Mediagazer: As CNN mobile traffic hits 40%, editor calls web vs. apps debate ‘red herring’ (Sam Kirkland/Poynter)

9:05 AM ET, January 23, 2014

Top News:

AP severs ties with photographer who altered work — NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press has severed ties with a freelance photographer who it says violated its ethical standards by altering a photo he took while covering the war in Syria in 2013. — The news service said Wednesday …

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

CNN.com tests new ideas on its Arabic-language channel — CNN has just launched the redesigned CNNArabic.com, the networkÂ's only Arabic-language outlet (and a small territory in its digital portfolio). But it's more important than that. The new features introduced …

Chris Welch / The Verge:

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Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
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Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Forbes, Home Media Magazine, ZDNet, Reuters, MarketWatch and The Wrap

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

As CNN mobile traffic hits 40%, editor calls web vs. apps debate ‘red herring’ — CNN announced last week that mobile page views accounted for 40 percent of its overall traffic, the result of equally emphasizing its mobile website and mobile apps even as some in the industry remain stuck in an either-or debate.

Discussion: INMA

Marina Walker Guevara / The Global Muckraker:

How a multinational journalism team investigated the offshore holdings of China's elite — How we did Offshore Leaks China — A multinational team of journalists spent months combing through secret tax haven records revealing offshore holdings of China's rich and powerful.

Discussion: New York Times, Poynter, @icijorg, Bloomberg, Media Channel, Guardian and BBC

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Settings Its Sights On Content Personalization, AOL To Acquire Gravity For $90.7M — AOL is announcing that it has reached a deal to acquire content personalization startup Gravity for an initial $83 million, with another $7.7 million paid out over the next two years.

Discussion: Gigaom, Variety and Re/code

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Woman felt BBC ‘slammed door in her face’ over Dave Lee Travis complaint — Former runner says she was told BBC was ‘not taking calls of this nature’ when she complained about alleged assault by DJ — A former BBC runner felt like the corporation “slammed the door in my face” …

Roberto Baldwin / Wired:

Tivo Lays Off Most of Its Design Team as It Transitions to the Cloud — Update: Tivo says it will continue to use third-party designers for hardware going forward. The article has been updated to reflect this fact. — Tivo has been bullish lately about releasing new software products beyond its core DVR boxes.

Discussion: TIME, Engadget, The Verge, @mccarron, Pocket-lint, Electronista, Gigaom, Business Insider and ParisLemon

Tom Harper / The Independent:

Cleared former NOTW deputy editor Neil Wallis questioned further by police over hacking — Scotland Yard said Mr Wallis ‘was interviewed under caution in connection with suspicion of conspiracy to illegally intercept voicemails. He was not arrested’ — The former News of the World deputy editor …

Discussion: Press Gazette

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: FishbowlNY, @murraymatt, Columbia Journalism Review, @gregorydjohnsen, @jtes, @joshuafoust, @tnyjohncassidy, Mediaite and Capital New York

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

NewsCred Raises $25 Million to Fill a Content-Marketing War Chest. (What's Content Marketing Again?) — Advertisers have spent the last few years toiling away in the social media fields, and now have long lists of followers on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to show for their efforts.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Gigaom, PandoDaily, Tech City News and Business Wire

PTI:

Huffington Post plans India edition; launch in May — Davos: US-based leading online newspaper Huffington Post is planning to launch an India edition by May this year and negotiations are currently underway to finalise a local partner for this venture. — “We are working very hard on our India edition.

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Court OKs subpoena for Nola.com commenters' identities — The NOLA Media Group has 10 days to hand over the identities of two online commenters, Juliet Linderman reports. … Ellyn Angelotti, a lawyer and Poynter faculty, said that there aren't clear standards on First Amendment protections for online commentators.

Discussion: New Orleans Times-Picayune

Knight Foundation:

24 new projects will go from idea to demo with funding from Knight Foundation — Knight Prototype Fund introduces a focus on human-centered design — The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announced funding for 24 new projects out of the Knight Prototype Fund …

Discussion: Idea Lab, @stadsbeeld, @habitatmap, @rcheetham, Nieman Journalism Lab and SocialTimes

Patrick Frater / Variety:

China Tightens Control of Online Video, Book Publishing — HONG KONG - Chinese authorities have announced new controls on the posting of content to online video sites. Separately, there is to be additional scrutiny of Chinese-language book publishing. — The State General Administration …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter and TeleRead

Ian Burrell / The Independent:

‘Newsbeat’ chief Rod McKenzie moved after complaints of bullying from over 30 BBC staff — The BBC has moved one of its senior news executives from his job in charge of Newsbeat, the broadcaster's youth news service, following complaints from more than 30 members of staff …

Discussion: Press Gazette, Daily Mail, @milominder and Radio Today

Michael O'Connell / Hollywood Reporter:

Cord-Cutting Study Comes Down as Cable Nets Cry Foul — HBO, Showtime and Starz release stats on subscriber growth after a NPD Group study, no longer on the firm's website, claims households with premium cable are on the decline. — Within a day of research firm NPD Group releasing its State …

Discussion: Capital New York and The Wrap

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: Columbia Journalism Review, Poynter, The Atlantic Online, Gawker, The Huffington Post, @jayrosen_nyu, @stevesilberman, @zeynep and Kirk LaPointe's …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Netflix Plans ‘Substantial’ European Expansion in 2014 — Internet subscription-video leader nets 2.3 million U.S. and 1.7 million international streaming members in Q4 — Netflix is gearing up to take Europe by storm, with possible launches in France and Germany this year …

Discussion: Pocket-lint

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Netflix Says It Will Be Fine Without Net Neutrality Rules — Last week a court decision struck down — for now — a federal agency's attempt to enforce “net neutrality.” That move raised the possibility that Netflix, which is already fighting with broadband providers about the quality …

Discussion: CNNMoney.com, Forbes, ReadWrite, Quartz and TechCrunch

Mike Giglio / BuzzFeed:

Syria Citizen-Journalists Come To Switzerland To Cover Peace Talks, Get Attacked By Assad Supporters — Citizen-journalists, who have helped to show the world Syria's war, are now covering the peace conference in Switzerland.They're still getting used to the idea of being so close to the regime …

Sam Petulla / The Content Strategist:

An Interview With Jay Rosen on the Future of Native — A few days before Christmas, one of the smartest minds in journalism tweeted one of the most intriguing definitions of native advertising we've seen. — Rosen, a renowned NYU journalism professor and author of the PressThink blog, sparked a lively debate with the tweet.

Discussion: @raju, AdExchanger and Re/code

Los Angeles Times:

Sony Pictures lays off employees in technology group, including leader — Sony Pictures Entertainment headquarters. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) — Sony Pictures Entertainment has laid off an undisclosed number of people from its Sony Pictures Technologies group, including the unit's president, Chris Cookson.

Discussion: Variety, Bloomberg and Hollywood Reporter

Jack Marshall / Digiday:

The Rise of the Publisher Trading Desk — Major publishers have accepted that programmatic advertising is here to stay, and most now sell significant portions of their ad space that way. Now a handful are taking their ad tech experiments a step further, using it to buy inventory …

Tom Engelhardt / Tom Dispatch:

The Golden Age of Journalism? — It was 1949. My mother — known in the gossip columns of that era as “New York's girl caricaturist” — was freelancing theatrical sketches to a number of New York's newspapers and magazines, including the Brooklyn Eagle. That paper, then more than a century old …

Discussion: Guardian

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

With Trove, Ex-WaPo Labs Team Takes Another Try at Social Reading — How do you get your daily news? — It's a question that any 21st century news organization is asking itself — a question all too familiar for a guy like Vijay Ravindran. As the chief digital officer of Graham Holdings …

Discussion: NYT Bits, cnbc.com, Washington Post, The Verge and Gigaom