Mediagazer: Disney in China digital entertainment venture with BesTV (Reuters)

8:50 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 …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Adweek, TheBlaze.com, Guardian, The Wrap, Politico, @justinjm1, @jbenton, @michaelroston, @alexmleo, @dgelles, @abigaildj, @spignal, @stevekovach, The Huffington Post, @nishachittal, The Verge, Variety, Mediaite, New York Magazine and TIME

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: @justinjm1 and @jbenton

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: Talking Biz News, @monahol, @alicedreger, @genn4dy and @timobrien

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 — LONDON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - British police are examining whether Guardian newspaper staff should be investigated for terrorism offences over their handling of data leaked by Edward Snowden, Britain's senior counter-terrorism officer said on Tuesday.

Discussion: Guardian, VentureBeat, Talking Points Memo, Gawker and Techdirt

Jill Lawless / Associated Press:
Guardian: We have published 1 pct of Snowden leak

Discussion: ABC News, The Daily Caller, @gretawire, @davidmwessel, @hackingdave, @freedomofpress, @amypeikoff, @inteldump, @postbaron, Politico, Committee to Protect …, The Drum, TheHill, Guardian and Boing Boing

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.

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Sky to open movie rental service to non-subscribers

Discussion: Variety

John Plunkett / Guardian: NUJ apologises to BBC human resources director over false accusation

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

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Beats Music Targeting January Launch — YouTube's music subscription music 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

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

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

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

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

The Sad Final Demise Of “The Daily Download” — The Daily Download, the much-scrutinized project of media personalities Lauren Ashburn and Howard Kurtz, appears to be no more. The website for the media commentary project hasn't been online in more than a month according to the Internet Web Archive.

Discussion: @buzzfeedandrew

David Weigel / Slate: Howard Kurtz and the Daily Download: The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

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, @peterlattman and The New York Observer

Reuters:

Disney in China digital entertainment venture with BesTV — Walt Disney Co and BesTV New Media are to form a digital joint venture in China as the U.S. company aims for a share of the country's fast-growing entertainment business. — The venture, which will have a registered capital of $4 million …

Discussion: Variety and PR Newswire

Sarah Hedgecock / Gawker:

What's Wrong With America's Newspaper Opinion Columnists in One Chart — Why are newspaper opinion columnists so consistently baffled by the politics, technologies, and social mores of the 21st century? We've crunched some data, and we think we've figured out the answer: They're old as hell.

David Sirota / PandoDaily:

Glenn Greenwald faces attacks from critics because he's an “affront to the news cartel” — The journalist who hacked the old system — With Edward Snowden becoming a leading candidate for Time magazine's Person of the Year, it is important to remember that he is the central character …

Discussion: @jonworth, @trevortimm, @gg, @exiledsurfer, @johncusack, @bill_owen, @barryeisler, @davidsirota and @digiphile

Dave Weigel:

If You Want Reporters to Check Stories Before They Publish, You're a Hater — Instead of doing something productive, like finishing chapter two of my book (it's going well anyway!), I spent about an hour today noticing how the Internet had fallen for yet another hoax.

Discussion: On the Media, @sfiegerman, Butterflies and Wheels, @kashhill, @dangillmor, The Daily Caller, @clairesuddath, @dkiesow, @jonathanlkrohn, Guardian, Gawker and The Awl

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 …

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: Bloomberg, GOV.UK, Metro.co.uk, Sky News, GOV.UK, dna, Guardian and National Updates

Dan Kennedy / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The New Haven Independent seeks to expand its hyperlocal mission to low-power radio — The New Haven Independent, which launched eight years ago amid the first wave of online-only community news sites, may soon expand into radio. — The nonprofit Independent is one of three groups asking …

Discussion: Street Fight