Mediagazer: BBC is in a ‘soft power’ battle with international broadcasters (Chris Tryhorn/Guardian)

11:35 AM ET, November 13, 2013

Top News:

Don't Panic! The ‘Times’ Is Losing Staff, But It Will Be Fine — In August, reporting an article about The New York Times' future, I spoke to Sam Sifton, the former national editor now in charge of various nascent digital initiatives that the paper hopes will allow it to secure more paying customers.

Discussion: Yahoo News, Poynter and WebProNews

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

New York Times Departures Heighten Concerns About Staff Retention — NEW YORK — When New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson was in negotiations this past summer to keep stats guru Nate Silver at the paper, his agent remarked that his client was “the prettiest girl at the party.”

Discussion: Politico, Forbes, FishbowlNY, The New York Observer, @tomgara, @fmanjoo, @fmanjoo, FishbowlDC, USA Today, @sulliview, @dkthomp, Big News Network.com, Capital New York and @brianstelter

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
Abramson to name Lindgren's replacement by year's end; inside and outside candidates being considered

Discussion: bookforum.com

Christine Haughney / New York Times:
Editor of Times Magazine to Step Down at Year's End

Discussion: @phileil, mUmBRELLA, @kateaurthur, @sternbergh, The Wrap, @mysecondempire, Capital New York, The Awl and Poynter

Bronwen Clune / Guardian:

So Twitter is ruining journalism? Really? — The Australian newspaper published an editorial referring to journalists using Twitter as a ‘path to ruin’. It couldn't be more wrong — There is no quicker way for old institutions to look irrelevant than to insist on their relevance.

Discussion: @jimbarrett

Jim Edwards / Business Insider:

Google Is Now Bigger Than Both The Magazine And Newspaper Industries — Google has become so big that sometimes it's difficult to understand just how big it is. It's on course to do $60 billion in revenue this year, almost all of that from advertising. But how big is that in terms of the media it competes against for ad dollars?

Discussion: Forbes, WebProNews and BGR

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Netflix ditches Webkit to roll out slick new UI for smart TVs, Roku boxes and game consoles — Netflix rolled out a big revamp of its user interface for smart TVs and connected devices Tuesday night, moving away from a grid of box shot covers towards a much more visual interface …

Discussion: Netflix US & Canada Blog, FierceOnlineVideo News, CNET, @dalmaer, @dcaunt, Variety and AllThingsD

Angela Watercutter / Wired:
Netflix's New Look Is a Glimpse at the Future of TV

Discussion: USA Today

Chris Hughes / The New Republic:

A Year and a Half Later... What's new at The New Republic — What's new at The New Republic — Today we are launching The New Republic's company blog, New Republic Home News. From time to time, we will use this space to give readers a sense of what's going on inside the company.

Discussion: Poynter, @niemanlab and @rmantri

Wall Street Journal:

Hulu Wants to Be Offered With Pay-TV Bundles — Online Video Outlet Could Be Centralized Location for Full Seasons of Shows … Online video outlet Hulu LLC is in early discussions with several pay-TV providers about potential partnerships, said people familiar with the situation …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and The Next Web

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Former Rolling Stone Editor Eric Bates Joins Omidyar-Greenwald Venture — Eric Bates, the former executive editor of Rolling Stone, is joining the new media organization being launched by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and journalist Glenn Greenwald. — According to a post from Omidyar about NewCo …

Amy Davidson / The New Yorker Blog:

“60 Minutes” and the Benghazi Scandal Trap — “I didn't even have to go into the room to see who it was,” a man calling himself Morgan Jones told Lara Logan, of “60 Minutes,” on October 27th, remembering how he had glimpsed a body through the glass in a door.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …, Pressing Issues, Personanondata and The Huffington Post

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
CBS News and reporter Lara Logan face brutal criticism on flawed Benghazi report

Discussion: @michaeldweiss, @jayrosen_nyu, @katrinanation, @amyargetsinger, @rlocker12, @toddgregory and @saralibby

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Clearleap Raises $20 Million From Susquehanna To Make TV More Multiplatform — Clearleap builds software infrastructure that helps content owners, distributors, and aggregators to make TV and movies available online and on a wide array of devices. While it's spent the last several years …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable

Tom Krazit / paidContent:

Why we are moving our media coverage over to Gigaom — This is the last post we'll publish on paidContent as we move our media coverage under one Gigaom umbrella and a new Media channel. — As one of the last remaining independent tech media startups, we have a keen interest in the future of the media business.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Folio, @sdkstl, @sdkstl, @mathewi, WebProNews, @rafat, @msbrumfield and @thestalwart

Chris Tryhorn / Guardian:

BBC is in a ‘soft power’ battle with international broadcasters — Tony Hall wants a worldwide audience of 500 million by 2022, but CCTV, al-Jazeera and others have global ambitions too — BBC director general Tony Hall wants the corporation to double its international reach …

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Nikki Finke demands $3.5M for breakup with Deadline — The divorce battle between Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke and publishing entrepreneur Jay Penske is starting to look like 1979's “Kramer vs. Kramer.” — The two are locked in a growing legal fight over whether Finke is entitled …

Discussion: @nikkifinke

John Reynolds / Guardian:

Independent's redesign lifts circulation — Relaunch of newspaper on Thursday 7 November led to rise in sales of around 3,000 compared to previous week — The Independent is understood to have enjoyed a circulation lift of around 3,000 copies on the day of its redesign …

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Why Lockhart Steele Sold Curbed to Vox — Digital media startup Vox Media, parent to SB Nation, The Verge and Polygon, will acquire the Curbed suite of blogs — Curbed, Eater, Racked — in a deal that was reported to have been in the neighborhood of $20-$30 million.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

David Meyer / Gigaom:

On-demand photography outfit Scoopshot pulls in $3.9M to expand internationally — A lot of money is going into trying to disrupt the stock photography market - something investors hope will be possible through advances in the quality of smartphone cameras.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Mobile Entertainment and Scoopshot

Jack Marshall / Digiday:

Inside Ad Tech Fraud: Confessions of a Fake Web Traffic Buyer — Online advertising has a fraud problem. Millions of ad impressions are being served to bots and non-human traffic, and ad tech companies are doing little to stop it. Digiday spoke with a former publishing executive …

Discussion: @digiday, AdExchanger, @benkunz, Beyond Search, New York Times, Business Insider and MarketingVox News & Trends

Paul Carsten / Reuters:

Chinese Internet firms sue Baidu for online piracy — BEIJING (Reuters) - A group of Chinese Internet firms, including Tencent Holdings and Sohu.Com Inc, has joined a top U.S. film industry body in seeking 300 million yuan ($49.2 million) in damages from China's Baidu Inc and QVOD for copyright violation.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, PC World and Wall Street Journal

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Good News for the Cable Guys! Subscriber Numbers Dropped Again. — There's not much need to debate cord-cutting anymore: The pay-TV industry is losing subscribers. — But we still don't have a handle on the rate of loss, nor the reason for that loss. — If you're in the pay-TV business …

Discussion: AdAge and @garyfung

Raphael Satter / Washington Post:

Scotland Yard pursuing a criminal investigation following intelligence leaks to the Guardian — LONDON — A specialist unit of Britain's biggest police force is pursuing a criminal investigation following the leak of classified intelligence material to the Guardian newspaper …

Jeffrey Grubb / VentureBeat:

Sony beefed up Video and Music Unlimited so that you'll use them instead of Amazon, Vudu — Sony's Video Unlimited on the PlayStation 4. — NEW YORK CITY — Think about how you watch movies or listen to music on your devices. Like many others, you probably use Spotify, Rdio, Netflix, and Amazon.