Mediagazer: Solid Gains for White House's SOTU Web Effort (Rebecca Ballhaus/Washington Wire)

8:55 PM ET, January 29, 2014

Top News:

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Breaking News From Twitter: There's Breaking News on Twitter — News today from Twitter: Twitter would like to provide more of your news. — That's the upshot of a press event in New York today, where Twitter, CNN and Dataminr, a Twitter-blessed data company, announced a new tool designed to help journalists find news on Twitter.

Discussion: @margafret and @edmundlee

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

CNN And Twitter Partner With Dataminr To Create News Tool For Journalists — CNN is hosting a press event today to announce a partnership with Twitter and social analytics company Dataminr to launch a new tool called Dataminr For News. — Dataminr CEO Ted Bailey said the goal is to …

Discussion: Poynter, Dataminr, The Verge, Variety, @michaelsurtees, Engadget, @digiphile, @willoremus, @jweb, @jcstearns, Pocket-lint and CNET

Vivian Schiller / Twitter blog:

A faster, easier way for newsrooms to find breaking news on Twitter — Today, Twitter and CNN have announced a partnership with Dataminr to develop an alert system for journalists called Dataminr for News. — When news breaks, it can be minutes or even hours before newsrooms begin to report.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …, Wired, @marksluckie, @joannauk, Mashable, @edmundlee, @ericaamerica, @cpen, @sladurantaye, @vivianschiller and CNET

Nitasha Tiku / Valleywag: Today's News, Brought to You By Tech Giants

Alex Weprin / Capital New York:
Why CNN partnered with Twitter and Dataminr

Discussion: Gigaom

David Carr / New York Times:

As I Was Saying About Web Journalism ... a Bubble, or a Lasting Business? — Last week, it occurred to me that the departure of Ezra Klein, the creator of The Washington Post's influential Wonkblog, to join the young company Vox Media was a bit of a moment — an inflection point in the emergence of a news economy online.

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, @benhuh, @carltonpurvis, @justinnxt, @gregory, @brandoncarte, @digiphile, @viceukmedia, @suzykhimm, @dananorak, @dangillmor, @carr2n, @cappiwill, @jonathanwald, @peterlattman and @azi

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Why everyone is starting a news site: free-agent talent, cheap tech, maturing business models — The newsonomics of why everyone seems to be starting a news site — You'd think the new digital printing presses were minting money. — Just within the last month, all kinds of details …

Discussion: Economist, @justinnxt, @niemanlab and Politico

Jim Romenesko:

Report: Hundreds of Patch employees laid off — I'm told that hundreds — two tipsters claim two-thirds of the editorial staff — have been laid off by Patch's new owner, Hale Global. I have asked the company for confirmation. (It bought Patch from AOL on January 15.)

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Washington Post announces plans to hire bloggers, redesign site — A memo to staffers from Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron outlines some of the paper's plans for the next year. — The news organization plans to hire “writers to author ‘verticals’ on a wide array of subjects,” Baron writes.

Discussion: Adweek, The Huffington Post, Capital New York and FishbowlDC

Harry Jaffe / Washingtonian:

Katharine Weymouth Defends Decision Not to Fund Ezra Klein's New Venture — “It just didn't make sense for us,” the Post publisher says of Klein's proposed website. — Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has absorbed the responsibility—much of it critical—for not keeping Ezra Klein …

Discussion: @raju, @mlcalderone, @harryjaffe, @sophiegg and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Michael Hiltzik / Los Angeles Times:

The O.C. Register's supremely ghoulish financial strategy — The Orange County Register building in Santa Ana is shown. The company is seeking to buy life insurance on its employees, not to benefit the employees' families, but to benefit the company's pension plan. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Discussion: @jimmyorr, @froomkin, @bgrueskin, @romenesko and LA Observed

Jim Romenesko:
Orange County Register owner blasts Los Angeles Times' story on his ‘ghoulish strategy’

Discussion: LA Observed, Los Angeles Times and The Newspaper Guild

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

James Clapper Suggests Journalists Could Be Edward Snowden's ‘Accomplices’ — NEW YORK — Director of National Intelligence James Clapper urged former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and his “accomplices” to return leaked documents during a hearing on Wednesday.

Discussion: Politico, UT Documents, TheHill, Techdirt, @huffpostmedia, The Lede, Mashable, Wired.co.uk, @gaberivera, @trevortimm, @mlcalderone and BGR

Associated Press:

Egypt Refers 20 Al Jazeera Journalists To Trial On Terrorism Charges — CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's chief prosecutor has referred 20 journalists from the Al-Jazeera TV network, including four foreigners, to trial on charges of joining or assisting a terrorist group and spreading false news that endangers national security.

Discussion: McClatchy Washington Bureau, Guardian, Mediaite and The Newspaper Guild

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:
Journalists express solidarity in calling for release of Al-Jazeera five

Discussion: Latest News & Headlines, Voice of America, BBC, @felicitybarrtv, Al Jazeera English, @hazemsika, @hackneylad, @sokkari and The Huffington Post

Azi Paybarah / Capital New York:

Grimm offers a ‘friendly’ apology to NY1 reporter — Rep. Michael Grimm apologized in a phone call to the NY1 reporter who he threatened after an on-air interview in Washington last night. — NY1 reporter Michael Scotto, appearing on air this morning, said Grimm “called to apologize” and “said it was really not him.”

Discussion: New York Times, @mikescotto, Latest News & Headlines and Talking Points Memo

Sarah Wheaton / New York Times:
Rep. Michael Grimm Threatens an NY1 Reporter

Katerina Eva Matsa / Pew Research Center:

Local TV audiences bounce back — Bucking a long-range trend of declining viewership, the audience for local TV news grew in all three major time slots in 2013. Viewership climbed 6% in the morning (5 to 7 a.m.) and 3% in the early evening (5 to 7 p.m.) newscasts, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

Discussion: @tv_agent, @pewjournalism, The Wrap, @asmitch, @danharland, @halliejackson, Erik Wemple, Advancing the Story, Poynter, TVSpy and The Huffington Post

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:

Refresh, refresh, refresh... Twitter is monetizing your compulsiveness — Every time you refresh your tweets, Twitter banks a tenth of a penny. — The company, which will issue its first quarterly earnings report next week, considers “timeline views” the best measure of how engaged its users are.

Discussion: @ninanjira, @stephmbuck, WebProNews, AppNewser and Electronista

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Why the mobile-preview feature in BuzzFeed's CMS should matter to you — When Dao Nguyen wrote a post that looked terrible on a mobile device, she knew BuzzFeed had a problem. Nguyen is BuzzFeed's vice president of growth and data, and “obviously it's not my job to write a post,” she said by phone.

Discussion: @poynter

Daniel Roberts / Fortune:

HowAboutWe buys Nerve.com — Exclusive: The company is launching an entire network of content sites based around dating and love—an effort to challenge much bigger properties and be more than a dating site. — FORTUNE — Your go-to Friday night date routine may not be as unique as you thought.

Discussion: The New York Observer, Folio, TechCrunch, @brianjmoylan, @zseward, Capital New York, VentureBeat, Famously, VatorNews, The Next Web, @beejoli, Fast Company and @luxnightmare

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Holder: New media guidelines in weeks — New guidelines on how the Justice Department can monitor the media will be published in the next coming weeks, Attorney General Eric Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. — Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

TiVo to Buy Content-Recommendations Firm Digitalsmiths for $135 Million — TiVo plans to acquire Digitalsmiths, a provider of TV and movie content discovery and recommendation services, for $135 million in cash. — Digitalsmiths offers personalized video search, recommendations and browsing …

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Deadline.com, Wall Street Journal, multichannel.com/rss and MarketWatch

Amanda Holpuch / Guardian:

Academic group proposes editor blogging ban to keep ‘professional’ tone — Professors criticise the International Studies Association's suggested ban as ‘antithetical to the entire academic enterprise’ — A major academic body is proposing that editors of its journals be banned from blogging …

Discussion: @mathewi

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

How Homicide Report tells the ‘true story’ of LA's violent crime — Using a blog, an interactive map and robot-reporting, the LA Times's relaunched Homicide Report mixes human elements of journalism with technology to cover every murder in LA county — Credit: By kla4067 on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab and Co.Design

Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:

Last.fm gets on-demand streaming music with Spotify partnership — It's safe to say digital music service Last.fm is going through some big changes in 2014. We wrote about its switch to YouTube as the source for its personal radio service, but now it has a Spotify partnership for fully on-demand music too.

Discussion: Last.fm, Telegraph, Digital Music News, VentureBeat, CNET, The Next Web, The Verge, Engadget, hypebot and TechHive

Michelle Ferrier / Mediashift:

J-School Educators Dive into Startup Culture … When 15 educators from around the world went back to school — metaphorically speaking — at the third annual Scripps Howard Journalism Entrepreneurship Institute earlier this month, they learned two big things: the art of the pitch in gaining support …

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:

The Daily Dot Acquires The Kernel As Euro Tech Media Starts Motoring — A number of changes are afoot in the European tech media scene and it's worth us pausing for a moment to take stock. The first item on the agenda is the news that London-based site ‘The Kernel’, lately a ‘tabloid’ style news site …

Discussion: London Evening Standard, Business Wire, The Kernel, @kernelmag, @jonrussell, Tech.eu and The Next Web, Thanks:@dmfreeman

Emmanuel Naert / INMA:

De Standaard learns, profits through digital edition's growing pains — Nine months ago today, dS Avond debuted as a free digital publication. When De Standaard began charging three weeks later, 16% of its subscriber base began paying for the publication. But digital sales weren't what the media company was hoping for.

Diego Cruz / Journalism in the Americas Blog:

Killing of Mexican journalist sparks human rights ombudsman's investigation — Mexico's National Human Rights Commission will investigate the Jan. 23 murder of a journalist in Guerrero. It is the first killing of a journalist in Mexico this year. — Miguel Ángel Guzmán Garduño …