Mediagazer: An Interview With Pierre Omidyar (David Carr/New York Times)

11:55 AM ET, October 21, 2013

Top News:

Tech Wealth and Ideas Are Heading Into News — Producing serious news is an expensive enterprise with a beleaguered business model, one that remains tied to the tracks as a locomotive of splintered audiences and declining advertising hurtles toward it. — But just when it looked as if all were lost …

David Carr / New York Times:

An Interview With Pierre Omidyar — Pierre M. Omidyar, the founder of eBay and now a philanthropist, has been much in the news after it was revealed last week that he would be backing a general-interest news site to the tune of $250 million. — If the leak about the new venture came out of the blue …

Discussion: Reflections of a Newsosaur, Guardian, @michaelluo, Gannett Blog, @jenniferpreston, @mlcalderone, @brianstelter, @gregorydjohnsen, @dangillmor, @justinjm1, @paullewis, @carr2n, @jcstearns, @nasimzehra, @tweetsintheme, @dicktofel and TheBlaze.com

Ben Dimiero / Media Matters for America:

Fox News Reportedly Used Fake Commenter Accounts To Rebut Critical Blog Posts — NPR media reporter David Folkenflik writes in his forthcoming book Murdoch's World that Fox News' public relations staffers used an elaborate series of dummy accounts to fill the comments sections of critical blog posts with pro-Fox arguments.

Discussion: Erik Wemple, FishbowlNY, @nprinskeep, @sarahw, @jason_cowell, @huffpostmedia, @ericboehlert, @mlcalderone, @felixsalmon, New York Magazine, The Raw Story, The Huffington Post and Inside Cable News

Geneva Overholser / Los Angeles Times:
'Murdoch's World' is a complicated one

Discussion: Huntington News and Media Law Prof Blog

David Pogue / A Note from Pogue:

Goodbye—and Hello — It's true: After 13 years at the New York Times, I've accepted a new job. Leaving The Times is a big deal. My years there coincided with the explosion of just about everything important in today's tech — the Web, social media, e-books, smartphones, tablets, duck-faced selfies.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Business Insider, @jackmirkinson, @steverubel, @mattbuchanan, @mbyhoff, @acarvin, @adamostrow, @miriamgottfried, @nycjim, @peterlauria3 and @pogue

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Yahoo To Launch Consumer Tech Site With Help Of New York Times' David Pogue — Yahoo is planning to launch a consumer tech website with the help of long-time NYT columnist David Pogue. — The news comes by way of Brian Stelter, long-time NYT writer, who reports via Twitter that Pogue announced …

Discussion: @brianstelter, The New York Observer, Politico, Gawker, @vivianschiller, @howardkurtz, @howardkurtz, The Next Web, @samfbiddle, @stevebuttry, Talking Biz News, @brianstelter and @pkafka

Cliff Edwards / Bloomberg:

Netflix Poised to Pass HBO in Paid U.S. Subscribers — Netflix Inc. (NFLX) is poised to pass HBO in paid U.S. subscribers, showing Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings is making progress toward a goal of transforming the streaming service to a Web-based television network.

Discussion: VentureBeat, The Verge, @iwantmedia, @jonerlichman, @jimaley, CNET, Engadget and Macgasm

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
The slow but inevitable decline of Netflix's DVD business

Discussion: MarketWatch, GDP Insider and DailyFinance

Spiegel Online:

NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email — The NSA has been systematically eavesdropping on the Mexican government for years. It hacked into the president's public email account and gained deep insight into policymaking and the political system. The news is likely to hurt ties between the US and Mexico.

Discussion: @arusbridger, @shanewharris, Softpedia News, @doliaestevez, @ajcorchado, ZDNet, @thinkmexican, NBCNews, Business Insider, Hillicon Valley, CNET, TechCrunch, The Verge, Gawker, Mediaite, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, Globe and Mail and Boing Boing

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Publishing, broadcasting revenues down at Gannett — Revenues were down in most of Gannett's segments in the third quarter of 2013, according to the company's new earnings report. Advertising revenue at Gannett's publishing properties fell 5.9 percent compared with the same period the year before.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Broadcasting & Cable, USA Today and @poynter

Sue Zeidler / Reuters:

Murdoch re-elected Twenty-First Century Fox chairman — (Reuters) - Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was re-elected chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc despite protests from shareholder groups who sought to separate the chairman and chief executive positions of the family-dominated company.

Discussion: Guardian, FishbowlNY, Bloomberg, UPI, Sydney Morning Herald, TheStreet.com, Hollywood Reporter and Reuters

Adam Popescu / Mashable:

Is Reposted Content the Secret to More Page Views? — The conventional wisdom among online publishers and creators is that volume equals traffic. The more content, the more clicks and page views. The problem is that in our 24-hour news cycle culture, outlets content has a short shelf life.

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Siddharth Varadarajan, Editor of Indian newspaper The Hindu, resigns via Twitter — Newspaper editor quits via Twitter … And with that, the editor of India's The Hindu newspaper appears to have quit Monday morning, or at least announced he was doing so to his 60,418 followers.

Discussion: @svaradarajan, @the_rain_maker, @suchetadalal, @maneesht, @sunda_m and @jeffjarvis

Jennifer Mizgata / Online News Association:

Guardian, Boston Globe, AxisPhilly, Texas Tribune take home 2013 Online Journalism Awards — ATLANTA — Coverage of the the Boston Marathon bombings, national security and international elections by news organizations large and small took top honors Saturday night at the 2013 Online Journalism Awards Banquet …