Mediagazer: New York's attorney general should battle real crime instead of fake online reviews (Jack Shafer)

4:50 AM ET, September 25, 2013

Top News:

Suzanne LaBarre / Popular Science:

Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments — Starting today, PopularScience.com will no longer accept comments on new articles. Here's why. — Comments can be bad for science. That's why, here at PopularScience.com, we're shutting them off. — It wasn't a decision we made lightly.

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

YouTube Announces A New Commenting System, Powered By Google+, With Threaded, Ranked And Private Conversations — YouTube today announced a new commenting system that will be powered by Google+. The system, which is launching on channel discussion tabs this week before rolling out to all videos …

Discussion: YouTube Blog, AllThingsD, Softpedia News, @shwood, @copyrightlibn, BetaNews, ReadWrite, VatorNews, @fredericl, @djsnm, Pocket-lint, VentureBeat, WebProNews, CNET, The Verge, The Next Web, @joshconstine, @iceflowstudios and Electronista

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

No new TV viewers or newspaper subscribers are being born, BuzzFeed president says — Speaking at a NewsCred conference last week, BuzzFeed President Jon Steinberg talked about his theory that content, and the ways it is distributed, will be “completely decoupled, I would say, in the next five years.”

Discussion: @noirinhegarty, @rajunarisetti, @stuartdredge and @dianaruggontv

P.J. Bednarski / mediapost.com:
Iger Sees Little Cord-Cutting, Says Netflix is Good, Not Dominant

Discussion: MediaPost, Variety, Los Angeles Times, Home Media Magazine and Deadline.com

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:

TheGrill: Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia - 'Cable's an Inefficient Packaging System' — Aereo — which has drawn the legal ire of networks for providing their content via tiny antennas — has been painted as a potential killer of the television and cable industries.

Discussion: Media Money …

Tony Maglio / The Wrap:
Aereo Expands to Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and San Antonio

Discussion: Variety, Radio & Television …, CNET, Digital Journal, Broadcast, multichannel.com/rss, VentureBeat and Variety

Dean Starkman / Columbia Journalism Review:

AllThingsD and the limits of the personal franchise news model — A few breakout stars don't signal a general power shift in journalism — A couple of weeks ago, Felix Salmon asked: — “Can Rupert Murdoch hold on to Kara Swisher?” — Well, now we have our answer.

Discussion: @mathewi, @felixsalmon, @deanstarkman, @karaswisher, @emilybell and @ampressman

Luisita Lopez Torregrosa / New York Times:

Tina Brown Goes Global — NEW YORK — The evolving and shifting global women's movement is about to get more crowded and more star-powered as Tina Brown, the storied magazine editor who has decided to leave publishing, takes her Women in the World celebrity-studded show out into the world.

Discussion: @blakehounshell, @dylanbyers, @charlesrollet1 and @mckaycoppins

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Spanish journalist missing in Syria — The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the immediate release of Spanish journalist Marc Marginedas in Syria. The special correspondent for the Barcelona-based El Periódico was kidnapped by rebel jihadi fighters on September 4 near the city of Hama …

Jack Shafer:

New York's attorney general should battle real crime instead of fake online reviews — “Jack Shafer's latest column is his absolute BEST! Ever!” — New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman made Page One news yesterday, Sept. 23, in the New York Times with his announcement …

Discussion: Consumerist, ZDNet and VentureBeat

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Former Tribune Co. executive sentenced to 2 years — U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan Tuesday sentenced former Tribune Co. executive Stephanie Pater to two years in prison, Meredith Rodriguez reports. Pater, whom former Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell appointed to her post in 2008 …

Karen Fratti / 10,000 Words:

BBC.com and Quora Partner Up For New Column — BBC.com and Quora announced a partnership this week. It's called the Quora Column, and BBC.com contributors will write columns based on popular discussions on the Q&A site. — They launched a trial column this summer on the travel pages, where it's been a success.

Discussion: Slate and mediapost.com

Richard Horgan / FishbowlNY:

Date Officially Set for International Herald Tribune Rebranding — The Twitter account @IHTComms let the cat out of the bag last week. But today, it was officially confirmed by publisher Stephen Dunbar-Johnson in a letter to International Herald Tribune readers: October 15 is the day the paper …

Discussion: Channel NewsAsia, SocialTimes and GalleyCat

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Twitter will send alerts to your phone about popular people and their tweets — Twitter will begin sending new push notifications to users based on the activity of the people they follow, whether it's a new account or a popular tweet. Based on Twitter's 6-month-old MagicRecs account …

Discussion: blog.twitter.com, VatorNews, @panzer, BuzzFeed, Engadget, Los Angeles Times, @scalzi, ReadWrite, The Next Web, TechCrunch and @calebgarling

Matthew Kassel / The New York Observer:

CUNY J-School Will Get a Center for Business Journalism — A new business journalism center is coming to the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, thanks to a $3 million donation from the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Family Foundation. — The foundation was established …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:

AOL CEO Leads Charge to Pry Ad Dollars From TV — Automated Ad Exchanges Are Key to AOL Strategy to Woo TV Dollars to Online Video — AOL Inc. Chief Executive Tim Armstrong stood on stage Monday amid thumping music and arty projections, once again playing cheerleader for an online video industry …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Dan Colarusso named executive editor of Reuters Digital — Dan Colarusso is the new executive editor of Reuters Digital, making him the third person this year to hold that title at the news service. — His appointment, announced in an internal memo obtained by Capital …

Discussion: The Wrap, @peterlauria3, @peterlauria3, FishbowlNY, Talking Biz News, Politico, @niemanlab, @joepompeo and @antderosa

Nick Wingfield / NYT Bits:

Internet Pioneer RealNetworks Seeks Revival — SEATTLE — When a ground-breaking product called RealPlayer was released in its earliest form in 1995, Steven P. Jobs had yet to return to Apple, Google's future founders had only just met and Mark Zuckerberg was 10 years old.

Discussion: AllThingsD, VentureBeat and TechCrunch

Jim Romenesko:

Rem Rieder is named USA Today feature editor — Rem Rieder, who resigned as American Journalism Review editor in June to become USA Today media editor, is taking on the additional duties of feature editor at Gannett's flagship paper. The editor's memo: