Mediagazer: Roundup: Staff Departures, an ‘Incorrect Promise’ and More (Margaret Sullivan/The Public Editor's …)

10:00 PM ET, November 13, 2013

Top News:

Stand-Alone Food Section Faces Demise in Bay Area — In the food-obsessed Bay Area, The San Francisco Chronicle's food section has been as much of a city institution as the cable car, and to many San Franciscans, more useful. Over the years it has won many awards and developed a dedicated following.

Discussion: SFist, @dhmeyer, Grub Street New York, @kimseverson, @pete_wells and @qualityrye

Audrey Cooper / San Francisco Chronicle:

San Francisco Chronicle's managing editor: We're increasing investment in food coverage — Managing Editor's response to New York Times — It's impossible to separate food, restaurants and the culture of farm-to-table living from the San Francisco experience.

Discussion: @sfchronicle, @john_birdsall and @audreycoopersf

Matt Crawford / SF Station:

New York Times, Chronicle Feud Over Report About SF Food Coverage — A bi-coastal food fight is brewing today between the San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times after the Times published a report with anonymous sources that claims the Chronicle will merge its standalone food section with other sections in the paper.

Discussion: KQED News Fix

Erik Wemple:

Another CBS News story comes under attack — There may never be a more classic line in the pantheon of empty boasts by competitive news organizations. On Monday night, CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson came up with what looked like a significant story: “Memo warned of “limitless” …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, @joshdorner, @steveweinstein, @dariverzkind, @dangillmor, @jayrosen_nyu, @simonmaloy, @jayrosen_nyu, Mediaite, Post Politics, CBS News and The Daily Caller

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:

Nick Denton Denies Rumor of Gawker And Business Insider Merger — Rumors of a merger between Business Insider and Gawker that made the rounds this morning have been greatly exaggerated. — “We had breakfast, as we regularly do. I admire Henry Blodget, Joe Weisenthal and Business Insider's editorial management.

Discussion: The Wrap, Gigaom, @moorehn, @stevekovach, @jeffjohnroberts and @johnjcook

Dylan Love / Business Insider:

Gawker Chief Nick Denton Says He Has A Cure For Internet Trolls — In conversation with Business Insider Editor-in-Chief Henry Blodget at Ignition 2013 in New York, Gawker Media boss Nick Denton laid out how to get love — and avoid trolls — on his extremely popular blog network.

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘Times’ ad exec announces ‘full native advertising platform,’ coming soon — The New York Times will launch a “full native advertising platform” in the next two to three months. — Meredith Kopit Levien, the Times' exec vice president of advertising, made the announcement during …

Discussion: AdAge, FishbowlNY and @jeffjarvis

Erik Wemple:

Hey, what about Politico's ‘brain drain’? — Politico last night warned of a “brain drain” at the New York Times: “In the past nine months, at least a dozen top reporters and editors have made for the exits.” — The perils of doing media coverage for Politico!

Discussion: Gawker, Politico and @dylanbyers

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Roundup: Staff Departures, an ‘Incorrect Promise’ and More — Here's a roundup of items from all over that may be interesting to Times readers and to the readers of this blog: — 1. The Great Exodus? Several news sites, including The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast …

Discussion: @derekwillis, @tadfriend, Politico, @xor, Mediaite, @jamesrbuk, The Daily Caller and @jeffjarvis

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
WikiLeaks publishes secret draft of Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty

Discussion: keionline.org, Free Press, Firedoglake, TorrentFreak, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Foreign Policy, Politico, RT, International Business Times, Guardian and Pressing Issues

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, Big News Network.com, Kirk LaPointe's …, The New York Observer and BGR

Nancy A. Youssef / McClatchy Washington Bureau:

CBS opens ‘journalistic review’ into controversial ‘60 Minutes’ Benghazi report — CAIRO — When “60 Minutes,” perhaps the United States' premier news program, apologized for featuring a security contractor in its report on Benghazi whose story turned out to be a lie, it said had been “misled.”

Discussion: New York Times, Variety, The Huffington Post, @nancyayoussef, NPR, @mlcalderone, @jayrosen_nyu, @huffpostmedia, @peterfhart, emptywheel, Pressing Issues and The Huffington Post

Matt Waite / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What new FAA plans will mean to the future of drone journalism — Editor's note: If you've been at a journalism conference over the past year — or stood near the right Midwestern riverbed at the right time— you've probably heard about drone journalism. That's the idea that small unmanned …

Paul Mozur / Wall Street Journal:

China's Baidu Faces Suits Over Video Piracy — Online-Video and Film Companies Seek $50 Million From Internet-Search Firm — BEIJING—A group of Chinese media companies accused Baidu Inc. of piracy, filing litigation that signals the maturation of an online-video industry where illegal copying once was rampant.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Xinhua News Agency, ValueWalk, PR Newswire, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline.com, UPI, InsideCounsel, The Verge and Reuters

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Lonely Planet Acquires Mobile Travel App TouristEye — Earlier this year, we wrote about TouristEye, a mobile app for planning trips and discovering new things to do while traveling. Today the startup is announcing that it has been acquired by travel heavyweight Lonely Planet …

Lindsey Hilsum / Channel 4 News:

War and journalists: why do we go? — The following is the text of a speech I gave on 12 November 2013 at St Bride's, the journalists' church on Fleet Street, during a service to commemorate the media in troubled times: — On August 21st I, like everyone else here, woke up to news of an attack in the suburbs of Damascus.

Discussion: @fieldproducer

Nieman Journalism Lab:

Why so serious? Maybe because data shows news stories can get shared just as often as lighter fare — Editor's note: Our friends at NPR Digital Services, Eric Athas and Teresa Gorman, crunched the numbers on how public radio stories were shared on Facebook and found some encouraging results.

Discussion: @toddmundt

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Who's giving (and getting) that nonprofit money? Some data on grantmaking to media orgs — A new report on grantmaking in media, executed by the Foundation Center with the support of the Knight Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation, aims to answer a basic question: Who in media philanthropy is giving money to whom?

Discussion: @txtianmiller

Nick Turner / Bloomberg:

Scripps Howard News Service Will Cease Operation After 96 Years — E.W. Scripps Co. (SSP:US)'s Scripps Howard News Service, which fed syndicated stories to papers across the U.S. since World War I, plans to shut down, becoming the latest symbol of readers' shift away from print media.

Discussion: @sfnick, Big News Network.com, E.W Scripps Company and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

CBS Corp. CEO Talks Time Warner Cable Dispute, Netflix Competition — Leslie Moonves also says TV is a better business than film and discusses “pre-historic” thinking about retrans fees, why only ESPN should get paid more than CBS and how his wife binges on “Game of Thrones.”

Discussion: Deadline.com

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Pulitzer winner Bennett leaving Bloomberg — Amanda Bennett, former executive editor for projects and investigations at Bloomberg News, is leaving the news organization. — She had been editor at large for several months after Bob Blau took over the projects and investigations team this summer.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

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.

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 …

Michael Rondon / FOLIO:

The Hollywood Reporter Breaks Out New Style Vertical — Pret-a-Reporter to feature contextualized ecommerce integration. — The Hollywood Reporter has been aggressively expanding its product portfolio over the last eight months. The group launched tech and indie channels in the spring …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, FishbowlNY and Capital New York

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

The Sun to introduce ‘dedicated department’ for social media — The new department will power ‘24/7’ social media activity, and consist of half a dozen social managers and a new social editor — The Sun is to set up a “dedicated department” for social media, which will consist of a team …

Discussion: mUmBRELLA

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

Guardian writer and number-cruncher Harry Enten goes to work for Nate Silver — Guardian writer and self-described number-cruncher Harry Enten is the latest to join Nate Silver's growing 538 franchise at ESPN. — He joins Carl Bialik, who is still writing a sports column for The Wall Street Journal …

Discussion: @forecasterenten