Mediagazer: Q&A: Editor Ben Shapiro of TruthRevolt, the right-wing version of Media Matters (Betsy Rothstein/FishbowlDC)

3:20 AM ET, October 10, 2013

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Al Gore Tried To Buy Twitter And Merge It With Current. What If He'd Succeeded? — Don't you just love all the stuff that comes out when a hot tech company declares it's going public? I'm thinking in particular about a tidbit from Nick Bilton's piece in the Times magazine about the intrigue and betrayals in Twitter's early years.

Discussion: Business Insider, Telegraph, Mashable, @jeffbercovici and GigaOM

Nick Bilton / New York Times:

“Hatching Twitter” excerpts depict a detached Jack Dorsey who later attempted to recast Twitter's history — All Is Fair in Love and Twitter — Right in the center of South Park, a large, grassy oval near San Francisco's financial district, there is a rinky-dink playground with slides …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Twitter Gets Its Strongest TV Tie-Up So Far, With an Ambitious Comcast Deal — Twitter has been trying to buddy up with the TV industry for the past few years. Now it has its it biggest payoff yet: A far-reaching deal with Comcast that aims to turn the social network into a TV-watching service.

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Could Twitter Help Fight Cord-Cutting? Here's Proof It Can — Underlying the ever-deeper partnerships that Twitter is forging with TV networks is the premise that getting viewers to tweet is a way the television industry can help itself. When people tweet about what they're watching …

Discussion: blog.twitter.com, The Next Web, WebProNews and TechCrunch

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Al Jazeera will launch a dedicated online channel, bring videos back to YouTube — Quatar-based TV news network Al Jazeera will launch a dedicated online video channel within the next few months. The channel was announced at the MIPCOM industry convention in Cannes this week …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, FierceOnlineVideo News and Al Jazeera Press Office

Ruth Bazinet / Medium:

Twitter's New Media Evangelist Needs More Than 1,200 Tweets … Twitter's attrition rate is hindering its ability to adequately grow its user base, and ultimately its revenue. Twitter is currently losing money, and its losses are accelerating as it heads towards an IPO.

Discussion: @craigsilverman, @kingisafink, @aureliacotta, @aureliacotta, @rajunarisetti, @joshsternberg, @antderosa and @mathewi

Guardian:

Press still plans self-regulation despite ministers' rejection, says Times editor — John Witherow's comments come as Lord Justice Leveson refuses to enter debate on press regulation reform — The editor of the Times yesterday gave the clearest indication yet that a group …

Discussion: bbc.co.uk

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:
UK press on collision course with Parliament over regulation plan which would ‘fatally undermine freedom of expression’

Discussion: Big News Network.com, BBC, @joshhalliday, @domponsford and The Huffington Post

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

BuzzFeed president: ‘We feel strongly that traditional media have given up on young people’ — Jon Steinberg tells MIPCOM audience that his site is ‘bringing more hard news on a relative basis than a lot of the traditional television networks’ — News site BuzzFeed attracted 85m unique visitors in August …

Discussion: MIPBlog, @nedregotten and Kirk LaPointe's …

Betsy Rothstein / FishbowlDC:

Q&A: Editor Ben Shapiro of TruthRevolt, the right-wing version of Media Matters — Love Him, Despise Him, There's an Earnest Quality to Ben Shapiro's Walk Toward the Fire — Breitbart News Editor-at-Large Ben Shapiro isn't necessarily an angry person, but he plays one on TV …

Discussion: 10,000 Words and @ericboehlert

Jodi Enda / Pew Research Center:

In print, newspapers cut opinion — pjbnyc — I really wonder if those focus groups who complained about “too many editorials” had a definition of “editorial” or had one pointed out to them. I tend to doubt it. Editorials aren't often clearly marked, or their purpose isn't clearly stated.

Discussion: Poynter and TheBlaze.com

Katherine Rosman / Wall Street Journal:

In Digital Era, What Does ‘Watching TV’ Even Mean? — Study Suggests More Time Spent on Smartphones, Computers, Tablets Than Television — We spend a full five hours and 16 minutes a day in front of a screen, and that's without even turning on a television.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times

Simon Owens / Daily Dot:

The battle to destroy Wikipedia's biggest sockpuppet army — Email Follow https://twitter.com/simonowens

Discussion: @tsimonite, @jeffjohnroberts, @galenward, SocialTimes and GigaOM

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Financial Times to move to single global print edition — The Financial Times is to institute path-breaking changes to the production of its printed newspaper that appear to be the penultimate step towards becoming a digital-only publication. — A lengthy memo sent yesterday afternoon …

Discussion: TheMediaBriefing.com, New York Times, Talking Biz News, AdAge, Strange Attractor, @dicktofel, @b50, @blakehounshell and @yavuzbaydar

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:
Lionel Barber: FT.com to focus on ‘smart aggregation of content’

Discussion: Financial Times, @vilpponen, USA Today, Telegraph, @mirkolorenz and @mathewi

Darren Boyle / Press Gazette:

Rusbridger defends Snowden leaks claiming ‘any terrorist who can tie his shoelaces’ is aware of surveillance — Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger dismissed criticism of his paper's Edward Snowden surveillance revelations claiming that any terrorist who can tie his shoe laces knows that the internet is being monitored.

Discussion: Hillicon Valley and Guardian