Mediagazer: Kim Dotcom's Mega ‘not being used for wide-scale copyright infringement’ (Stuart Dredge/Guardian)

3:55 AM ET, October 18, 2013

Top News:

Why Glenn Greenwald's new media venture is a big deal — Glenn Greenwald, who has published many of the most important scoops from the Edward Snowden leaks, is leaving The Guardian and setting up a new media venture with long-time journalist Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill from The Nation.

Discussion: Jack Shafer, @jayrosen_nyu, @ageis, @ethanz, TheBlaze.com and Media Law Prof Blog

Adrienne LaFrance / The Great Debate:
Former Civil Beat reporter tells what it's like to work with Pierre Omidyar

Discussion: Guardian, USA Today, The Huffington Post, @ahmed, @sarahkay, Big News Network.com, @mlcalderone, @raju, BBC, Corporate Intelligence, GigaOM, The Switch and Softpedia News

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:
The extraordinary promise of the new Greenwald-Omidyar venture (UPDATED)

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Mediaite, paidContent, Christian Christensen, @joshuafoust, @20committee, Washington Post, The New York Observer, Wired, Kirk LaPointe's … and Press Gazette

Eric Newton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Eric Newton: Students can pull journalism schools into the digital age — Journalism education isn't evolving fast enough, and you should help change that — Editor's note: Last summer, longtime Knight Foundation executive Eric Newton issued a call for reform in journalism education …

Discussion: Knight Foundation, Poynter, FishbowlNY, Kirk LaPointe's …, @albertocairo, Politico, @raju, @niemanlab, Big News Network.com and IRE.org

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:
More code, more coders: Knight invests $4 million to expand Knight-Mozilla partnership

Discussion: Online News Association, Poynter, FishbowlDC, Knight Foundation, @dansinker and @a_l

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.

Discussion: mUmBRELLA

Darren Boyle / Press Gazette:

FT says that following shift from print to digital it now employs more journalists than ever before — The shift from print to digital journalism can lead to an increase in editorial staff according to the Financial Times. — Mary Beth Christie, the title's head of operations …

Discussion: @raju

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

It's Official: Mike Hopkins Named CEO of Hulu — Interim CEO Andy Forssell exits — Hulu has announced Fox Networks distribution chief as CEO of Hulu. — Interim CEO Andy Forssell will be leaving the company. — “After an extensive search, Mike was simply the best candidate for the job.

Discussion: Business Wire, AdAge, @brianstelter, Los Angeles Times, Home Media Magazine, The Wrap, Hollywood Reporter, NetNewsCheck.com, Engadget, @xpangler and Broadcasting & Cable

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Union warns ‘Philadelphia Inquirer’ employees to be ‘careful what you say’ — Stormy weather at ‘The Philadelphia Inquirer.’ — The union that represents hundreds of employees at the embattled Philadelphia Inquirer has a warning for them. — “It has become painfully clear that your work emails …

Discussion: @abeaujon and The Huffington Post

Rem Rieder / USA Today:
Philly newspaper stars in ugly melodrama

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

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:

Cinedigm Pays $51.5M for Home Entertainment Player GVE — Cinedigm has acquired home entertainment company Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment (GVE) for $51.5 million, the company announced Thursday. GVE was a division of Gaiam, a health and wellness company, that became a player in the home entertainment space …

Discussion: Home Media Magazine and Variety

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

How entrepreneurial journalism is building a local voice in Egypt — Mandara Online, an Egyptian NGO, acts as a portal for news and content from across rural and disconnected Upper Egypt — Read more — Other top stories — Also on Journalism.co.uk...

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Breitbart News shakes up masthead — Breitbart News, the combative right-wing news and opinion network, will today announce “a fundamental restructuring” of its masthead that will leave the 27-year-old Alexander Marlow in charge of editorial operations, POLITICO has learned.

Discussion: @bankofkev, @dylanbyers and @noltenc

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Kim Dotcom's Mega ‘not being used for wide-scale copyright infringement’ — CEO Vikram Kumar claims cloud storage service is appealing less to pirates and more to ‘accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, architects...’ — Kim Dotcom may be seen as a villainous pirate-king by the creative industries …

Discussion: Plagiarism Today and Softpedia News

Ricardo Bilton / VentureBeat:

The rise of ‘dark search’ is great for publishers, bad for keyword stuffers — At Google, the keyword is inching towards its inevitable, overdue demise. But then again, maybe its death is already here. Over the past few months publishers have seem a dramatic rise in the amount of traffic …

Adam Bernstein / Washington Post:

Journalist Sara Fritz dies at 68 — Sara Fritz, a Washington-based journalist who worked on early computer-assisted investigations, won awards for her coverage of the White House and Congress, and wrote searchingly about the suicide of her 12-year-old son, died Oct. 16 at George Washington University Hospital.

Discussion: Tampa Bay Times, Los Angeles Times, @shelbygrad, @jamesvgrimaldi, @palewire, @derekwillis and @derekwillis

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

IsoHunt to Shut Down After Settlement With Hollywood Studios — The BitTorrent indexer has agreed to pay $110 million to resolve a copyright infringement case. — The Motion Picture Association of America has announced that it has reached a settlement with the operators of IsoHunt …

Discussion: Ars Technica, GigaOM, TorrentFreak, Variety, Deadline.com, Techdirt, Daily Dot and The Next Web

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Behind the Scenes on Changes to a Story on Pope Francis — Laurie Goodstein covers one of the most scrutinized beats at The Times. As national religion correspondent, her recent articles on Pope Francis have been the topic of plenty of conversation and discussion - and have had very heavy readership.