Mediagazer: Some Game Companies Pay for Play on Conan's “Clueless Gamer” Skits (Eric Johnson/Re/code)

9:15 AM ET, January 26, 2014

Top News:

Jonathan Mahler / New York Times:

When ‘Long-Form’ Is Bad Form — LAST week, the sports and pop culture website Grantland published a story called “Dr. V's Magical Putter” — a piece of “long-form,” as we now call multi-thousand-word, narrative-driven reported articles — about a woman named Essay Anne Vanderbilt …

Discussion: @buzzfeedben, @saramorrison, @jonathanmahler, @leshinton, @adamklaff, @sternbergh, @glennf, @jasonschreier, Prof Chris Daly's Blog and Mediashift

Ben Smith / Medium:

What The Longform Backlash Is All About — Taking the best of the magazine craft online. And leaving the rest on paper. — BuzzFeed executive editor Doree Shafrir and I started talking about hiring a “longform” editor in the spring of 2012, at the urging of our most experienced writer, Michael Hastings.

Discussion: @peretti, @ryanlawler, @ezraklein, @carr2n, @jayrosen_nyu, @tcarmody, @michaelluo, @brianstelter, @mattapuzzo and @adambvary

Megan Finnerty / Arizona Republic:

Friend of Dr. V blames Grantland story for timing of suicide, but not for the suicide itself — Friend blames timing of Gilbert inventor's suicide on fear of impending article — It was just after noon Oct. 18 when Gerri Jordan walked into the bedroom of her Gilbert home and found …

Discussion: @danreilly11 and @dangillmor

Al Jazeera English:

Peter Greste's letter from Egyptian jail — Al Jazeera reporter tells the ordeals of his two colleagues, held in a draconian “Scorpion prison”. — Writing from Tora Prison, Al Jazeera correspondent Peter Greste has outlined the fate of his fellow journalists, detained for two weeks without charge in Egypt.

Discussion: Media Channel, @hamishnews and Guardian

Al Jazeera English:
McCain condemns detention of Al Jazeera staff

Discussion: Guardian and Poynter

Fernando Alfonso III / Daily Dot:

Hoaxsters bought us 75,000 fake followers in a new kind of Twitter attack — by the Syrian Electronic Army and a few — users, most of the threats the Daily Dot and its reporters have received over the past two and half years have been bogus. — But the one we received Monday was the most peculiar to date.

Discussion: SocialTimes

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Some Game Companies Pay for Play on Conan's “Clueless Gamer” Skits … The gaming world has been good to Conan O'Brien in the past year and a half. The late-night talk show host's glib (and often hilarious) videogame reviews, “Clueless Gamer,” have become a viral sensation, racking up millions of views online.

Discussion: Forbes, Polygon and Digital Spy

Benedict Evans:

As tech, media, and telecom collide, ignorance of any one sector leads to failures like Joost — Ignorance — “However vast any person's basic reading may be, there still remain an enormous number of fundamental works that he has not read.” - Italo Calvino

Discussion: @kevinweil, @nathanchubbard, @h4ryb, @rubenharris, @mccarthyryanj, @jchengwsj, @minethatdata, @stevesi and @soundboy

Evan Osnos / New Yorker:

Why China Needs to Rethink the Way It Treats the Foreign Press — An unusual collaborative investigation by journalists in the United States, Britain, Germany, Hong Kong, and elsewhere has refocussed attention on one of the Chinese government's most neuralgic issues: the private wealth of top leaders and their families.

Discussion: @adamgoldmanwp, Softpedia News, @icijorg and Sinosphere

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Jury finds Courtney Love not liable in landmark Twitter defamation case — Courtney Love Wins Twitter Defamation Trial — After eight days of testimony, the singer prevails in a trailblazing case. — Courtney Love — On Friday, a California jury decided that Courtney Love …

Discussion: SPIN, Gigaom, NBCNews, @eriqgardner, Poynter, Business Insider and Twitchy

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

In the latest battle to profit from control of the internet, the consumer is stuck in the middle — On a message board under a thread titled, “Is Comcast blocking Netflix,” customers of the nation's largest ISP are complaining about the poor quality of Netflix streaming during evening hours and wondering what's going on.

Discussion: The Verge

Robinson Meyer / The Atlantic Online:

Get Rid of ‘Viral’ Headlines With This One Weird Browser Extension — From “incredible” to “painfully ordinary” — The Upworthy headlines will find you. In tweets, in emails, in wall posts from well-meaning family: Viral Headline English, with its blithe incredulity, will hunt you down …

Discussion: @peterkoechley, The Verge, @1uigi, @jonggordon, @dkthomp, Washington Post, The Daily Caller, Daily Dot, ANIMAL, AdAge and Boing Boing

Reuters:

Charter hires firm to ready Time Warner Cable proxy fight-sources — Charter Communications Inc has hired proxy solicitor Innisfree M&A as it gears up for a potential proxy fight at takeover target Time Warner Cable Inc , according to people familiar with the matter.

Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:
As part of Time Warner Cable deal, Charter CEO tentatively offers up NY systems to Comcast

Discussion: @angryarb and @shaliniwsj

Howard Stutz / Las Vegas Review-Journal:

New weekly newspaper planned for Las Vegas — The much-rumored launch of a free weekly publication that eventually could replace the Las Vegas Sun was announced Thursday by Greenspun Media Group. — The Sunday will be distributed at 1,500 locations around Las Vegas starting Feb. 9.

Discussion: Las Vegas Sun News and Associated Press