Mediagazer: After Leaving Office, Bloomberg Is More Hands-On at Old Company (Nathaniel Popper/New York Times)

4:55 PM ET, January 18, 2014

Top News:

Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:

After Leaving Office, Bloomberg Is More Hands-On at Old Company — At editorial meetings in Bloomberg L.P.'s headquarters this week, Michael R. Bloomberg gave clear signs that he would not be taking a hands-off approach as he returned to his old company. — Just two week's removed from City Hall …

Discussion: Mediawire Daily, TVNewser, The Corsair, @peterlattman, New York Magazine, @shirleybrady, @daschles and @nathanielpopper

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: @alexweprin, @katie_roof and @timobrien

Steven Jacobs / Street Fight: The Patch Saga, and Its Implications for Local Media

Anna Clark / Columbia Journalism Review:

‘This used to be a newsroom’ — the scene at the Cleveland Plain Dealer — As a diminished staff adapts to new rules and new space, “newsroom culture is gone” — DETROIT, MI — As a major reorganization of the Cleveland Plain Dealer takes shape, veteran reporters are adjusting to …

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

Jonathan Stray / The Overview Project:

Algorithms are not enough: lessons bringing computer science to journalism — There are some amazing algorithms coming out the computer science community which promise to revolutionize how journalists deal with large quantities of information. But building a tool that journalists can use …

Discussion: @ahseeder, @ganley, @maxj_k, @skyedoherty and @joegermuska

Lauren Kirchner / Columbia Journalism Review:

FOIA fight for NSA documents continues — The government has released some heavily-redacted legal opinions, but ProPublica, the ACLU, and others say that's not enough — This past November, ProPublica attempted to open up “the smallest nesting doll” of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance …

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review

Roberto Baldwin / Wired:

How Beats' New Music Service Plans to Crush Spotify — Beats Music won't be joining the most-tracks arms race when it launches Tuesday. Instead, the new subscription service brought to you by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will win converts through a potent mix of smarter algorithms and human curation.

Discussion: The Next Web and App Advice

Richard Verrier / Los Angeles Times:

End of film: Paramount first studio to stop distributing celluloid — Paramount's “The Wolf of Wall Street” is the first major Hollywood movie to be distributed entirely in digital format — without the use of film or film reels on which the industry has depended since it began.

Discussion: Variety

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

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

Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:

Facebook ‘relationships guy’ courts Hollywood, media in new push — (Reuters) - Beyonce fans got a big surprise at midnight on December 13, when the pop star announced her new album from out of the blue. — Just as surprising was her decision to announce the album by posting a 15-second video …

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

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 and @mathewi

Rebecca Grant / VentureBeat:

With 60M downloads, BitTorrent's Bundle experiment is paying off — The Internet has created a world where value is determined by virality. — BitTorrent is contributing to the evolution of how content gets shared. The creator of file-sharing technology revealed today that people …

Discussion: Techdirt, TechHive and TechCrunch