Mediagazer: Where in the world is BuzzFeed? Building foreign news around themes rather than geography (Caroline O'Donovan/Nieman Journalism Lab)

4:50 PM ET, December 5, 2013

Top News:

John McDermott / Digiday:

The Information founder Jessica Lessin discusses subscription models, ads, and aggregation — Why New Tech Site The Information Spurns Ads for Subscriptions — The Information, former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin's new tech news site, debuted today with a seemingly …

Discussion: @vouchey, @niemanlab and Talking Biz News

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:
Five things Jessica Lessin needs to keep in mind about paywalls as she launches The Information

Discussion: Silicon Valley Watcher, Valleywag and The Michael Report

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
Media Insiders Are Laughing About New Site ‘The Information,’ But Founder Jessica Lessin Will Laugh Last

Discussion: Businessweek, Nieman Journalism Lab, @thestalwart, Talking Biz News, @amir, @realdanlyons, @bencasselman, @rafat, @moorehn, @mathewi and The Information

Felix Gillette / Businessweek:

Politico's Capital New York Expansion in Hands of CEO Jim VandeHei — Since its launch in 2007, Politico, the D.C. upstart covering national politics in print and on the Web, has hosted presidential debates, won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, established a distinctive …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Poynter, @bw, @mlcalderone, @pwgavin, @rafat, @jayrosen_nyu and @rubycramer

John McDuling / Quartz:

Twitter's first female director is also the first “old media” executive on the board — Twitter's appointment of respected executive Marjorie Scardino to its director ranks helps rectify its gender imbalance. But not only is Scardino Twitter's first female director, she's also the first person with genuine …

Discussion: Bloomberg, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, NYT Bits, Washington Post, @mathewi, @jmcduling, Digits, ReadWrite and @hamishmckenzie

Jason Karaian / Reuters:
Twitter's new board member isn't the only one who rarely tweets

Discussion: @vindugoel, VatorNews, Business Insider, Guardian and VentureBeat

Mark Landler / New York Times:

Biden Faults China on Foreign Press Crackdown — BEIJING — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sharply criticized the Chinese government's crackdown on the foreign press, telling an audience of American business people Thursday that the United States had “profound disagreements” with its “treatment of U.S. journalists.”

Discussion: Poynter, Guardian, Forbes, @mlcalderone, Washington Post, @greatfirechina, @ericfish85, @kathrynschulz, @comradewong, @mrlv426, @scottbix, @andrewjacobsnyt, @joycelaunyt, @dabeard, The Verge, @peterlattman, New York Magazine and Business Insider

Christina Chaey / Fast Company:

With Medium 1.0, Ev Williams Tackles The Platform's Identity Crisis — “What is Medium?” — I'm far from the first to ask Ev Williams this question. Since he launched the blogging site with fellow Twitter cofounder Biz Stone a little more than a year ago, many others have wondered …

Discussion: Folio, PandoDaily, @jeffjohnroberts, @jayrosen_nyu and The Verge

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Publishing Platform Medium Keeps Iterating With New Photo, Layout Tools And Collection Controls

Discussion: Gigaom, Medium, Talking New Media, @dangillmor, @saila, @yurivictor, @designhawg and @evanatmedium

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Layoffs at AOL: 20 slips, mostly on homepage side — Layoffs hit AOL yesterday, Capital has learned. — The majority of impacted employees worked on the editorial side of the AOL.com homepage, according to sources with knowledge of the cuts, who put the total number of pink slips around 20.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Capital New York

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Video on Demand Pushes TV Viewing Up — No one watches TV anymore. — You don't, and no one you know does, and it's just a matter of time before the TV Industrial Complex folds in on itself and disappears. — Except ... it turns out that people are. Still. Watching. TV.

Discussion: @marklittlenews, Fast Company, @iwantmedia and Business Insider

Allan Sloan / Fortune:

More revelations about the Time Inc. spinoff — Allan Sloan takes a look at the recently released Time Inc. SEC filing — FORTUNE — There are some dishes, like homemade beef stew, that get increasingly flavorful the more times you cook them. Some documents are like that, too …

Discussion: @editorialiste, @edmundlee and @peacockc

Evie Nagy / Fast Company:

Hearst's Troy Young Spills: This Is How You Make Money In Digital Media — The publishing industry in the digital age is a lawless frontier of fluctuating business models, content strategy experimentation, and conflict between time-tested practices and new expectations from consumers.

Discussion: @karlheiselman

Arif Durrani / Media Week:

Financial Times ready for global transformation under Hughes — As the FT prepares to launch a single global edition, its deputy chief executive and global commercial chief tells Arif Durrani why the newspaper is as relevant as ever. — Hughes: ‘I am more enthusiastic now than I ever have been about the world of media’

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Twitter Is About To Officially Launch Retargeted Ads — Twitter is ready to roll out retargeted ads fueled by browser cookies, sources confirm. Twitter could make the announcement as soon as tomorrow, expanding retargeted ads beyond the “experimental” phase that started in July.

Discussion: blog.twitter.com, Media Money …, VentureBeat, Globe and Mail, Business Insider, SocialTimes, The Next Web, Telegraph, AdExchanger and @aulia

Mark Lawson / Guardian:

Survey: Britons among biggest consumers of TV in Europe but avoid news and current affairs — Why are British people turning off the TV news? — A new survey reveals that although Britons watch plenty of television, we are one of the lightest consumers of news and current affairs in Europe

Discussion: @jackshafer and @jennykleeman

Janet Reitman / Rolling Stone:

Snowden and Greenwald: The Men Who Leaked the Secrets — How two alienated, angry geeks broke the story of the year — Early one morning last December, Glenn Greenwald opened his laptop, scanned through his e-mail, and made a decision that almost cost him the story of his life.

Discussion: @johnmierau, @normative, @froomkin, @miafarrow, @barryeisler, @sulliview, @timkarr, TheHill and The Huffington Post

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

After Financing Hiccup, Maxim Sale Set to Close Friday — After a hiccup, the Maxim sale appears to be set to close Friday, and publishing vet Bob Guccione Jr. says he's set to take the reins as CEO. — Alpha Media sold the bawdy lad magazine to retired UPS exec Calvin Darden over the summer.

Discussion: bizjournals

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

New York Times brings print edition to tablets and computers with Today's Paper web app — The daily print edition of The New York Times now has a home of its own on digital devices. A new web app called Today's Paper, released today for tablets and computers, offers solely the articles …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Poynter, investors.nytco.com, @palafo, Gizmodo, App Advice, Talking New Media, The Next Web, @verge and Engadget

Joe Weisenthal / Business Insider:

People At CNBC Are Relieved That Maria Bartiromo Left — The entire financial TV industry is in a state of flux. — The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the dismal ratings at CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg. Bloomberg, meanwhile, is in the midst of some kind reassessment of its TV business …

Discussion: @rustyk5, Capital New York and TheBlaze.com

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Where in the world is BuzzFeed? Building foreign news around themes rather than geography — When BuzzFeed launched BuzzFeed World, an ambitious foreign news vertical, not everyone thought they were up to the task: … That link, which is broken, is supposed to take you to a story written by Max Seddon …

Discussion: @niemanlab

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Radio Times website hits profit with traffic-boost fueled by investment in journalism — The Radio Times website has more than tripled its website traffic to over 3.5m in the space of three years, with investment in news and features driving the growth. — The title claimed to reach 3.5m unique users in both September and November.

Tim Wu / The New Republic:

Binge-viewing was just the beginning. Netflix has a plan to rewire our entire culture — Binge-viewing was just the beginning. Netflix has a plan to rewire our entire culture — Given all the faces you see glued to computers, tablets, and cell phones, you might think that people watch much less television than they used to.

Discussion: @jamesgleick and @columbialaw