Mediagazer: Press Adds ‘What if?’ to Five W's in France (Alissa J. Rubin/New York Times)

11:00 AM ET, September 1, 2013

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BBC:

Sir David Frost, broadcaster and writer, dies at 74 — Veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost has died at the age of 74 after a suspected heart attack. — Sir David's career spanned journalism, comedy writing and daytime television presenting, including The Frost Report and That Was The Week That Was.

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Spiegel Online:

NSA Spied On Al Jazeera Communications — Arab news broadcaster Al Jazeera was spied on by the National Security Agency, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL. The US intelligence agency hacked into protected communication, a feat that was considered a particular success.

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Margaret Sullivan / New York Times:

A Year in the Life of a Watchdog — IT'S a Monday morning in August — last Monday, to be precise — and more than 500 e-mails have arrived in the public editor's in-box. Some are spam. Some are requests for corrections or assignments, which can be sent to another desk.

Discussion: @bmitch, @jayrosen_nyu, @sulliview and Pressing Issues

Matt Buchanan / The New Yorker Blog:

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Discussion: Krebs on Security, Crikey, BBC and Softpedia News

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

For News From Syrian Battleground, a Reliance on Social Media — When Secretary of State John Kerry delivered the United States' report on Friday about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, he noted that “all hell broke loose in the social media” just 90 minutes after the alleged attack.

Discussion: @maryvale, @amlwhere, Foreign Policy, @sukille, @jncatron and @kirstinestewart

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

In News Coverage and Editorials on Syria, How Much Skepticism in The Times? — Many Times readers are looking at recent news coverage of Syria, and editorials on the same subject, through the lens of another international conflict: the United States invasion of Iraq.

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:
Network Correspondents Converge On Syria And Surrounding Countries

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Sara Morrison / The Wrap:
Syria Crisis: How the Networks Are Covering

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Felix Salmon:

Do online business models matter? — Nick Bilton has an odd column up about Business Insider and NSFWCorp — two publications which he has picked to represent the “reliant on ad revenue” and “reliant on subscription revenue” business models, respectively. He's particularly interested …

Discussion: @thelepathy and @mathewi

Alissa J. Rubin / New York Times:

Press Adds ‘What if?’ to Five W's in France — PARIS — What does a newspaper do over the summer in a country where nearly everybody goes on vacation at the same time? — With many French journalists (and their sources) away from late July to late August and many vacationing readers less inclined …

Discussion: Corporate Intelligence

Peter Jukes / The New Republic:

Murdoch's Papers Fight the Guardian (and Free Speech) — Journalism's circular firing squad, UK edition — While it might be a mite too early to assess the historic and political impact of Edward Snowden's leaks of top secret NSA documents, the first casualty is already clear: journalism.

Discussion: Mediashift

Pit Gottschalk / INMA:

Does your editorial team support your digitisation strategy? — A newspaper's print employees can be its best digital ambassadors, by driving traffic to the online edition from print — with links. A recent study took a look at how well 102 German newspapers do just that.

Discussion: @earljwilkinson

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of big and little, from NBC News and GlobalPost to Thunderdome — Ah, the joys of big and of little. — In media businesses, little means few if any layers of bothersome decision-making. Agility. Nimbleness. Independence. All great and positive values.

Discussion: @kdoctor, @jayrosen_nyu and @niemanlab

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

AIR's Localore is putting down roots and trying to build a more networked public media — Freelancing new ideas in radio is hard. NPR has its own substantial staff to generate ideas and projects, and most individual radio stations lack the resources or infrastructure to support many new ideas.

Discussion: @jbenton

insideradio.com:

Townsquare Media buys 53 stations from Cumulus. — In deal-making that will solidify its position as the third-biggest radio group, Townsquare Media is adding 71 stations in 15 markets. It'll do that a series of three deals, valued at a combined $281 million.

Discussion: radioworld.com