Mediagazer: Can Journalists Cut It as CEOs? (Josh Sternberg/Digiday)

12:35 PM ET, October 16, 2013

Top News:

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Why Pierre Omidyar decided to join forces with Glenn Greenwald for a new venture in news — Yesterday word leaked out that Glenn Greenwald would be leaving The Guardian to help create some new thing backed by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. I just got off the phone with Omidyar …

Discussion: Poynter, @jayrosen_nyu, @johngapper, @thestalwart, @rafat, @michaelroston, @pierre, @jgreendc and @mlcalderone

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Jeremy Scahill, Laura Poitras Teaming Up With Glenn Greenwald On New Media Venture — NEW YORK — Journalists Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras will be working with Glenn Greenwald on a new media venture funded by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Poynter, Big News Network.com, Gawker, The Switch, @tcarmody, Press Gazette and Pressing Issues

BuzzFeed:

Exclusive: Glenn Greenwald Will Leave Guardian To Create New News Organization — Glenn Greenwald, the lawyer and blogger who brought the Guardian the biggest scoop of the decade, is departing the London-based news organization, for a brand new, large-scale, broadly-focused media outlet, he told BuzzFeed Tuesday.

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:

Exclusive: Greenwald exits Guardian for new Omidyar media venture — (Reuters) - Glenn Greenwald, who has made headlines around the world with his reporting on U.S. electronic surveillance programs, is leaving the Guardian newspaper to join a new media venture funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Verge, New York Magazine, @qhardy, Softpedia News, Mediaite and GigaOM

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Court Rejects Appeal Bid by Writer in Leak Case — WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Tuesday declined to hear an appeal by James Risen, an author and a reporter for The New York Times, who was ordered in July to testify in the trial of a former Central Intelligence Agency official accused of leaking information to him.

Discussion: Poynter, Politico, Talking Points Memo, @ggreenwald, @mattapuzzo, @charlie_savage, New York Magazine and The Newspaper Guild

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

Aaron Swartz's last gift to journalism and online privacy finds a new home — (Daniel J. Sieradski via Flickr) — Before Aaron Swartz's suicide in January, he had nearly completed work with Wired's Kevin Poulsen on a secure system to accept messages and documents from anonymous sources over the Internet.

Discussion: Freedom of the Press …, Softpedia News, The Verge, Techdirt, TIME, Co.Exist, Mashable and The Huffington Post

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

BBC to Name Head of VOD Service, Treat It Like Fifth TV Channel — Director of television Danny Cohen discusses possible on-demand offers, expected cost cuts and when broadband delivery of content may supersede broadcasting in the U.K. — LONDON - The BBC is planning to name a controller …

Discussion: Guardian

PandoDaily:

$40-million round for Vox seals it: Venture capital likes media — Vox's new mega-round puts a bow on content's “holy s**t” moment — Today it was revealed that Vox Media, owner of The Verge, SB Nation, and Polygon has raised another $40 million of funding.

Discussion: @emilybell, VideoInk, @editorialiste, @codytoshiro, @elegantlywasted, @hsmittman, @robpegoraro, @rafat, TechCrunch, GigaOM and AllThingsD

Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
Why Accel Is Leading A $40M Round In Vox Media, A Digital Content Company (!)

Discussion: VentureBeat, Digital Media Wire, AdAge, @markos, @reckless, @rafat and @jorilallo

Erin Griffith / PandoDaily:

Refinery29 ditches commerce, raising $20 million to double down on content — Well, that was a fun experiment. Last year fashion site Refinery29 made a big push into “content and commerce,” which was the buzzword du jour for any digital company offering either.

Discussion: Betabeat and @lulupho

Kadhim Shubber / Wired UK:

BuzzFeed's Jonah Peretti on balancing investigative journalism with cute kittens — Founder of BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post, Jonah Peretti's impact on the way online content is created and consumed is perhaps immeasurable. From the share button “Reblog” to BuzzFeed's list-based approach to journalism …

Jim Romenesko:

Patch now has some unstaffed sites … * Here's an example of an unstaffed Patch site — * Read Patch editors' farewells

Discussion: Poynter and @romenesko

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline:

Marvel Preps 60-Episode Package Of Four Series & A Mini For VOD & Cable Networks — EXCLUSIVE: The notorious secrecy that surrounds Marvel's projects has been heightened to the nth degree for this one. No one would breathe a word, with rumors that everyone from top to bottom is bound …

Discussion: Wired, The Huffington Post, Digital Spy, /Film and The Verge

Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:

AwesomenessTV, Hearst to Create Channel Aimed at Teen Girls — Keach Hagey … When Hearst Corp. wanted to expand its affluent-male Esquire brand into television, it linked up with a cable channel. But to establish a video channel for its teen girl bible Seventeen, Hearst is turning to Google Inc. 's YouTube.

Discussion: Folio, The Wrap, Digital Journal and Variety

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

MPAA Says Piracy Damages Can't Be Measured — As the trial date moves closer, the arguments between the MPAA and BitTorrent search engine isoHunt are heating up. — One of the issues the two parties are in disagreement over is whether isoHunt should be able to question the notion that piracy is actually hurting the movie industry.

Discussion: Softpedia News

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

Can digital rentals block piracy? New site gathers the data — The most popular content still isn't available quickly, cheaply, and legally. — Google made changes to its search algorithm last year in an effort to demote sites associated with piracy, but the entertainment industry continues …

Discussion: The Switch, Gizmodo and Technology Liberation Front

Shalini Ramachandran / Corporate Intelligence:

In Aereo Fight, Are Comcast and NBCUniversal at Odds? … Are Comcast Corp.'s cable business and its NBCUniversal entertainment unit on the same page when it comes to the Aereo legal battle? That's a question worth asking in the wake of Friday's petition by major broadcasters seeking …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and @shaliniwsj

Matthew Futterman / Wall Street Journal:

NFL Explores New Slate of Thursday Night Games — SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN — Shalini Ramachandran … The National Football League is considering selling another slate of Thursday games to a media outlet to increase the audience for football on one of television's most competitive nights …

Discussion: Deadline.com, NY Daily News, bizjournals, ESPN, Bleacher Report, CBSSports.com and Awful Announcing

Zach Bergson / Digiday:

NowThis: Snapchatting the News — NowThis News, the mobile video news organization whose push onto Instagram made headlines this summer, is now moving onto a new social video frontier: Snapchat. — Stories, Snapchat's latest feature, allows users to take a series of videos and images that can be viewed and shared within 24 hours.

Discussion: Mashable and @digiday

AdAge:

Effort to Split Murdoch From Chairman Role Resumes at 21st Century Fox — Similar Drives Have Fallen Short Before — 21st Century Fox Inc. investors backing a resolution to strip the chairman job from CEO Rupert Murdoch said they have won the support of shareholder-advisory firm Glass, Lewis & Co.

Discussion: Bloomberg

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Twitter's changing its direct messaging policy, some journalists are ready to take advantage — Twitter is changing an old policy that meant that you could only be DM'd by — that is, you could only receive a direct message from — users that you follow. (So if I follow John Doe …

Discussion: Mashable and Pocket-lint

Casey Newton / The Verge:
This just in: why news is Twitter's next frontier

Discussion: @mcproulx

Journalism.co.uk:

Acuerdo: Long-form journalism for ‘pissed-off readers’ — The ‘journalistic start-up’ and ‘innovations lab’ is looking to incorporate numerous elements of digital journalism into a bi-monthly, tablet-first edition — Previous articles — From our editors' blog

Patrick Wintour / Guardian:

Snowden leaks: David Cameron urges committee to investigate Guardian — PM says leaks have damaged national security and suggests MPs could ‘examine issue and make further recommendations’ — David Cameron has encouraged a Commons select committee to investigate whether the Guardian …

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Ebook subscription startup Oyster expands to iPad and opens to all; some stats from Scribd — Oyster, the Peter Thiel-backed startup that aims to be a Netflix for ebooks, was iPhone-only and invite-only for its first six weeks. On Wednesday, though, Oyster launched its iPad app and opened up to everyone.

Discussion: Oyster HQ Blog, VentureBeat, Fast Company, SlashGear and Talking New Media