Mediagazer: Verizon close to agreement to buy Intel's Internet-based pay-TV start-up OnCue (Bloomberg)

6:55 PM ET, December 13, 2013

Top News:

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

New Hollywood Sequel: Aaron Kushner's L.A. Register — Why, I asked, Aaron Kushner, is he announcing the new L.A. Register as we're winding down toward the end of the year? Given that the big questions about it — when will it launch, how will it be staffed — are as yet unannounced, why put the news out now?

Mary Ann Milbourn / Orange County Register:

Register owner to launch daily L.A. newspaper — The co-owner and publisher of the Orange County Register announced Thursday that the company will move broadly into Los Angeles County early next year and publish a new, seven-day-a-week newspaper, the Los Angeles Register.

Discussion: LA Observed, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Hollywood Reporter, FishbowlNY, @ocregister, Los Angeles Business …, The Wrap, @margotroosevelt, Poynter and The Newspaper Guild

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

New York Times Withheld News Of Missing American's CIA Ties For Six Years — NEW YORK — The New York Times revealed Friday that it withheld reporting on missing American Robert Levinson's ties to the CIA for six years, one day after The Associated Press acknowledged withholding that detail for three years.

Discussion: Gawker, Capital New York and ABC News

Ed O'Keefe / Post Politics:

Sen. Bill Nelson: I told AP not to run Robert Levinson story — Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said early Friday that he urged the Associated Press not to publish a story about Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who disappeared in Iran more than six years ago and had been working for the CIA.

Discussion: New York Times, Washington Post, @lrozen, Talking Points Memo and @mlcalderone

Dylan Byers / Politico:
W.H.: CIA report ‘highly irresponsible’

Discussion: ABC News, @jeneps and The Huffington Post

Paul Colford / The Definitive Source:
Why AP is publishing story about missing American tied to CIA

Peter Elkind / Fortune:

Bloomberg News reaffirms ban on writing about Mike Bloomberg — The news organization owned by Bloomberg LP has an unusual, self-imposed policy preventing itself from writing about its founder. — FORTUNE — When Michael Bloomberg retires as New York's mayor in January after 12 years in office …

Discussion: @dangillmor, National Review, Hit & Run, Talking Biz News and The Huffington Post

Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:

Charter plans to offer less than $135/share for Time Warner Cable early next week — Charter Said to Prepare Offer Letter for Time Warner Cable — Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR) is preparing an offer letter to acquire Time Warner Cable Inc. for less than $140 a share, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Discussion: AdAge, Variety, Deadline.com, Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, DealBook, The Huffington Post, Radio & Television … and The Verge

Bloomberg:

Verizon close to agreement to buy Intel's Internet-based pay-TV start-up OnCue — Verizon Said Near Agreement to Buy Intel's Start-Up TV Service — Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) is near an agreement to purchase Intel Corp. (INTC)'s Internet-based pay-TV start-up, according to people familiar with the deal.

Discussion: Gigaom, Electronista and Variety

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Twitter Experiments with Push Notifications About TV Talk — Twitter's great, but if you're a regular human, you can't spend all of your time looking at it. So what if someone plops out something interesting, and you miss it? — Twitter has a plan for that.

Discussion: Alex Rainert, Fast Company and @mikeisaac

Amanda Terkel / The Huffington Post:

Media Matters Declares Victory: ‘The War On Fox Is Over’ — WASHINGTON — Since its founding in 2004, the progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America has been a thorn in the side of Fox News. Its dozens of staffers monitor the network's leadership, hosts, guests and financial dealings incessantly …

Discussion: Politico, National Review, The Daily Caller and TheBlaze.com

CBC Books / CBC News:

British Library uploads 1 million archival images for free use, wins internet — In an inspired gesture to encourage digital crowdsourcing, the British Library has uploaded one million scans from 17th to 19th century books to Flickr for public domain use. — The library's goal was for anyone to …

Discussion: The Verge and Digital scholarship blog

Marc Graser / Variety:

Microsoft to Launch First Original Shows on Xbox in Early 2014 — At Dealmakers breakfast, Tellem says Xbox isn't Netflix or Amazon but its ‘own animal’ — Developing original series for Microsoft has taken a little longer than veteran TV executive Nancy Tellem had hoped …

Discussion: Engadget

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney.com:

Netflix finds plenty of binge watching, but little guilt — Netflix is embracing the art of the “binge” as it seeks to sell more subscriptions during the holidays. — A Harris Interactive survey commissioned by Netflix and released on Friday found that a majority of streaming television viewers …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Business Insider

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Q&A: Sarah Marshall on leaving Journalism.co.uk for the WSJ and the state of media across the pond — For three years, Sarah Marshall has held a job that's pretty similar to, well, my job. And I think she's pretty good at it! But Marshall is moving on, from Journalism.co.uk …

Discussion: @mrjohncrowley, @niemanlab and Talking Biz News

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Texas A&M brings back journalism major — Texas A&M will bring its major in journalism back next fall, the school reported on its website Monday. The decision was announced after approval Monday from the faculty senate. According to the school: “It will be a small, rigorous program limited to 25 entering freshmen per year.”

Discussion: Inside Higher Ed

David Kravets / Wired:

AOL Tightens CrunchBase's Licensing to Block Competitors — AOL is legally locking down its crowdsourced CrunchBase database of tech companies, in response to a commercial iPhone app that used the database to compete with AOL. — The new CrunchBase license will continue to allow free use …

Discussion: Info @ CrunchBase and TechCrunch

Kelly McBride / Poynter:

Newtown's media blackout forces journalists to do their jobs — The one-year anniversary of a tragic event is a significant moment. But for journalists, such moments too often become opportunities for emotional exploitation rather than real journalism. — The citizens of Newtown, Conn. …

Discussion: Latest News & Headlines, Education and the Media, Washington Post, @evanberland_ap, Rolling Stone, TIME, Kirk LaPointe's …, Columbia Journalism Review, Jack Shafer and Boing Boing

Michael Rondon / Folio:

Pocket Reveals Top Stories, Publishers of 2013 — The save-it-for-later service tells which content readers liked most. — The save-it-for-later software service Pocket has released a list of the “best” content from 2013. — Pocket's 10 million users saved more than 450 million items …

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Amidst fierce competition, music streaming services fight for paying subscribers — A Stream of Music, Not Revenue — When Spotify, the digital music company of the moment, announced this week an exclusive deal with Led Zeppelin and free access on mobile devices, it also reported impressive numbers.

Discussion: @dada_drummer

Tom Balmforth / Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

Out Of Ukrainian Protests, A New Media Outlet Is Born — KYIV — A wave of panic grips protesters as rumors spread that tanks are bearing down on Kyiv to quell the revolt against President Viktor Yanukovych. — Several news outlets ran reports and word spreads like wildfire on Twitter.

Jim Romenesko:

Boston.com hires ‘ChartGirl’ Hilary Sargent — Hilary Sargent, who's known for tackling “complicated matters in easily digestible charts,” is joining Boston.com next month as a full-time staffer. Jack Shafer wrote earlier this year that “ChartGirl” Sargent “straddles the space between the two-dimensional …

Discussion: @sladehv

Parker Higgins / Mediashift:

WordPress Goes to Court to Defend Censored Bloggers — The blogging platform WordPress.com has taken the unusual — and welcome — step of going to court to defend its users against bogus copyright claims aimed at silencing their speech on the platform. Automattic, WordPress's parent company …

Discussion: @timkarr and @pbsmediashift, Thanks:@mediatwit