Mediagazer: Showdown Looms for Dish, ESPN (Wall Street Journal)

11:25 AM ET, September 5, 2013

Top News:

Jeff Bezos to his future Washington Post journalists: Put the readers first — Jeffrey P. Bezos had a simple bit of advice for the staff of the newspaper he'll soon own: Put readers, not advertisers, first. Don't write to impress each other. And above all, “Don't be boring.”

Discussion: New York Times, Guardian, Prof Chris Daly's Blog, @kiagregory, Talking Biz News, @jason_kint, @giner, @bomani_jones, bizjournals, Poynter and The Huffington Post

Erik Wemple:

Jeff Bezos and the Internet's aggregational appetites — In an interview with The Washington Post's Paul Farhi, Jeff Bezos, The Post's next owner, spoke of a new, reader-centric “golden era” for the newspaper. En route to that era, however, Bezos cited a challenge or two.

Discussion: The Buttry Diary, @dabeard, @jayrosen_nyu, Washington Post and Guardian

Steven Mufson / Washington Post:

Bezos courts Washington Post editors, reporters — The Washington Post's new owner Jeffrey P. Bezos, long wary of journalists, held a series of meetings with the paper's editors and reporters Wednesday, saying that he is optimistic about the future of journalism and wants to create a …

Jessica Meyers / Politico:
Jeff Bezos new to journalism — but not free speech issues

Discussion: @tjortenzi and Big News Network.com

Alex Kantrowitz / AdAge:

The New York Post Gets a New Digital Look, And New Ad Units — An Improvement Over a Website That Seemed Stuck In the '90s — After years of operating a website which seemed to belong in the 1990s, the New York Post introduced a revamped, modern version today, and a set of new ad products to boot.

Discussion: Capital New York, Media Wire Daily, FishbowlNY, The Awl, eMedia Vitals, @niemanlab, @natives, @huffpostmedia and @zseward

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Sun and Mirror journalists unite to show support for colleagues in court — More than 30 turn up at Westminster magistrates' court as nine face charges over alleged unlawful payments — More than 30 Sun and Daily Mirror journalists have put in a show of support at a central London court …

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette: The Sun's stolen mobile ‘conspiracy’: They were just reporters doing their jobs

Janis L. Magin / Pacific Business News:

Huffington, Omidyar launch HuffPost Hawaii website — Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who launched the Honolulu Civil Beat website three years ago, launched HuffPost Hawaii Wednesday, a site that aims to highlight “all Hawaii has to offer.”

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @jbenton and Civil Beat

Janis L. Magin / Pacific Business News:
HuffPost Hawaii only adds to the world's distorted view of Paradise

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

25% of people have posted anonymous comments, Pew finds — A quarter of all Internet users have posted anonymous comments, a Pew study about online anonymity says. — But when it comes to posting any material online, people “are more likely than not to attach their name or a recognizable screenname …

Discussion: Fast Company, TechCrunch, 24/7 Wall St. and Joho the Blog

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Is Barrett Brown a journalist or an activist? Regardless of the answer, his case is an outrage — By now, most people have probably heard of Edward Snowden, the former CIA contractor who leaked the NSA's surveillance documents, as well as Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, the Army private who leaked diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

Discussion: @pelyoneast, @annalist, Kirk LaPointe's …, @jeffjohnroberts, @buzzfeedben, The Raw Story and Techdirt

Kevin Krause / Crime Blog:
Federal judge issues gag order on attorneys in criminal case of man tied to hackers

Discussion: Daily Dot

Eric Nicholson / Unfair Park:
Barrett Brown Agrees to Stop Talking to the Media

Discussion: RT, Crime Blog, @freedomofpress, Free Barrett Brown, @apblake, @youranonnews, @dellcam, @dellcam, @douglaslucas, @douglaslucas, @douglaslucas and Guardian

Wall Street Journal:

Showdown Looms for Dish, ESPN — Dish Network Corp. chairman Charlie Ergen has long railed against the high cost of sports on TV. Now he has a chance to do something about it. — Dish's agreement to carry ESPN, the highest profile and most expensive of the national sports channels, expires at the end of September.

Discussion: The Desk

Tiffany Kary / Bloomberg:

Fortress to Create ‘New Media’ Through GateHouse Bankruptcy — Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG:US) plans to create a newspaper and website company, New Media, through the bankruptcy of its GateHouse Media Inc. (GHSE:US) and the recently purchased assets of Newcastle Investment Corp. (NCT:US)

Discussion: rbj.net, Massachusetts News, bizjournals, Wall Street Journal and New York Times

Yahoo!:

Introducing Our New Logo! — We're excited to share the new Yahoo logo with you. It will begin appearing across Yahoo properties globally tonight. — We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots (whimsical, purple, with an exclamation point) yet embraced the evolution of our products.

Discussion: Marissa's Tumblr, AdAge, Forbes, Betabeat, Co.Design, NetNewsCheck Latest, BetaNews, Fast Company, The Next Web, The Week, @jmspool, Digits, AllThingsD, TechCrunch, FishbowlNY, USA Today, The Tell, BuzzFeed, ZDNet, Digital Trends, @jesusdiaz, @nickf, Engadget, Mashable, The Verge, @rsg, VentureBeat, Beyond Search, Softpedia News, Business Insider, Philly.com, GigaOM and Gizmodo

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Former Yahoo and Microsoft Media Exec Scott Moore Tapped as Cheezburger President and COO — Cheezburger, the Seattle-based humor site famous for LOLcat photos, has hired well-known former Yahoo and Microsoft exec Scott Moore as its new president and COO. — Moore will be “responsible …

Erik Wemple:

Washington Post Magazine struggles with advertising relationship — The Washington Post Magazine's Aug. 11 Education Issue came out a bit on the thin side. It contained a helpful cover story on how to emerge from college with a job. One of the lessons: Lots of students who pursue a degree …

Discussion: Poynter, @smencimer and @huffpostmedia

Mike Shields / Adweek:

Pressure Mounts on Yahoo's De Castro — Yahoo finally got its latest ad savior yesterday when the company officially announced that former AOL executive Ned Brody will become svp of Americas, reporting directly to chief operating officer Henrique De Castro.

Discussion: AdExchanger, @jyarow and Business Insider

Joel Simon / Columbia Journalism Review:

Identity crisis — Why journalists should drop the push for special protection and just defend freedom of expression — Are you a journalist? A Turkish police officer fires tear gas during an anti-government rally near Taksim Square in Istanbul in July.

Discussion: @freedomofpress and @jcstearns

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

BuzzFeed's Jonah Peretti Says The Site Is Profitable, With 85M Uniques And 300+ Employees — BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti published a memo to employees today that laid out some details about the site's growth, as well as its plans for the coming year.

Discussion: LinkedIn, paidContent, Fast Company, Beet.TV, @dubois, @chrislhayes, @derekwillis, @fmanjoo, @keithrhernandez, @buzzfeedben, @tobyharnden, @michaeldweiss, @emilybell, @adrianlurssen, @tolles and @danswright

Steven Erlanger / New York Times:

Britain to Examine Why BBC Severance Payments Exceeded Contract Terms — LONDON — Of the BBC and its money, mostly provided by ordinary Britons who pay a fee to watch television, there is no end to the argument, or the accounting. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee will hold …

Don Davis / Variety:

Mediaset Doing Just Fine Despite Berlusconi Verdict — Conviction on tax evasion charges puts Teflon Don on the defensive politically, but leaves his TV empire untouched — Silvio Berlusconi's conviction last month on tax fraud charges might have seemed like a closing chapter in his long and colorful career.

Andrew Leonard / Salon:

The Internet's next victim: Advertising — What the story of AdBlock Plus tells us: The online economy is broken, and won't be easy to fix — “Everyone agrees that advertising on the Internet is broken,” says Till Faida, CEO of Adblock Plus, creator of by far the most popular ad-blocking software on the Web.

Discussion: AdAge, @karenmcgrane, @salon, @kashhill and @ecitydave