Mediagazer: Is Al Jazeera America Simply CNN, Minus Wolf Blitzer? (Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer/FP Passport)

9:30 PM ET, September 16, 2013

Top News:

Will Oremus / Slate:

NBC, CBS Remind Us You Don't Have to Be on Reddit or Twitter to Misidentify a Mass Killer — Lest we think that Redditors, tweeters, and bloggers have a monopoly on rushing to judgment when tragedies are unfolding, a pair of network news stations today provided a reminder that premature reports are as old as the news itself.

Discussion: The Switch, Politico, Mediaite, USA Today, @timkarr, @willoremus and Mashable

Desiree Everts DeNunzio / CNET:

Washington Post drops paywall in wake of DC shooting — The Washington Post is suspending its pay gate in an effort to get information out to all readers. — The Washington Post has dropped its paywall for readers seeking more information about the shootings Monday morning in the Washington Navy Yard …

Discussion: Mediaite, AllThingsD, Poynter, New Yorker, The New Yorker Blog and NetNewsCheck Latest

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

The media's mistakes in covering Navy Yard shooting — Breaking news is never pretty — anyone who hungers for facts and speed during a story as fluid as Monday's shootings in Washington, D.C., is asking for a lot. Still, there were some notable screwups today, like...

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Gawker, Mediaite and @eelarson

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
Navy Shooting Coverage Feels Depressingly Familiar

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Poynter, Washington Post, Erik Wemple and @jcstearns

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Twitter's Third Act: A New Design to Court the Mainstream — Twitter has lots of users. It wants a lot more. — That is, in part, why it is planning a massive overhaul of its mobile apps, designed to make the service more appealing to mainstream users.

Discussion: @mercerccj, AppleInsider, CNET, @crowdbooster, @pkafka, Pocket-lint, @vvbellur, VentureBeat, Fast Company, @niemanlab, Yahoo! News, @miriamgottfried, MacRumors, App Advice and GigaOM

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Guardian Story on Israel and N.S.A. Is Not ‘Surprising’ Enough to Cover — Many Times readers have been writing to me for several days about a story The Guardian broke last week, describing how the United States routinely shares with Israel intelligence information that the National Security Agency gathers on American citizens.

Lizzie Widdicombe / New Yorker:

Bryan Goldberg's adventures in women's publishing. — A young man's adventures in women's publishing.

Discussion: Salon, The New Republic, @tasneemraja, @mbaratz, Gawker, @mbaratz, Betabeat, @alexhern, @nicknotned, @scalzi, @whet, @newyorker, Mashable, @tcarmody and The Huffington Post

Greg Sandoval / The Verge:

Eclipsed by rivals, Rhapsody reduces staff and ousts key managers — Rhapsody's managers were right in predicting more than a decade ago that consumers would one day flock to subscription music services. The only problem is, Rhapsody isn't one of the services they're choosing.

Discussion: New York Times, @jherskowitz and @sandonet

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

CNN Wins First Primetime Emmys with ‘Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown’ — CNN's “Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown” took home two Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards last night. This is the first time CNN has been awarded a primetime Emmy. (The network has won several News & Documentary Emmy awards).

Discussion: Deadline.com and CNN

Brian Anthony Hernandez / Mashable:
Netflix Wins Two Emmys for ‘House of Cards’ Over Major TV Dramas

Discussion: themusic.com.au, Hispanic Business Magazine and Deadline.com

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:

Politico Plans for New York Are Drawing Some Doubt — Until last week, Capital New York was an obscure Web publication that covered New York City culture and politics with a handful of staff members. It produced long, thoughtful pieces on topics like the Metropolitan Opera and the finances …

Discussion: @mlcalderone, @niemanlab, @mikevilensky, @escarry, @meriwetherk and @rachelsklar

Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:

Video isn't breaking the internet: The industry giants are — The web can't handle video, goes the common refrain. For example, Comcast estimates that if people wanted to watch the television content they watch on its pay TV service using the web, each home would consume 648 gigabytes per month.

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

How Syria Media Advisers Decided Who Would Speak to President Assad — Last Monday, ABC's George Stephanopoulos got the call that virtually every journalist wanted to get this week. Come to Syria, he was told, and President Bashar al-Assad will talk to you about the country's civil war and the West's threats to attack.

Discussion: Mediaite, TVNewser, The Huffington Post and New York Magazine

Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer / FP Passport:

Is Al Jazeera America Simply CNN, Minus Wolf Blitzer? — It's been just under a month since Al Jazeera America first hit the airwaves, and what a month it's been — with the Syria story lurching from seemingly imminent U.S. strikes to a looming congressional vote to this weekend's chemical weapons deal.

Discussion: Journalism.org, USA Today, Politico, The Atlantic Wire, Los Angeles Times, The Wrap, Mediaite, Broadcasting & Cable, TheBlaze.com and The Huffington Post

Sheera Frenkel / BuzzFeed:

Women Are Covering The Hell Out Of The Syria War — So Why Haven't You Noticed? — Female journalists are behind some of the most important reporting from the most dangerous place in the world for the press. Woman, promote thyself! — A woman looks on as a Syrian rebel poses for the camera near Aleppo, Syria.

Discussion: FishbowlDC and BAGnewsNotes

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing:

How does the music industry get people to pay for digital content? — Music and news are very different businesses, but the digital age presented them both with a very similar problem: how do you get someone to pay for something they can get for free? — It's a question the music industry …

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Netflix Uses Pirate Sites to Determine What Shows to Buy — Video streaming giant Netflix sees itself as one of the most prominent competitors to the many pirate sites that offer video content without owners' permission. — However, these pirate sites also offer Netflix valuable information …

Discussion: BBC, Wired.co.uk, Businessweek, @skwerl, Techdirt, The Week, Business Insider, Forbes, @jjloa, WebProNews, The FJP, Softpedia News, CNET, Daily Mail, @mindcrash, @codinghorror, Electronista, The Raw Story and Boing Boing

Jason Rezaian / WorldViews:

Four years later, Twitter and Facebook flash back online in parts of Iran — By Jason Rezaian, Published: September 16 at 3:34 pm — TEHRAN — Facebook and Twitter were accessible to some Internet users in Tehran on Monday night without the aid of anti-filtering software …

Discussion: qz.com, CNET, @thomaserdbrink, Valleywag, @bbcmonitoring, The Verge, Digits, @ijournalista, @gordonmacmillan and @tsimonite

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Libel proposals will have ‘chilling effect’ on newspaper investigations — Plans to cut cost of taking libel action against publishers or broadcasters risk vexatious claims, say campaigners — Government proposals to cut the cost of taking libel action against publishers or broadcasters will have a …