Mediagazer: Snowden leaks: David Cameron urges committee to investigate Guardian (Patrick Wintour/Guardian)

5:25 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.

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, Mashable, @tcarmody, Gawker, The Switch, Press Gazette, Talking Points Memo, Slate, Big News Network.com, The Atlantic Wire, Boing Boing, CNET, @raniakhalek, The New York Observer, Business Insider and FishbowlNY

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:
Exclusive: Greenwald exits Guardian for new Omidyar media venture

Discussion: Washington Post, Gannett Blog, New York Times, Glenn Greenwald, Erik Wemple, Mashable, The Verge, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine, @qhardy, Softpedia News, Business Insider, Mediaite, Guardian, VentureBeat, The Huffington Post and GigaOM

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Times Reporter Plans to Take Fight to the Supreme Court — For James Risen, an investigative reporter for The Times, the bad news just keeps on coming. When I wrote about him in late July, a federal appeals panel had just ruled against him in a case related to a leak investigation.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @sulliview and @michaelroston

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

Guardian:

MPs set to investigate Guardian's involvement in Snowden leaks — Keith Vaz says home affairs committee to look at newspaper's activities as part of inquiry into counter-terrorism — A powerful group of MPs will investigate the Guardian's publication of stories about mass surveillance based …

Discussion: @astroehlein, @ccriadoperez, @ggreenwald, @stuartmillar159, @fieldproducer, @paul__johnson and @jonathanhaynes

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 …

Discussion: @jonswaine, @scriptonite, @freedomofpress, @kpoulsen, @doublejake and Committee to Protect …

Ben Quinn / Guardian: New York Times editor defends journalists over Snowden leaks

Jim Romenesko:

Patch now has some unstaffed sites — Patch now has three types of sites: Staffed, Lightly Staffed, and Unstaffed. They're explained in a memo sent this morning by Patch Media CEO Bud Rosenthal. “If we don't start calling unstaffed sites ‘Zombie Patch,’ we've failed.”

Discussion: Poynter and @romenesko

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: Technology Liberation Front, Techdirt, Gizmodo, The Switch and WebProNews

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

Google launches site highlighting journalism tools on offer — The new site outlines the different ways journalists can make best use of Google's tools, and features links to industry use cases — Read more — Other top stories — Also on Journalism.co.uk...

Discussion: Big News Network.com and The Next Web

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: VentureBeat, Betabeat, AllThingsD and @lulupho

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

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 …

Discussion: @nycjim and @niemanlab

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

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

How many top newspaper editors are from digital backgrounds? Still darn few — Upward of 1,400 digital journalists are expected in Atlanta this week for the annual Online News Association conference. That's fairly close to the number of daily American newspapers, at last count roughly 1,380.

Discussion: @megan

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Media tech accelerator Matter announces its second class of startups — Matter, the accelerator for media startups founded by Corey Ford and backed by KQED, the Knight Foundation and PRX, announced its second class of startups Wednesday. Here they are:

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Matter and Knight Foundation

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

Telefonica invests in Rhapsody to push Napster as a global music service — http://www.shutterstock.com/pic- 91078382/stock-photo-young-man- listening-to-music.html — Nov. 12 - 13, 2013 — Spanish telecom company Telefonica has made a strategic stake in U.S. music company Rhapsody, the companies announced today.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Telefónica, GigaOM and CNET

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: @glynmoody, Softpedia News and Boing Boing

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 and /Film

Lauren Hockenson / GigaOM:

Netflix rolls out update for Android app — The choppy, laggy, and all-around unwatchable Netflix app for Android is finally being replaced, thanks to an update that is rolling out now. Spotted by Android Police, Netflix for Android 3.0 has a complete redesign a lot closer to the version available for Apple.

Discussion: Android Police and The Verge

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.