Mediagazer: Is ESPN worth what we are forced to pay? (Chris Dorr/Digital Dorr)

8:05 PM ET, September 1, 2013

Top News:

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.

Discussion: Al Jazeera English, Guardian, New York Times, Associated Press, TVNewser, Digital Spy, Telegraph, @beschlossdc, @bbcbreaking, @nycjim, The Independent, @bbcnews, @davidgrann, @mcclatchydc, The Wrap, Mashable, NPR and Media Law Prof Blog

Peter Walker / Guardian:

David Frost: a career in clips — From That Was The Week That Was to the Nixon interviews to al-Jazeera, Frost delivered 50 years of broadcasting excellence — The difficulty in describing Sir David Frost's career arises both from the sheer scale of it - he achieved national fame …

Discussion: @bbcnews and Digital Spy

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

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.

Discussion: Washington Post, Boing Boing, The Verge, VentureBeat, The Next Web, @csoghoian, @pasternack, ABC News and The Daily Caller

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: @bachikarkaria, @africasacountry and @ibidibid

Al Jazeera English:

Egypt frees four-member Al Jazeera team — Four-man team set free after being detained for five days without charge, as three other staff are still in custody. — Egyptian authorities have freed a four-member team of Al Jazeera journalists after holding them in detention for five days without charge.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and @antderosa

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

Matt Buchanan / The New Yorker Blog:

Syria's Other Army: How the Hackers Wage War — At 5:41 P.M. on Tuesday, a tweet from the account of the hacker collective known as the Syrian Electronic Army, which supports the regime of Syria's President, Bashar al-Assad, said, “Media is going down...” It had been a couple of hours since …

Discussion: Krebs on Security, The Wrap, Crikey, TVNewser, The Public Editor's Journal and BBC

Ben Sisario / New York Times:
For News From Syrian Battleground, a Reliance on Social Media

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

Travis Andrews / Mashable:

Inside News Corp's $540 Million Bet on American Classrooms — In the middle of Brooklyn's high-end Dumbo neighborhood, 20 inner-city children sit around two wooden tables at what appears to be a small summer camp. Tablet computers are scattered across the tables, punctuated by plates of corn chips and bowls of salsa.

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

Chris Dorr / Digital Dorr:

Is ESPN worth what we are forced to pay? — Recently The New York Times revealed how much the typical cable operator (TWC or Comcast) pays per month for ESPN. For each subscriber the operator pays $5.54 for ESPN and .70 for ESPN 2-a grand total of $6.24 per month.

Erik Hayden / Hollywood Reporter:

CNN's ‘Crossfire’ to Debut One Week Earlier to Cover Syria — The political debate show is now scheduled to debut on September 9. — CNN is resurrecting Crossfire earlier than expected. — On Sunday, the network said that the political debate show would return on Monday …

Discussion: Politico, @crossfirecnn, TVNewser and TheBlaze.com