discussion: New York Times

The Atlantic Wire:
Syrian Electronic Army Responsible for New York Times Website Crash

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, GalleyCat, The Verge, VentureBeat, CNET, Los Angeles Times, The Next Web, @corybe, @dylanbyers, Mediaite, @noir, Deadline.com, Mashable and Hillicon Valley

Felix Salmon / Reuters:

Can Rupert Murdoch hold on to Kara Swisher? — Who is the best journalist (so far) of the new millennium? Who has best embraced the opportunities afforded by digital media, and used them to deliver breaking news and incisive opinion to the greatest effect? Put like that, it's hard to wind up with any name other than Kara Swisher.

Discussion: @anildash, @ferenstein, @karaswisher, @themarkberman and @felixsalmon

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

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Pari Bradlee and the brilliance of Fox News's Howard Kurtz — No one cared about the Facebook photos of one Pari Bradlee. No one cared that one of them portrayed her in a “Swiss-cheese bra.” No one cared that another showed her posing nude, “shot from the back, twisting one arm behind her.”

Discussion: Gawker, City Desk, @richarddeitsch, @aseitzwald, @ezraklein, @jayrosen_nyu, @jamesfallows, The Raw Story and The Huffington Post

Dylan Byers / Politico:
Sally Quinn ‘appalled’ by Kurtz column

Discussion: Fox News, @jamisonfoser, The Huffington Post, @feldmaniac, Mediaite, Mediaite, @mattgertz and @maxblumenthal

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Google Makes Its Apple TV-Killer More Appealing for Apple Owners — Nice timing: On the same day that Apple upgraded Apple TV by adding more content to its Web TV box, Google upgrades Chromecast, its Apple TV competitor — by making it more appealing to Apple users.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Apple TV Bulks Up Again, With New Apps From Disney, Weather Channel, Vevo

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

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Al Jazeera America Launch Ratings — Al Jazeera America launched last week, and we have the ratings from Nielsen 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: The Wrap, Mediaite and The Huffington Post

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

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: @themediaisdying, @poynter, The Newspaper Guild and The Huffington Post

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

Erik Wemple:

Risen case: DOJ says new guidelines don't apply — It's been a busy summer for New York Times reporter James Risen. — • On July 19, a 2 to 1 ruling from a federal appeals court in Richmond held that he couldn't use a reporter's privilege to excuse himself from testimony …

Discussion: @mikescarcella, @washingtonpost and Politico

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The difference between a tablespoon and an ocean: An academic blog finds a home at The Washington Post — The Washington Post is in content-acquisition mode. Yesterday The Monkey Cage — a much admired group blog run by political science professors interested in connecting their field's work …

Discussion: @erniesander and The Monkey Cage

Bloomberg:

Twitter Hires Commerce Chief to Add Shopping Via Tweets — Twitter Inc. hired Nathan Hubbard, the former president of Ticketmaster, as its first head of commerce, part of a push to enable shopping via short postings on its social website. — Hubbard, 38, started at San Francisco-based Twitter this week …