Mediagazer: Targeted text message sends chills to protesters and journalists in Ukraine (Heather Murphy/The Lede)

8:25 PM ET, January 22, 2014

Top News:

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Netflix's momentum continues with 2.33 million new US customers in Q4 — Netflix revealed its fourth quarter earnings today, capping off a banner year that saw the streaming service surpass HBO in subscriber count and earn critical acclaim for its original programming.

Discussion: Guardian, Bloomberg, The Wrap, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Hollywood Reporter, Business Insider, @microfundy, @ceciliakang, @timjhanrahan and Mashable

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Netflix Beats Analyst Expectations With 2.3M New Domestic Subscribers, Earnings Of 79 Cents A Share — Netflix just announced its fourth-quarter financial results, with the company beating analyst expectations. For the last three months, Netflix reported earnings of 79 cents per share on revenues of $1.175 billion.

Discussion: Forbes, Home Media Magazine, The Wrap, ZDNet and Reuters

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix Plans ‘Substantial’ European Expansion in 2014

Discussion: Pocket-lint

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Netflix Says It Will Be Fine Without Net Neutrality Rules

Discussion: TechCrunch, ReadWrite and Quartz

John Cassidy / The New Yorker Blog:

Maybe Ezra Klein and Jeff Bezos Are Both Right — The rumors were true: Ezra Klein, the creator of the Washington Post's Wonkblog, is leaving the paper to start a new venture with a couple of his colleagues. In my bit of the Twitterverse, the general reaction appears to be that Jeff Bezos …

Discussion: Mediaite, Capital New York, Columbia Journalism Review, New York Times, JackFlack.com, American Spectator, LA Observed, The Huffington Post and The Daily Caller

Dean Starkman / Columbia Journalism Review:
Ezra Klein and the early-mover disadvantage

Discussion: Gigaom, Mediawire Daily, Politico and The New Republic

Roberto Baldwin / Wired:

Tivo Makes Its Hardware Exit Official, Lays Off Most of Design Team — Tivo has been bullish lately about releasing new products beyond its core DVR boxes. Today, we found out why. The company laid off nearly all the industrial designers of those products.

Discussion: Gigaom, Engadget and SlashGear

Tania Branigan / Guardian:

Guardian blocked in China after story about leadership's offshore wealth — Access to the front page of newspaper's website blocked and availability of other stories intermittent — The Guardian appeared to be partially blocked in China on Wednesday after revealing that relatives …

Discussion: New York Times, The Independent, The Huffington Post, Poynter, The Next Web, Tech in Asia, Kirk LaPointe's … and @mlcalderone

Maria Konnikova / The New Yorker Blog:

The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You — When Jonah Berger was a graduate student at Stanford, in the early aughts, he would make a habit of reading page A2 of the Wall Street Journal, which included a list of the five most-read and the five most-shared articles of the day.

Discussion: @actualkris, @millie, Gothamist, @10000words, @mathewi, @utlibraries, @alisonhallett and @brainpicker

Robert Andrews / Beet.TV:

BBC.com Opens Its Doors To Native Advertising — The BBC is known for its editorial integrity and, at least in the UK, its aversion to advertising. These facts would seem to make an embrace of the current “native advertising” trend difficult. But that's just what BBC Worldwide …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab and @beet_tv

Reuters:

Massive Internet mishap sparks Great Firewall scrutiny in China — (Reuters) - Human error likely caused a glitch in China's Great Firewall that saw millions of Internet users ironically rerouted to the homepage of a U.S.-based company which helps people evade Beijing's web censorship, sources told Reuters.

Discussion: NYT Bits, CNN, @jonrussell, @adampasick and CNET

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Fox Will Stream Super Bowl XLVIII Free to Computers and iPads — Broadcaster to offer a ‘special preview’ of Fox Sports Go authenticated service for the NFL championship game on Feb. 2 — Fox Sports will use Super Bowl XLVIII as a showcase for its online and mobile authentication service …

Discussion: The Wrap, Mediaite, Forbes, AdAge, InvestorPlace, NetNewsCheck Latest and CNET

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone-hacking trial: police defend dawn raid on Rebekah Brooks's home — Detective insists all searches are conducted without ‘fear or favour’ after jury hears officers checked baby's Moses basket — Police have defended their dawn raid on Rebekah Brooks's Oxfordshire home at the phone-hacking trial …

Discussion: @adambienkov, Press Association and Press Association

Michael Holden / Reuters:
Police searched basket of Rebekah Brooks's baby, court hears

Discussion: Guardian, The Independent and thedrum.com

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Weather Channel: DirecTV Subscribers Should Be Able to Switch, Without Penalty — The Weather Channel is ratcheting up the rhetoric in its fight to get back on DirecTV. — The leading weather TV channel, which begins a ninth day off the nation's second-largest pay TV service …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Deadline.com, AdAge, Broadcasting & Cable and FishbowlNY

Rebecca Bowe / sfbg.com:

San Francisco Bay Guardian launches tool for anonymous submissions powered by SecureDrop — Hey whistleblowers — We want your leaks! — rebecca@sfbg.com — The San Francisco Bay Guardian newsroom is tapping some high-tech tools to continue its journalistic mission.

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing.com:

News UK CEO: “A big bundle is a very efficient mechanism which works remarkably well” — News UK is unusual among newspaper groups in taking a hardline approach to digital subscriptions, eschewing metered models for an offer that provides online access to the whole bundle, or none of it.

Discussion: @raju and @hobbb, Thanks:@henryctaylor

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Radio Free Europe journalists beaten, detained in Kiev protests — On Wednesday, UPI reported that two journalists have been beaten and detained in the ongoing protests in Kiev. … In a video for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty posted Wednesday, the two badly beaten men, Dmytro Barkar and Ihor Iskhakov, talk about what happened.

Discussion: UPI, Committee to Protect …, The Week and Radio Free Europe/Radio …

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Grantland's editorial failure with Dr. V story is best argument yet for diversity in newsrooms — Joy's Law for journalism — “Events by which 'Dr. V's Magical Putter' came to be published are now the best argument I have for you on diversity in the newsroom. Here is what can happen when you are not diverse enough.

Discussion: Gawker, The Atlantic Online, @stevesilberman, @zeynep, Poynter and @jayrosen_nyu

Sam Thielman / Adweek:

Viacom's Branded Content Play Is the Latest Among Cable Giants — Viacom is doing at scale something that TV entertainment companies—especially those with a wide footprint in the unscripted world—are treating like the advertising success of the future: It's creating a full division devoted to branded content.

Discussion: Variety and Broadcasting & Cable

John Paul Titlow / Co.Labs:

Under The Hood Of The New NYTimes.com — For media companies, the pace of technological change can be unforgiving. The New York Times, well-staffed as it may be, is no exception. To meet rapidly changing business goals and reader expectations, the tech team there recently pulled off …

Discussion: @remmons

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Ex-AOL editor Cyndi Stivers joins Tina Brown's company — Cyndi Stivers, who saw her job as editor-in-chief of AOL.com eliminated in the upheaval at the media company late last year — after only seven months in the position — has a new gig lined up with Tina Brown's fledgling conference business.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Heather Murphy / The Lede:

Targeted text message sends chills to protesters and journalists in Ukraine — Ominous Text Message Sent to Protesters in Kiev Sends Chills Around the Internet — As my colleague Andrew Kramer reported, protesters and journalists standing in the vicinity of fighting between the riot police …

Discussion: The Independent, Gawker, Techdirt, The Verge and The Switch

Sarah Kendzior / Al Jazeera English:

When mainstream media is the lunatic fringe — Digital media gives cruelty, new visibility, but does the prestige of old media give bigoted ranting respectability? — On January 8, 2014, Emma Keller, a journalist for The Guardian, wrote a column about a woman named Lisa Bonchek Adams.

Discussion: @derrelldurrett, @allisonkilkenny, @redlightvoices, @pankisseskafka, @graceishuman, @melissagira and @kurafire

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

UK sports show bans mentions of Twitter in protest over abusive tweets directed at presenter — Talksport bans Twitter in protest at racist taunts and death threats for Stan Collymore — Talksport has banned mentions of Twitter from its radio station and from Sport magazine until …

Discussion: BBC, Associated Press, PandoDaily, Sport Industry.biz, Radio Today, Daily Mail, The Irish Times, Daily Mail, GlobalPost, The Independent, @tnyjohncassidy, Mirror.co.uk, thedrum.com, BBC and Guardian

Emily Rauhala / TIME:

CNN, BBC Reporters Covering China Activist Trial Manhandled on Live TV — Street-side tussles take place outside Beijing court where transparency campaigner Xu Zhiyong is being tried behind closed doors — BBC journalist Martin Patience lived up to his name today.

Discussion: TVNewser, Politico, The Huffington Post and BBC

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

The news curation game gets another entrant as the WaPo's former owner relaunches Trove — You might think the news-recommendation space is a little crowded, what with giant social networks like Twitter and Facebook as well as dedicated services like Prismatic, Zite and News360 …