Mediagazer: Toronto Star Reporter Drops Lawsuit Against Rob Ford (Rob Gillies/Associated Press)

11:40 AM ET, December 19, 2013

Top News:

Jonathan Kaiman / Guardian:

Beginning next year, Chinese reporters must pass ideology exam to retain press credentials — Chinese journalists face Marxist ideology exam — Exam to be based on 700-page manual that prohibits published reports from featuring comments that go against party line

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @mlcalderone, Kirk LaPointe's … and @raju

Reuters:

China renews press cards for Bloomberg, several New York Times reporters — (Reuters) - The Chinese government has renewed the press accreditations for journalists from Bloomberg News and several New York Times reporters, a journalists' group said on Thursday.

Discussion: Poynter, Washington Post, Associated Press, Associated Press and Wall Street Journal

Craig Timberg / Washington Post:

Hackers break into Washington Post servers — Hackers broke into The Washington Post's servers and gained access to employee user names and passwords, marking at least the third intrusion over the past three years, company officials said Wednesday. — The extent of the loss of company data …

Discussion: AllThingsD, The Huffington Post, @repmikerogers, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, The Wrap, darkREADING, The Verge, Mashable, @digiphile, CNET, Yahoo! News and TIME

Mike Deri Smith / BBC:

Porn filters block sex education websites — The new filters are designed to block sites unsuitable for children — Pornography filters used by major internet service providers are blocking websites offering sex education and advice on sexual health and porn addiction, the BBC has learned.

Discussion: Electronista, The Independent, Telegraph, TechRadar.com, Yahoo! News, @codepo8, Crave, @refugecharity, @jackschofield, @hvklav, Pocket-lint, @dickmandrake and Gigaom

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Shows aren't in the future for Washington Post's PostTV — The Washington Post's PostTV video initiative will stop presenting information as shows and move to “easily digestible segments,” Washington Post spokesperson Kris Coratti tells Poynter in an email.

Erin Griffith / PandoDaily:

One snapshot of how the Forbes contributor network works, from a writer asked to be a source — The ouroboros is complete: Forbes outsourced contributor outsources journalism to actual journalists — A curious “interview request” arrived in my inbox today: A Forbes contributor …

Discussion: @raju, @ledbetreuters, Talking Biz News and Forbes

Nicole Levy / Capital New York:

Greenwald hints at future of Omidyar enterprise — Glenn Greenwald still has a lot of work left to do—and a new $250 million news enterprise to build—with the font of material leaked to him by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. — “We've certainly released less …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

John McDermott / Digiday:

The Sporting News Throws Mobile Hail Mary Against ESPN — Sporting News is throwing a mobile Hail Mary in its bid to gain ground on ESPN. In order to level the playing field with the self-styled Worldwide Leader in Sports, Sporting News is hoping to enlist teammates in the form of aggregation.

Rob Gillies / Associated Press:

Toronto Star Reporter Drops Lawsuit Against Rob Ford — TORONTO (AP) — A Toronto Star reporter dropped his defamation lawsuit against Toronto Mayor Rob Ford on Wednesday after Ford issued a more expansive apology for suggesting the journalist is a pedophile.

Discussion: Poynter

Lauren Rabaino / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The year we contextualize the news — My prediction isn't particularly snazzy. It doesn't require drones or sensors or wearables. It gets back to common sense, highlighting our role as an industry in creating informed citizens. 2014 will be the year of contextualization.

Discussion: @niemanlab and @jayrosen_nyu

Laura Bennett / The New Republic:

Bloomberg View Has Big Names, Small Influence — Inside the billionaire's quixotic, costly, and strangely milquetoast foray into opinion journalism — On a leafy stretch of East 78th Street, behind a locked, unmarked door with wrought-iron detailing, the office that housed Bloomberg View …

Discussion: TheBlaze.com, Capital New York and Gawker

Om Malik / Gigaom:

In 12 years of blogging, the more things change, the more they stay the same — Last Friday was the 12th anniversary of day when I posted my first blog post on gigaom.com, and starting what would later (in June 2006) become a company. (Up until Dec. 13, 2001, GigaOM was nothing …

Discussion: @om, ZDNet and Om Malik

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Viki Strikes Deal With Baidu to Bring Crowd-Translated Programming to China — Viki, the innovative global video service that has been described as “Hulu for the rest of the world,” will partner with Chinese search giant Baidu for its first foray into that country.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Variety and TechCrunch