Mediagazer: Civic-minded billionaires like Omidyar and Bezos will save journalism, and that's not so bad (Will Bunch/Philly.com)

12:05 PM ET, October 17, 2013

Top News:

Will Bunch / Philly.com:

Civic-minded billionaires like Omidyar and Bezos will save journalism, and that's not so bad — Like it or not, this is the future of American journalism — It I had a dime for every story that I've read over the last decade about how to save American journalism, I'd probably have as much money as this guy.

Discussion: @adrianchen, Mashable, Press Gazette, BBC, @joseiswriting, Guardian, CNET and FishbowlNY

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

The extraordinary promise of the new Greenwald-Omidyar venture (UPDATED) — Adversarial muckrakers + civic-minded billionaire = a whole new world — Make no mistake, news that Glenn Greenwald is leaving The Guardian to start a new publication funded by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar is giant news …

Discussion: GigaOM, Wired, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post, The Monkey Cage, Kirk LaPointe's …, Washington Post and Poynter

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Maker Studios Founder Danny Zappin Buys Website NewMediaRockstars — Danny Zappin, former CEO and co-founder of YouTube multichannel network Maker Studios, has acquired Internet video news website NewMediaRockstars, seeking to build it into what he envisions as an Entertainment Weekly for online entertainment.

Discussion: AllThingsD and YouTube News

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Cameron's triple panics are responsible for the press regulation stalemate — The political attempt to appease regional publishers by tinkering with the cross-party royal charter on press regulation has failed to change their minds. — It looks as though the companies that own Britain's 1,200 regional …

Discussion: Guardian and Techdirt

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Digital subscriptions to the Times and Sunday Times top 150,000 — News UK reveals that the two titles have a total of 350,000 subscribers to print and online editions — News UK has revealed that the number of digital subscribers to the Times and Sunday Times has topped 150,000.

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Journalism festival canceled due to funding problems — When revenue shrank, the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy, didn't cut staff or send people on furloughs or panic or make everyone start a blog. — It just got canceled. — The festival, which would have taken place …

Discussion: Journalism Festival #ijf13, @emilydreyfuss and Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Steve Keenan / World Travel Market:

Amazon pulls Bill Bryson interview ebook reprint over copyright claim — Blogger beware - the battle over Bill Bryson's words — In 1994, freelance travel writer Mike Gerrard interviewed illustrious author Bill Bryson for a magazine called Passport. The article duly appeared.

Discussion: @101holidays, @matthewteller, @strwbilly and @stevenkeenan

Rem Rieder / USA Today:

Philly newspaper stars in ugly melodrama — An editor's ouster stirs controversy in the City of Brotherly Love. — CONNECT — The messy soap opera playing out at The Philadelphia Inquirer reads like a Harvard Business School case study of how not to run a company. — Consider:

Discussion: Philly.com, Philly.com, Philebrity.com, Philadelphia Magazine and Philadelphia Magazine

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: Forbes, @steveengelberg, Poynter, @penenberg, Politico, Associated Press, @jayrosen_nyu, The Huffington Post, @mlcalderone, @sulliview, @pgourevitch, @michaelroston, Talking Points Memo, New York Times and New York Magazine

AFP:

A year on, no news of US journalist captured in Syria — US journalist James Foley turns 40 this week but his family will not be able to celebrate with him. Foley was kidnapped almost a year ago while covering Syria's civil war. — Foley, an experienced freelance reporter …

Nathan Mattise / Ars Technica:

Hackers hit PR Newswire, data shows up alongside recently stolen Adobe code — Krebs on Security hints these aren't the only companies with hacked data on the servers. — Today, Krebs on Security reported that publicity service PR Newswire was hacked in March 2013.

Discussion: Krebs on Security and PR Newswire