Mediagazer: On the ‘Inherent Problem’ of the Public Editor's Role at The Times (Margaret Sullivan/The Public Editor's …)

9:45 PM ET, September 5, 2013

Top News:

US and UK spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the internet — US and British intelligence agencies have successfully cracked much of the online encryption relied upon by hundreds of millions of people to protect the privacy of their personal data, online transactions and emails …

Discussion: ProPublica, The Huffington Post, VentureBeat, New York Times, Wired, GigaOM, ZDNet, CNET, Mashable, PandoDaily, @jezhumble, Business Insider, Hit & Run, @josephmenn, @csoghoian, Reuters, @kimdotcom, The Raw Story, @nytgraphics, Electronista, @journerdism, Business Insider, Babbage, Hillicon Valley, The Huffington Post, @bobcesca_go, @ftrain, @a_l, AlterNet.org, @evacide, Boing Boing, @_cypherpunks_, @arusbridger, @ire_nicar, @jeffjarvis, The Verge, @bengoldacre, Techdirt, @froomkin, @ggreenwald, @amandamarcotte, @chanders, @harrisj, @astepanovich, @clarajeffery, @janinegibson, @palafo, @jamesrbuk, @dansinker, Daily Dot, @emptywheel, The Week, @filmmakermag, @russellbrandom, @xor, @smalera, @ggreenwald, @dansinker, @monikabauerlein, @jayrosen_nyu, Engadget, @chanders, @palafo, @janinegibson, @ruths, @jayrosen_nyu, @kelseyproud, @freedomofpress, @dylan20, @breakingnews, @jbenton, @jeffjarvis, Gizmodo, @guardianus, @jeffjarvis, @emptywheel, @froomkin, WebProNews, @xor, @rsingel, www.wnyc.org, RT, Schneier on Security, MetaFilter, Mother Jones, emptywheel, Talking New Media and IRE.org

ProPublica:

Why We Published the Decryption Story — ProPublica is today publishing a story in partnership with the Guardian and The New York Times about U.S. and U.K. government efforts to decode enormous amounts of Internet traffic previously thought to have been safe from prying eyes.

Bruce Schneier / Guardian:

The US government has betrayed the internet — The NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract. We engineers built the internet - and now we have to fix it — Government and industry have betrayed the internet, and us. — By subverting the internet at every level to make it a vast …

Discussion: @bendiken, @zunguzungu, Techdirt, @alexsteffen, @ramez, @avilarenata, @erasethistweet, @rossschulman, @suzicatherine, @malarkey, @miketaylor, @guardianus, @larskasper, @newsbrooke, @janl, @levjoy, @dymaxion, @thomas_lord, @helenwalters, @astepanovich and @starkness

Timothy B. Lee / The Switch:

Sorry, Jeff Bezos, the news bundle isn't coming back — This week, journalists at The Washington Post (including, full disclosure, me) got our first look at our new boss's vision for The Washington Post. There was a lot to like. Bezos emphasized the importance of a focus on the long term …

Discussion: @washingtonpost, @johngapper, @mlcalderone, @rosental, @jbritt5, @aschweig, @b_fung, @ktumulty, @palewire and Washington Post

Erik Wemple:
Jeff Bezos and the Internet's aggregational appetites

Discussion: The Buttry Diary, @dabeard, The Atlantic Online, @johnmcquaid, @jayrosen_nyu, The Verge, The Newspaper Guild, USA Today and Guardian

Washington Post:
Jeff Bezos to his future Washington Post journalists: Put the readers first

Discussion: Forbes, GigaOM, New York Times, Corporate Intelligence, Talking Biz News, Prof Chris Daly's Blog, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, @giner, @kiagregory, @jason_kint and @bomani_jones

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Networks Get a Victory in Court Over Streaming Service — For the first time in nearly a year, the nation's major television broadcasters have won a round in their legal battle against start-up firms that stream programs from local stations over the Internet without their consent.

Ira Teinowitz / The Wrap:

Judge Shuts Down FilmOnX, Threatening Aereo-Like Retransmission Services Everywhere — In what could be a death-knell to Aereo-like services that retransmit local TV programming over the Internet without paying broadcasters, a Washington, D.C., judge on Thursday issued an injunction …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Variety and The BLT

Matt Taibbi / Rolling Stone:

16 Major Firms May Have Received Early Data From Thomson Reuters — Readers may recall an ugly story that broke earlier this summer, when New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman rebuked the news/business information firm Thomson Reuters for selling access to key economic survey data …

Discussion: Big News Network.com and @sebroche

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Chris Patten ‘misled parliament over BBC payoffs’ — Ex-director general Mark Thompson claims MPs were told untruths in stunning attack on former boss — The former BBC director general Mark Thompson has accused the BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten of “fundamentally misleading” …

Discussion: @arusbridger, @matthewwells, @ericsalama, @lisaocarroll and @bwebster135

Steven Erlanger / New York Times:
Britain to Examine Why BBC Severance Payments Exceeded Contract Terms

Discussion: @froomkin

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

On the ‘Inherent Problem’ of the Public Editor's Role at The Times — The Roman poet Juvenal posed this pretty good question that has traveled down the centuries: “Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” — It means, “But who watches the watchers?” In the context of a diatribe against marriage …

Discussion: paidContent, @mattyglesias, @gabrielsnyder, @niemanlab and @sulliview

Farhad Manjoo / Slate:

Changes at the Onion: America's finest news source adjusts to Internet speed — What happened to the Onion? Two words: The Internet. — There's a famous episode of This American Life that takes listeners into a planning meeting at the Onion. It was first broadcast in 2008 …

Discussion: @stefanjbecket

Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:

Google Says Mosley Suit Over Sex-Party Search Defies Free Speech — Google Inc. (GOOG) said a lawsuit by Max Mosley, Formula One's former president, asking it to block any further search results referring to a “Nazi-themed” sex party would create unprecedented censorship on the Internet.

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Poynter, Google Europe Blog and Mashable

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, @huffpostmedia, @zseward, WordPress.com VIP, Media Wire Daily, The Awl, @niemanlab, FishbowlNY, @natives and eMedia Vitals

Ben Fritz / Wall Street Journal:

Nikki Finke Seeks to Break From Penske Media — Founder of Website Deadline.com Says Vision Is No Longer Shared — In the viciously competitive world of Hollywood trade publications, it was hardly a shock when one outlet recently mocked another for its “humiliating loss of readership and influence.”

Discussion: LA Observed, @bendwilliams, @romenesko and @benfritz

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

BuzzFeed Aims for $100 Million in Sales 2014 — Lots of chatter in medialand today about BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti's state-of-BuzzFeed memo, which is full of boast-worthy boasts: A ton of page views, a lot of employees, and a profit to boot. — One thing that Peretti didn't include in the memo …

Discussion: paidContent, LinkedIn, @greenwombat, @karaswisher, @edmundlee, @pkafka, @digitalshields, Nieman Journalism Lab and TechCrunch

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Ten Surprising Facts About MailOnline, the Site That Ate the News — No. 2 Newspaper Site in U.S. Still Gets Most Ad Revenue From U.K. — There are very good odds that you have frequented MailOnline, which has come seemingly out of nowhere to become the most-visited newspaper website …

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, @stefanjbecket and mUmBRELLA

Economist:

Why are The Economist's writers anonymous? — The Economist explains itself — Why are The Economist's writers anonymous? — Sep 4th 2013, 23:50 by ???? — Editor's note: This week, to mark the 170th anniversary of the appearance of the first issue of The Economist on September 2nd 1843 …

Discussion: @jason, @glennf, @emmabgardner, The Economist explains and Talking Biz News

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Details Uses Bloggers For Native Advertising: Helps brands like A/X Armani Exchange, Prada promote fall looks — In the latest example of a publisher blurring the line between advertising and editorial, Details is tapping its Details Network, a collective of 150 men's style bloggers who share …

Meg Heckman / Poynter:

Software seeks to measure women's participation in journalism — Measuring women's participation in journalism once meant sitting down with a stack of newspapers and counting bylines by hand. That's no longer the case, thanks to computer programs that use big data to examine gender biases in sourcing …

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

No, seriously: Oyster comes pretty close to being a Netflix for ebooks — A lot of startups want to be the Netflix (or Spotify, Pandora, whatever) for ebooks. That is, they want to provide unlimited access to ebooks for a flat monthly fee. — But this is really hard to pull off …

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 …