Mediagazer: Twitchy Sold To Owners Of Townhall And Hotair (Benny Johnson/BuzzFeed)

7:25 PM ET, December 10, 2013

Top News:

Marcella Bombardieri / The Boston Globe:

New York Times columnist David Carr to join Boston University faculty — Boston University has landed star New York Times media columnist David Carr to fill a new endowed chair dedicated to exploring creative business models to support journalism in the digital era.

Discussion: Gawker, Poynter, @mmckinnon, @bretteats, @natives, FishbowlNY, @jayrosen_nyu, @jbenton, @jenniferpreston, @melissaadan_, @jeffjarvis, @craigsilverman, @hblodget, @brianstelter, @dankennedy_nu, @cynthianeedham and Capital New York

Benny Johnson / BuzzFeed:

Twitchy Sold To Owners Of Townhall And Hotair — “Media Matters types would like to paint conservatives as boring, old white guys. Twitchy ads more fun and humor to our platform,” Townhall's general manager says. — Twitchy, the conservative Twitter aggregation site …

Discussion: Mediaite, Townhall.com, @guypbenson, @seanagnew, @katiepavlich and The Wire

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Conservative consolidation: New ‘Twitchy’ owner in talks to buy RedState, Regnery — Salem Communications, the parent company of right-wing sites HotAir.com and Townhall.com, is considering a series of acquisitions that would consolidate several of the conservative blogosphere's …

Discussion: @johntabin

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

NYT CEO Mark Thompson aims to create global news brand, says international audiences are key — The global ‘New York Times’ — First The New York Times became the national paper of record for the United States. Now it is aiming to become a leading news brand globally.

Discussion: AdAge

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Facebook Wants to Be a Newspaper. Facebook Users Have Their Own Ideas. — Most people think of Facebook in a similar way: It's a place to share photos of your kids. It's a way to keep up with friends and family members. It's a place to share a funny, viral story or LOLcat picture you've stumbled upon on the Web.

Discussion: Gigaom, Mashable, @nytimesbits, WebProNews, Business Insider and @jvitak

Oliver Laughland / Guardian:

Murdoch is evil: the message hidden in a children's puzzle in one of his papers — Third line down says LIVESIHCODRUM (read it backwards) as puzzlemaster has a laugh at paymaster's expense — Harry the Dog's weekly kids' word search in Sydney's Sunday Telegraph tabloid

Discussion: Sydney Morning Herald, Agence France Presse, The Desk, Mediaite, @ravisomaiya, FishbowlNY, @davidfolkenflik, @paullewismoney, @eriqgardner, Gawker, Business Insider, Junkee and mUmBRELLA

Fox News:

New York's top court rules Fox reporter cannot be forced to reveal sources in Colorado — In a ruling likely to be hailed as an affirmation of laws protecting journalists, New York's top court ruled that FoxNews.com reporter Jana Winter cannot be forced to reveal to a Colorado court her sources …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Poynter, FishbowlNY, SPJ News, The Wrap, The Desk, Business Insider, Hollywood Reporter, @peterjohnsonjr, @howardkurtz, @marykissel, Hit & Run, @jmfreespeech, Mediaite, @alexweprin, @jaredbkeller and Newsy

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The OJR.org saga has a happy ending, with the domain headed back to USC Annenberg — OJR.org is going back to its original home. — A quick recap for those who haven't been following this tale of wayward domain names (one, two, three): The Online Journalism Review was, starting in the late 1990s …

Discussion: @jbenton

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:

Brian Stelter's CNN Debut Gets Bumpy Ratings Start — Stelter's premiere as “Reliable Sources” host drops sharply from most recent airing — Brian Stelter's debut as the new host of CNN's “Reliable Sources” drew less than stellar numbers on Sunday, drawing an underwhelming 400,000 total viewers …

Discussion: TVNewser, Deadline.com, Mediaite and JIMROMENESKO.COM

The Nabe:

Police Restore Access to Crime Reports — Last week, The Nabe reported that the city's police precincts would no longer directly provide journalists with the forms detailing crime reports. On Monday, shortly after CUNY Graduate Graduate School of Journalism Dean Stephen B. Shepard sent …

Discussion: Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Poynter, @thenabecuny, @mitchelltrinka and Techdirt

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Time Warner CEO Bewkes: Only Comcast and Verizon Do VOD Right — Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes gave credit to Comcast and Verizon FiOS for doing a good job of promoting and delivering video-on-demand services — and he criticized other pay-TV operators for failing to deliver on the potential of VOD.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, The Wrap, AdAge, Capital New York, MediaPost, Deadline.com, The Verge, Media & Entertainment and App Advice

Jordan Chariton / Lost Remote:

The Washington Post Debuts Chromecast Integration — The Washington Post debuted their Chromecast integration today, becoming the first news organization to allow users to access their content through the growing second screen device. — Washingtonpost.com, PostTV.com, The Washington Post iPad app …

Discussion: GalleyCat, International Business Times, AppNewser and SocialTimes

Jose Pagliery / CNNMoney:

Snowden docs had NYTimes exec fearing for his life — Informing the American people about how their government spies on them can be risky business for journalists. — Rajiv Pant, chief technology officer at The New York Times ( NYT), thought he could be killed for it. — It was the IT help request from hell.

Discussion: @tbridis and @jesselynradack

Sandra Oshiro / Poynter:

Another journalist killed in India's Bijapur district — Local protests in India this week follow the killing last Friday of India journalist Sai Reddy in the Bijapur district in south Chhattisgarh, The Hindu reported. — The 51-year-old journalist was attacked at a weekly market.

Discussion: Committee to Protect … and The Hindu

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Apple's iTunes Radio Hires Sales Exec From Cumulus Media — Former Cumulus Media Exec Michael Pallad Started Last Week — Apple's iTunes Radio has poached a top radio ad exec as it prepares to offer the service widely to advertisers in 2014. — Former Cumulus Media executive VP-sales Michael Pallad …

Discussion: VentureBeat, CNET, MacRumors, App Advice, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, Radio & Television … and Electronista

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Dailymotion Buys SublimeVideo Developer Jilion To Build Out Video Producing And Customizing Capabilities — With a Yahoo purchase very much off the table, France's Dailymotion is making an acquisition of its own: it is buying Jilion, the developer behind the SublimeVideo platform for distributing web videos with customized features.

Discussion: CNET, Broadband TV News, The Drum, ReelSEO Video Marketing and The Next Web

Andrew Albanese / PublishersWeekly.com:

Judge Tosses Booksellers' Suit Against Publishers, Amazon — Federal Judge Jed Rakoff has dismissed a lawsuit filed by independent booksellers against Amazon and the big six publishers that alleged a murky conspiracy to restrain trade via Amazon's use of proprietary DRM in its Kindle e-reading platform.

Discussion: Gigaom, TeleRead and Publishers Lunch

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

Yahoo acquires QuikIO, yet another startup to add to its video team — Early this morning, the creators of a little known but excellent cross-platform video streaming app called QuikIO sent a farewell note to its users. After December 31, the “FedEx of media files” would be shut down, the email said.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Electronista, App Advice, @hamishmckenzie and WebProNews