Mediagazer: Connecticut Alt-Weeklies Consolidate (Richard Horgan/FishbowlNY)

11:55 AM ET, December 4, 2013

Top News:

Christine Haughney / New York Times:

Newsweek plans return to print in Jan-Feb next year as a subscription based 64 page weekly — Newsweek Plans Return to Print — Newsweek, the struggling weekly magazine that ceased print publication last year, plans to turn the presses back on. — The magazine expects to begin …

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

Newsweek's editor-in-chief says subscriber revenues will cover expenses, “ads will be icing” — Newsweek to bring print edition back from the dead — Newsweek's new owners think they can succeed at something its previous owners failed at: printing a weekly magazine in the United States.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and @justinjm1

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Editor Describes Pressure After Leaks by Snowden — The top editor of the British newspaper The Guardian told Parliament on Tuesday that since it had obtained documents on government surveillance from a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward J. Snowden, it had been subjected to measures …

Discussion: Guardian, Kirk LaPointe's …, Gawker, Talking Biz News, @genn4dy, @timobrien, @alicedreger, @monahol, mUmBRELLA and FishbowlNY

Guardian:

Guardian will not be intimidated over NSA leaks, Alan Rusbridger tells MPs — Editor tells parliamentary committee that stories revealing mass surveillance by UK and US have prompted global debate — The Guardian has come under concerted pressure and intimidation designed to stop …

Reuters:
Guardian Newspaper Staff May Face Charges For Assisting Terrorists

Discussion: Guardian, Poynter, Softpedia News, VentureBeat and Techdirt

Abigail Edge / Journalism.co.uk:

BBC News to introduce ‘NewsLabs team’ to drive innovation — Managing editor James Harding told staff that BBC News will assemble a NewsLabs team to establish ‘new formats’ for telling and sharing stories — Credit: By Horia Varlan on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Discussion: bbc.co.uk and Guardian

BBC:
BBC must tackle diversity ‘problem’ says news director

Discussion: @sunny_hundal, @emmajtracey, @narco_sam and @t_mcconnell

Dylan Byers / Politico:

CBS News chairman defends Lara Logan in staff meeting — CBS News chairman and ‘60 Minutes’ EP Jeff Fager held a meeting with CBS News staff on Tuesday and took questions about the fate of Lara Logan and Max McClellan, the journalists currently on a leave of absence in the wake …

Pierre Omidyar / The Huffington Post:

WikiLeaks, Press Freedom and Free Expression in the Digital Age — This week, fourteen people charged by the Department of Justice in connection with a coordinated denial of service attack on PayPal's services in 2010 will appear in Federal Court. The “PayPal 14,” as they have been dubbed …

Discussion: @pierre, @ggreenwald, @dymaxion, @carwinb, @astepanovich, @pierre, @wikileaks and Pressing Issues

Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic Online:
A News Organization That Rejects the View From Nowhere

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @theatlantic, @raju, @acarvin and @tomgara

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

YouTube's Music Subscription Service Won't Show Up This Year — Waiting for YouTube's subscription music service? You're going to have to be patient. — The video service, which is already the biggest free music service in the world, had planned on launching a paid service this year.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Speakeasy, @jherskowitz, Complete Music Update, PhoneArena, CNET, The Verge, Softpedia News, Mashable, Electronista and Engadget

David Folkenflik / NPR:

OMG, BuzzFeed Is Investing In Serious News Coverage! Is It FTW? … Anyone who has hankered for a list of 10 of the most life-affirming dog rescue stories ever can rely on the social media site BuzzFeed. — That list of 11 classic horror films that should never have been remade? That's from BuzzFeed too.

Discussion: @wbur, @jayrosen_nyu, @emilybell and @sheeraf

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Dame Patricia Hodgson favourite to chair Ofcom — Ex-BBC executive selected by Department for Culture, Media and Sport as preferred candidate to succeed Colette Bowe — The government has selected Dame Patricia Hodgson, the former BBC executive and trustee, as its preferred candidate to be the next chairman of Ofcom.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Beats Music Targeting January Launch — YouTube's music subscription service was supposed to launch this year, but will be delayed until 2014. Now, Beats Music is playing the same tune. — Beats, the project championed by music executive Jimmy Iovine and backed by $60 million in funding, was supposed to debut in 2013.

Discussion: Gigaom

The Independent:

UK Attorney General adapts contempt laws for social media, will publish court advisory notes — Twitter and Facebook users threaten justice system, warns Attorney General — After a spate of scandals where careless users have threatened fair trials and jeopardised anonymity orders …

Discussion: TechCrunch, GOV.UK, Guardian, Bloomberg, @innamood, dna, @jlllow, Sky News, Metro.co.uk, GOV.UK and National Updates

Metro:

Sky to take on Netflix and LoveFilm after entering movie streaming battle — The Hangover III is one of the movies available from the Sky Store — Sky is taking on the likes of Netflix and LoveFilm by opening up its on-demand movie rental service to everyone, sparking a battle for Christmas movie customers.

Discussion: Guardian, Telegraph, Hollywood Reporter, Daily Mail, Crave and Variety

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

News of the World cuts plan 'included halving of Glenn Mulcaire's contract' — Phone-hacking trial shown memo suggesting financial pressures at paper, with investigator costing more than World Cup budget — News of the World management were intent on implementing swingeing budgets cuts …

David Carr / New York Times:

At Peter Kaplan's Funeral, Mourning the Master of the Masters — LARCHMONT, N.Y. — Manhattan publishing took a very sad holiday on Tuesday. Many of its better-known practitioners traveled by train, car and, in some cases, chartered bus, to Larchmont Temple in Westchester County to say farewell …

Discussion: Capital New York, @samsifton, @carr2n, The New York Observer and @peterlattman

Todd Spangler / Variety:

DirecTV Invests in Two Digital Entertainment Startups — Satcaster takes stakes in second-screen app developer i.TV and video aggregator LiveClips — DirecTV announced that it has made strategic investments in two digital entertainment startups — video-aggregation provider LiveClips …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

New York Times to Expand Syndication for Videos as Monthly Views Double to 12 Million — Videos on The New York Times have been watched a record 12 million times by some three million “unique” viewers in October, according to data provided to Beet.TV by comScore, denoting a 12 month rise of nearly 100 percent.

Discussion: @newspapervideo, @eric_andersen and @niemanlab, Thanks:@beet_tv

John McDermott / Digiday:

Does Web Publishing Have a Looming DVR Problem? — Publishers like to hear that their stories are being read. But at the expense of advertising dollars? Not so fast. — Increasingly popular apps like Pocket, Instapaper and Evernote's Web Clipper have been billed as a way to help publishers combat fragmentation.

Leo Barraclough / Variety:

HBO Extends Google Play Pact to U.K. — Shows in deal include ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ ‘True Blood’ — LONDON — Google has inked a deal with HBO to make several shows available on its TV service, Google Play, in the U.K., extending a pact in the U.S. announced in October.

Discussion: Guardian, HEXUS.net Consumer …, WorldScreen.com, Digital Spy and Broadband TV News

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Acquires Team Behind Dreamworks Animation Incubated Mobile Video App Ptch — Ptch, the DreamWorks Animation-incubated mobile video startup, has been acquired by Yahoo. The app was launched just over a year ago and will shut down on January 2, 2014. Until then, you'll be able …

Discussion: Ptch Blog, The Next Web, bizjournals, VatorNews, App Advice, Engadget, Business Insider and AllThingsD

Richard Horgan / FishbowlNY:

Connecticut Alt-Weeklies Consolidate — Tomorrow, inside The Hartford Courant and at all regular pick-up spots, residents of Hartford, New Haven and Fairfield County will be greeted by a different newspaper animal. Instead of the respective Advocate and Weekly papers in those three communities …

Discussion: CT.com

Michael Weinberg / Policy Blog:

Did the FCC Chairman Just Endorse a Pay-for-Play Internet Fast Lane? — Chairman Wheeler endorsed both two-sided markets and net neutrality. There seems to be a conflict. — Yesterday, new FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler delivered his first formal public address.

Discussion: DSLreports, @dweinberger, @notaaroncraig, @karlbode, Free Press Blog, TheHill, Fortune, Light Reading, New York Times and FCC.gov

IAB:

IAB Releases Native Advertising Playbook To Establish Common Industry Lexicon, Evaluation Framework & Disclosure Principles — Provides Guidance for Publishers, Agencies & Marketers on Successfully Leveraging Native Advertising in Campaigns — Native has become a hot topic in the advertising marketplace …

Discussion: AdAge and @raju

Maria Konnikova / The New Yorker Blog:

A List of Reasons Why Our Brains Love Lists — These are just some of the lists that the comic strip “XKCD” recently joked would result from retrofitting the twentieth century's most newsworthy events with modern, Internet-style headlines. Despite the growing derision of listicles exemplified by the comic …

Discussion: @tedbirk94, @tedgioia and @christinegrazio