Mediagazer: How many people really pay for digital news? (Alan D. Mutter/Reflections of a Newsosaur)

9:05 PM ET, September 25, 2013

Top News:

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

Jeff Bezos: Are You Throwing a Party for Your Guests — or for Yourself? — Amazon CEO Talks with ABC News about The Washington Post and Customer-Centricity — Amazon founder-CEO Jeff Bezos has some new Kindles to sell — which, so far, have been well-received.

Discussion: The Wrap and AllThingsD

Katherine Fung / The Huffington Post:
Jeff Bezos: Washington Post Purchase ‘Is A Personal Investment’

Discussion: Today, Poynter, The Verge, ABC News, CNN, International Business Times, FishbowlDC and Businessweek

Alan D. Mutter / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

How many people really pay for digital news? — Now that roughly a third of the nation's newspapers are charging for access to their web and mobile content, the early evidence suggests that digital audiences aren't nearly as enthusiastic about paying for news as publishers are about charging for it.

Discussion: @niemanlab and @emilysteel

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Lloyd's List, the world's oldest newspaper, to give up on print — Lloyd's List, which lays claim to be the world's oldest continuously published newspaper, is to become a totally digital entity by the end of this year. — The paper, founded in 1734, is regarded as the leading news …

Discussion: Lloyd's List, Informa News, FishbowlNY and The Huffington Post

Katelyn Belyus / Folio:

Winning the Paywall Debate — Paywalls have their detractors, but here's one publisher's case in favor. — We're doing something revolutionary at The Nation: we're finally testing different paywall strategies. Sharing this is like dumping my purse on the table of a restaurant—it's a mixed bag of embarrassment and pride.

Amol Sharma / Wall Street Journal:

Twitter Strikes Deal With NFL — Football League Will Produce Short, Ad-Supported Highlights Site — The National Football League has reached a deal with Twitter Inc. to make football highlights and other content available on the social- media service, the latest big partnership aimed …

Discussion: AdAge, Reuters, CNET, AllThingsD and The Verge

Mathew Ingram / paidContent:

If Popular Science cares about science, why not try to fix comments instead of killing them? — Popular Science magazine says it is shutting down comments because they are “bad for science,” but what's really bad for science is closing off a potential avenue for informed debate around the topics the site is writing about.

Discussion: Slate, The Atlantic Online, Yahoo! News, @talkingnewmedia, Geekosystem, Rhetorica, The Week, Guardian, ComPost, The Daily Caller, Boing Boing, @michaelshermer, Popular Science and @616earth

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

Sudan loses Internet access — and it looks like the government is behind it — Internet intelligence corporation Renesys confirmed reports Wednesday that Sudan has been cut off from the Internet. Al Arabiya reported earlier Wednesday morning that Internet access was cut and schools …

Discussion: @antderosa, Guardian, Mashable, Softpedia News, Business Insider and Committee to Protect …

Liam Corcoran / Wannabe Hacks:

EXCLUSIVE - Guardian and Cardiff scrap plans for Journalism MA — The Guardian and Cardiff University have scrapped their plans to launch a journalism masters degree. — There was much publicity last year when the joint venture, for a course in Journalism with Digital Media …

Discussion: Press Gazette and @kingstonjourno

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘Wall Street Journal’ editor Gerard Baker decries native advertising as a ‘Faustian pact’ — Wall Street Journal managing editor Gerard Baker took to a podium last night and warned of the dangers of “native advertising,” a big buzzword these days describing the practice of presenting brand-generated content in the style of editorial.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Los Angeles Times, FishbowlNY, @jaywattsiii and eMedia Vitals

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

As Goodreads grows up, it can't please everyone. Should it try? — Goodreads, a social networking site for book lovers, has grown a lot since its acquisition by Amazon earlier this year. And as it adds members, it's facing some of the same challenges that big online communities like Twitter and Reddit have experienced before it.

Discussion: Mashable, Dear Author, Melville House Books, ComPost and Book Binge

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

This American Watchdog? CIR and PRX pilot a radio show highlighting investigative reporting — The Center for Investigative Reporting is partnering with PRX to produce a pilot for a radio show called Reveal. The hour-long show will focus on investigative reporting and the behind-the-scenes process of producing it.

Discussion: @cironline and @niemanlab

Randall Palmer / Reuters:

Canadian regulators team up to watch telecoms pricing — (Reuters) - Two of Canada's top regulators said on Wednesday they would cooperate to ensure affordable prices for telecommunications and broadcasting services, a key platform of the federal government's telecommunications policy.

Jesse Walker / Hit & Run:

Belgian Racist Uses Spurious Copyright Claim to Censor Libertarian Websites — Two left-libertarian organizations, the Center for a Stateless Society and Students for a Stateless Society, are fending off a bigot who believes his critics don't have a right to quote his words while criticizing him.

Discussion: Techdirt

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Pinterest sees growing number of journalists using the site, makes related changes — Oh, How Pinteresting! — Pinterest introduced new article pins Tuesday; links to articles you've pinned can include a story's headline and byline, plus a description as well as a link.

Discussion: Oh, How Pinteresting!, Audience Development, Forbes, VatorNews and Guardian

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Netflix exec: HBO would have many more customers if it sold online-only subscriptions — HBO has long said that it has no plans to sell subscriptions directly over the internet, but Netflix CFO David Wells suggested Wednesday at a Goldman Sachs conference that the cable channel should rethink that decision.

Discussion: Consumerist and WebProNews

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Twitter Debuts Emergency Alerts Service — Here's another use case for Twitter, the social network that wants to be everywhere: Emergency service aid. — The company on Wednesday unveiled its Alerts service, a way for agencies to deliver “accurate information from credible organizations” during times of crisis.

Discussion: blog.twitter.com, ZDNet, BetaNews, Social News Daily, Mashable and Pocket-lint

Leslie Picker / Bloomberg:

Belo Said to Have 70% Shareholder Support for Gannett Offer — Belo Corp. (BLC), the TV station owner that is the target of a $1.5 billion takeover bid by Gannett Co., has support from more than 70 percent of its shareholders for the deal, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Discussion: Radio & Television … and Gannett Blog

Mahesh Sharma / TechCrunch:

Verdict On Pakistan YouTube Ban Delayed As Case Is Moved To High Court Full Bench — The year-long saga of the Pakistan government's YouTube ban has just taken another twist, as a case to unblock the website has been referred to a panel of Lahore High Court justices who will now decide whether …

Discussion: Softpedia News, VentureBeat and The Next Web

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:

USA Today's Larry Kramer: Newspapers must aid discovery and deliver unique content to survive — TheGrill: USA Today Publisher - Newspapers Must Be Conversation-Starters in the Digital Age (Video) — Unique content and the reader's process of discovery are the key to the survival …

Eliza Brooke / TechCrunch:

Automattic Acquires File-Sharing Service Cloudup To Build A Faster Media Library And Enable Co-Editing — Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, has acquired file-sharing service Cloudup, which launched in beta in June. The acquisition will help Automattic improve two features …

Discussion: VentureBeat and Raanan Bar-Cohen

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Is Newt Gingrich breaking CNN's rules? — Just weeks into his new role, CNN Crossfire host Newt Gingrich has already broken some ethical rules set forth by the network's executive vice president of standards and practices, according to a new report from Media Matters For America, the liberal watchdog group.

Discussion: Mother Jones and TheBlaze.com

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Amazon Tries Breaking From the Streaming-Video Pack With Offline Viewing for New Kindles — Amazon has been spending a lot of time and money trying to catch up to Netflix in the subscription-video race. So far, not much luck: Many more people seem to be watching video via Reed Hastings's service.

Discussion: Amazon.com, TechCrunch, GigaOM, Variety, Engadget, PublishersWeekly.com, GigaOM, CNET, VentureBeat and ZDNet

Ted Johnson / Variety:

FCC to Propose Rule That May Limit Media Ownership — The never-ending debate over media consolidation this week will focus on an esoteric rule that involving how the FCC calculates whether groups like Sinclair, Univision and Fox meet or exceed caps on station ownership.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and Los Angeles Times

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

YouTube rolls out a new royalty-free music library — The number of songs you're legally allowed to mix into the personal videos you upload to YouTube is understandably low when it comes to well-known songs. — For this reason, YouTube is launching a new royalty-free audio library …