Mediagazer: Raju Narisetti talks about why News Corp. bought Storyful and founder Mark Little talks about why he sold (Mathew Ingram/Gigaom)

10:25 PM ET, December 20, 2013

Top News:

Jim Kennedy / News Corp:

News Corp Acquires Social News Agency Storyful — Accelerating News Corp's digital transformation and video strategy, the company has acquired Storyful, the world's first social news agency. — Building on Storyful's skill in finding verified news amidst the noise of social media …

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Raju Narisetti talks about why News Corp. bought Storyful and founder Mark Little talks about why he sold — We've written before about how crowdsourced verification of user-generated content is a significant trend in new media, and Storyful has been at the forefront of that wave since before most people had even heard the term.

Discussion: @raju and Online NewsHour

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

News Corp Pays $25M For Storyful, Which Digs Up And Verifies News From Social Sites Like Twitter And Instagram — News Corp is raising its game in digital news again: the company has just announced that it is acquiring Storyful, a Ireland-based “village square” for social media news …

Discussion: Wired, @coreypein, @raju and @erichippeau

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter: Storyful CEO: ‘We want to be in every newsroom in the world’

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Washington Post's Ezra Klein Considering Starting New Venture — NEW YORK — Ezra Klein, a top Washington Post policy writer and editor of the paper's Wonkblog, is currently speaking to outside suitors about starting a new media venture, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Discussion: @mattgertz, @mathewi, @thestalwart and City Desk

Gautham Nagesh / Wall Street Journal:

FCC Approves Gannett-Belo, Tribune-Local TV Deals — $1.5 Billion Gannett-Belo Deal Would Affect 20 Stations in 15 Markets … The Federal Communications Commission on Friday approved two major deals involving local television stations that will add to consolidation in the media market.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, TVSpy, Bloomberg and NetNewsCheck Latest

Meg James / Los Angeles Times: FCC approves Tribune Co. purchase of 16 stations from Local TV

Matthew Hendley / Valley Fever:

Joe Arpaio Loses: New Times Co-Founders Win $3.75 Million Settlement for 2007 False Arrests — The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors this afternoon voted unanimously to approve a $3.75 million settlement for New Times' co-founders, whose false arrests in 2007 were orchestrated by Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Discussion: The Raw Story, @clarajeffery and @trevortimm

Free Press:

A Sorry Moment in the History of American Media — We just experienced a shameful milestone in the history of U.S. media — and barely anyone noticed. — There are now zero black-owned and operated full-power TV stations in our country. — This sorry state of affairs is the culmination …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Report: No black-owned full-power TV stations remain in U.S.

Discussion: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, @deggans and TVSpy

Elizabeth Green / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The continued rise of single-subject sites — Five years ago, when I first started building the news organization that my colleagues and I now call Chalkbeat (then known as GothamSchools), a friend asked me an innocent question. “So you cover education now. But what will your next beat be?”

Discussion: @davidepstein and @niemanlab

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:

New milestone: Amazon stock surpass $400 for first time ever — This summer, Amazon.com's stock hit $300 for the first time. — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″. — Now, five months later, it has reached a new milestone: $400.

Discussion: VentureBeat

Staci D. Kramer / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Connecting the dots — One of the most popular new games of 2013 was an addictive mobile app called Dots: A Game About Connecting from Betaworks. It's deceptively simple: a white board full of evenly spaced colored dots worth points when connected in a short amount of time.

Discussion: @niemanlab and Trust But Verify

Dave Eggers / Guardian:

US writers must take a stand on NSA surveillance — As the Obama administration responds to the NSA mass surveillance revelations, Dave Eggers reflects on the impact they have had on US writers, and asks if the prevailing sense of fear heralds an intellectual ice age

Discussion: GalleyCat

Digg:

The Year In Digg — In the last year, we here at Digg have posted 21,303 stories, tweeted 25,088 times, and drank over 1,000 beers. But these numbers only tell part of the tale. That's why we've compiled the most noteworthy stats and stories from 2013 into something we like to call, “The Year In Digg.”

Aditya Kishore / Guardian:

Battleground Britain: who will dominate UK video streaming? — Aditya Kishore analyses the battle for video streaming dominance in extremely competitive UK market place — Clearly, Netflix dominates the US home video market: More than 30 million households subscribe to the service …

Cory Haik / Nieman Journalism Lab:

News that anticipates the reader's needs — The year 2014 is going to be all about you. And me. And him and her. It's going to be all about all of us — and what we are doing on all our devices. The job in news is to be exactly there for people, no matter what they're doing or where they're doing it …

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …, @sclary, @mims and The Public Editor's Journal

Rick Perlstein / The Nation:

Why Is The New Republic Taking Money from an NSA Contractor to Run Defenses of the NSA? — The landing gear on a mockup of a Northrop Grumman X-47B long-range, high endurance unmanned aircraft (Reuters). — The National Security Agency has a friend at the Harvard Law School. And at the Brookings Institution.

Discussion: Lawfare and TheHill

Lance Ulanoff / Mashable:

Walt Mossberg: The Exit Interview — At an age when some may consider spending more time practicing their golf swing or perfecting their poker face, tech journalist Walt Mossberg is about to embark on what may be his biggest adventure yet. After 22 years as The Wall Street Journal's personal …

Discussion: @pkafka and Talking Biz News