Mediagazer: Freedom of the Press Foundation's Response to Obama's NSA Speech (Trevor Timm/Freedom of the Press …)

7:50 PM ET, January 17, 2014

Top News:

Katie Roof / Fox Business:

AOL's Patch May Be Dismantled: Source — AOL (AOL) shopped its Patch news service for more than a year to various media companies before reaching a deal with private equity firm Hale Global for what's been described as a low-ball bid for the money-losing venture, the FOX Business Network has learned.

Discussion: @katie_roof

Steven Jacobs / Street Fight:

The Patch Saga, and Its Implications for Local Media — Aol's decision to unload its struggling hyperlocal network Patch earlier this week may not have been unexpected, but the distressed property's fire sale does carry with it some broader implications, even as many local media companies …

Discussion: Gigaom, Business Insider and Talking Biz News

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

And The Most Downloaded Torrent of 2013 is.... Completely Legal — Earlier today we published a list of the top 20 most-pirated artists. With well over 5 million downloads this chart was topped by Bruno Mars. Interestingly enough, the honor of the most-downloaded artist on BitTorrent goes to a legal download.

Discussion: Plagiarism Today, Business Insider and Softpedia News

Rebecca Grant / VentureBeat:
With 60M downloads, BitTorrent's Bundle experiment is paying off

Discussion: TechHive, TechCrunch and The Official BitTorrent Blog

Andrew Adam Newman / New York Times:

Promoting Its Own Products, a Magazine Labels an Ad as News — CONTENT from advertisers that resembles editorial coverage, commonly called native advertising, is drawing heightened scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which wants to establish guidelines for labeling it clearly.

Discussion: @niemanlab, @cspi, FishbowlNY, @nytimesbusiness, Capital New York, Mediawire Daily and @_mediaspace

Dan Levine / Reuters:

Blogger gets same speech protections as traditional press-U.S. court — (Reuters) - A blogger is entitled to the same free speech protections as a traditional journalist and cannot be liable for defamation unless she acted negligently, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

Discussion: Technology & …, E Pluribus Unum, Politico, Hollywood Reporter, The Volokh Conspiracy, @freedomofpress, @mathewi, @mathewi, @mathewi and @adamclarkestes, Thanks:@jaredbkeller

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Time Inc. CEO Ripp Said to be Uninvolved in Son's Promotion — A company spokesman said Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp wasn't involved in his son Brendan Ripp's promotion to publisher of Sports Illustrated. — “The decision to promote Brendan was made by Todd Larsen in consultation with Mark Ford,” the rep emailed.

Discussion: New York Post

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Eight Percent of DirecTV Subscribers Would Switch Over Weather Channel Dispute — Fresh data in the ongoing DirecTV, Weather Channel carriage dispute reveals a third of DirecTV subscribers would switch, or consider switching, if The Weather Channel were no longer available on the satellite service.

Discussion: Inside Cable News

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

The OC Register's expansion reverses — Trouble for Aaron Kushner's contrarian bet in Southern California — The Orange County Register, the rebuilt Chevelle SS of the newspaper industry, has blue smoke coming from the tailpipe. — On Thursday, owner Freedom Communications laid off …

Discussion: Navel Gazing, @mathewi, @antonprtweets, JIMROMENESKO.COM and OC Weekly

Mary Ann Milbourn / Orange County Register:
Register names new newsroom leadership

Discussion: Associated Press, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @thegarywarner, @genepark, Poynter, @lilyshumleung, LA Observed and Los Angeles Times

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone hacking: Wall Street Journal wins ruling on reporting restrictions — US-based newspaper will be able to report fully report on the trial of Rebekah Brooks and others without signing written agreement — The Wall Street Journal has won a ruling allowing it to fully report …

Discussion: Talking Biz News, The Drum, @paullewis, @jackofkent and @lisaocarroll

Arif Durrani / Media Week:

London Evening Standard profits double in 2013 — The London Evening Standard has more than doubled its profits in the year to September 2013, to around £2.5 million, while the embattled Independent slashed its losses by 50% in the same period, according to sources. inShare 1 London Evening Standard …

Discussion: @geofinns

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Alexander Lebedev sounding out buyers for Independent titles

Discussion: Telegraph, Financial Times, MediaTel, @david_hewson, Telegraph and Guardian

Associated Press:

Egyptian Police Release AP Cameraman on Bail — CAIRO (AP) — A freelance Egyptian TV cameraman who was detained while covering the country's constitutional referendum for The Associated Press was released on bail Friday, but the case remains open, authorities said.

Discussion: CNN, CBC News and Associated Press

Paul Mozur / Wall Street Journal:

Chinese Microblog Use Fell 9% In 2013, Government Says — The Reduction in Weibo Users Likely Reflects Censorship, Mobile-Messaging Options — BEIJING—The number of Chinese using Twitter -like microblogs fell 9% in 2013 from 2012, according to a new government report …

Discussion: @crtejada

Economist:
Chinese investigative journalist circumvents censors with popular messaging app WeChat

Discussion: @stinson, Quartz, @letahong, @gadyepstein and @zseward

Tom Grubisich / Street Fight:

Borrell Report Details Legacy Media's Struggles in the Digital World — In a new report “The Future of Legacy Media” (free executive summary here), research and consulting firm Borrell Associates has both good and bad news for old media (newspapers, TV, radio, magazines) …

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's … and @niemanlab

Trevor Timm / Freedom of the Press Foundation:

Freedom of the Press Foundation's Response to Obama's NSA Speech — President Obama addressed NSA reform in a forty minute speech this morning in which he proposed a few welcome reforms and many which could normalize some of the NSA's most dangerous practices.

Discussion: Washington Post, Forbes, CNET, The New Yorker Blog, @janinegibson and @trevortimm

The New York Times Company:

The New York Times's Most Visited Content of 2013 — The New York Times today released its Most Visited lists for 2013. Categories include the most visited articles and blog posts, multimedia and interactives, and videos throughout NYTimes.com, our mobile site and our iOS apps.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, NewspaperAlum, @samsifton, The Atlantic Online, @sulliview, @blushresponse, @jacobgoldstein, @hfairfield, @antonioregalado, @nyteileen, @nickbilton, @jbenton, @dansinker, @katiepark, FishbowlNY and Cision

Nick Hopkins / Guardian:

Alan Rusbridger: Westminster is hoping Snowden revelations go away — Guardian editor accuses UK politicians of failing to tackle issues raised by NSA revelations, which have sparked US debate — Britain's political class has been closing its eyes and hoping the revelations from Edward Snowden …

Discussion: New York Times, Forbes, Latest News & Headlines, CNN, New Yorker, Slate, TheHill, Computerworld, TechCrunch, Mediaite, Softpedia News, Gawker, VentureBeat, BBC, @glynmoody and @nycjim

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Digg Is Experimenting With Original Content — Digg is currently testing a system which would see the viral news aggregator running its own original content on the Digg.com homepage, the company confirms to us today. This would be a new direction for the betaworks-backed service …

Discussion: @niemanlab

Tom Warren / The Verge:

YouTube starts airing 2014 Super Bowl commercials ahead of the game — This year's Super Bowl might not take place until February 2nd, but that's not stopping some ads from running early. While Super Bowl advertisers have traditionally surprised the millions of people who tune …

Discussion: CNET, New York Times, Broadcasting & Cable, Globe and Mail, Computerworld, The Daily Caller, Softpedia News, bizjournals and The Next Web

Todd Spangler / Variety:

HBO Go Is Coming to PlayStation — HBO announced that its broadband-video service, HBO Go, will be coming “soon” to Sony's PlayStation 3 videogame console with an app for the just-released PS4 to follow. — Netflix has been available on the PlayStation 3 since 2009, and was one of 11 …