Mediagazer: Times Idea Lab ‘expanding’ as director departs (Joe Pompeo/Capital New York)

12:05 PM ET, January 31, 2014

Top News:

Luke Harding / Guardian:

Footage released of Guardian editors destroying Snowden hard drives — GCHQ technicians watched as journalists took angle grinders and drills to computers after weeks of tense negotiations. New video footage has been released for the first time of the moment Guardian editors destroyed computers used …

Discussion: Guardian, The Huffington Post, Poynter, @tomgara, @radleybalko, Lawfare, Mashable, @timkarr, @paul__johnson, @emptywheel, @mlcalderone and @petersterne

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

How Digital First Media hopes to transform workflow, culture of ‘newspaper factories’ — Digital First Media has unveiled plans to transform its newsrooms and put its money where its name is. “Project Unbolt” aims to address the problem of digital efforts at the mercy of existing newspaper infrastructure.

Discussion: Digital First Media, The Buttry Diary, The Buttry Diary and 10,000 Words

Al Jazeera America:

Egypt's ‘severe clampdown’ on journalists condemned by UN … The United Nations has expressed concern about the “increasingly severe clampdown and physical attacks” on journalists in Egypt, singling out three Al Jazeera reporters held for more than a month.

David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

Egypt Tries to Reassure Journalists From Abroad — CAIRO — The government on Thursday tried to reassure foreign correspondents that they are free to report in Egypt after prosecutors filed criminal charges accusing 20 journalists for Al Jazeera television of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Discussion: @sherryamin13, @williamsjon and @mlcalderone

Lauren Kirchner / Columbia Journalism Review:

Reporting in the post-Snowden era — A panel at Columbia discussed challenges and triumphs — In an auditorium so large that Columbia's Journalism School typically only uses it for its graduation ceremonies, hundreds attended the panel discussion “Journalism After Snowden” on Thursday evening.

Discussion: The Wrap, Capital New York, Tow Center for Digital … and The Huffington Post

Malcolm Moore / Telegraph:

China kills off discussion on Weibo after internet crackdown — Exclusive: An aggressive crackdown on Sina Weibo has seen numbers of postings on the Twitter-like microblogging site plummet according to research commissioned by the Telegraph — China has succeeded in neutering the country's …

Discussion: Tech in Asia, @telegraph, @marshallmanson, @christinelu and Tech in Asia

Jon Russell / The Next Web:
Sina Weibo users set new messaging record, but is engagement on 'China's Twitter' falling?

Discussion: Telegraph

Dave McNary / Variety:

Writers Guild of America: Companies Seeking $60 Million in Rollbacks (EXCLUSIVE) — Negotiations starting Monday — Setting the stage for contentious bargaining, leaders of the Writers Guild of America have told members that production companies are proposing $60 million in rollbacks at upcoming negotiations.

Discussion: The Wrap

Erich Schwartzel / Wall Street Journal:
Cable TV is likely to star in contract talks set to begin Monday between Hollywood and the Writers Guild

Discussion: Deadline.com

Bloomberg:

Time Inc. Said to Weigh Leaving NYC Time & Life Building — Time Inc., the magazine unit soon to be spun off from Time Warner Inc. (TWX), is considering leaving the Time & Life Building on New York's Avenue of the Americas and moving its offices to lower Manhattan, three people with knowledge of the company's plans said.

Discussion: Mediawire Daily

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

The secret to having a successful paywall around your news is simple — it's about community — Everyone likes to point to the New York Times as the model for a news outlet with a successful paywall or online-subscription model, but as the authors of Columbia University's report on …

Discussion: @marklittlenews and The Dish

Ciara Byrne / Co.Labs:
Inside The Ad-Free, Crowdfunded Publication That Is Upending The Newspaper Business

Discussion: @fastcolabs, @mathewi and @mathewi

Mark Ward / BBC:

UK government tackles wrongly-blocked websites — Net filters that are supposed to prevent children from inappropriate material have blocked access to educational and charity sites — The government is drawing up a list of sites inadvertently blocked by the filters it asked internet service providers (ISPs) to implement.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Wired.co.uk, The Independent, @computersandlaw, DailyTech, UK News and Opinion, Softpedia News, CNET and The Next Web

Alexandra Wake / Nieman Journalism Lab:

In Australia, an ambitious nonprofit news outlet has its funding pulled out from under it — Editor's note: When I speak to journalists or news executives from other countries, there's one part of the American news ecosystem they're always amazed by: our nonprofit news outlets.

Discussion: @davidc7, @wakeinfright, @niemanlab, The Conversation, The Global Mail, Sydney Morning Herald and mUmBRELLA

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Daily News touts new ranking: No. 2 U.S. newspaper site — On Wednesday, Daily News employees got one of those all-staff messages that seems like its becoming more of a rarity at newspapers these days: the Good News memo. — This time, it was editor Colin Myler and president Bill Holiber announcing …

Discussion: @tedbyoung

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Times Idea Lab ‘expanding’ as director departs — Change has come to The New York Times' Idea Lab, a 10-person think tank that develops digital advertising innovations. — Tracy Quitasol, a nine-year Times veteran credited with building The Idea Lab into a successful operation …

Discussion: Capital New York

Jason Abbruzzese / Mashable:

Facebook Steps Onto Twitter's TV Data Turf — What's This? — Twitter's firehose of data is about to meet a tsunami from Facebook. — After announcing its news reader app, Paper, on Thursday, Facebook has also announced that it will begin to publish anonymized data …

Discussion: Facebook, AdNews, thedrum.com, NASDAQ.com, B&T and The Next Web

Jeremy Barr / Poynter:

Journalists await new drone regulations. And wait, and wait... Across the U.S., journalists are sitting, watching, and waiting on the sidelines while the Federal Aviation Administration develops rules for the safe operation of small drones. — A few journalists have experimented with drone technology …

Discussion: @athertonkd and @poynter

Agence France-Presse:

China hits back at US criticism over foreign journalists — China on Friday hit back at Washington's condemnation of its treatment of foreign journalists, as tensions rise over a New York Times reporter who left Beijing after not receiving a visa. — PHOTOS

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

Be Careful at the Book Club, the Author Might Be There — The living room in the plush apartment on Central Park West was filled with all the trappings of a traditional book club. — A dozen people, mostly women, perched on sofas and armchairs with paperbacks on their laps.

Discussion: Melville House Books

Eugene Volokh / Washington Post:

‘Doom’ is for the unprepared — “Is National Review doomed?” asks Damon Linker (The Week). “It's doubtful that National Review could survive” losing Michael Mann's libel lawsuit, or having to settle it out of court. “National Review may be fighting for its life.” The “magazine has now been placed in jeopardy.”

Discussion: TheBlaze.com, @sunny_hundal, @theweek and The Week

New York Times:

Hong Kong Paper Ousts Top Editor, Stirring Concern — HONG KONG — This city's Ming Pao newspaper has long stood for sober independence in a media market that is both brashly commercial and buffeted by political winds from China, its reporters pursuing and often breaking stories that irk the territory's overseers in Beijing.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …, @johncbussey and @nytimesworld

Martin Fackler / New York Times:

Japan's Public Broadcaster Faces Accusations of Shift to the Right — TOKYO — First, there was the abrupt resignation of a president accused by governing party politicians of allowing an overly liberal tone to news coverage. Then, his newly appointed successor immediately drew public ire …

Discussion: Channel NewsAsia, Japan Real Time, Japan Times latest, GlobalPost, The Japan Daily Press, The Japan Daily Press and RT

Adrianne Jeffries / The Verge:

Net neutrality petition gets a million signatures — The advocacy group Free Press, along with a broad coalition of organizations, has delivered the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) a petition with a million signatures asking to restore the federal protections for net neutrality that were struck down in court two weeks ago.

Discussion: Free Press Blog and Free Press Blog

BBC:

BT revenues up on demand for broadband and sports TV — BT's sales and profits have risen, driven by record broadband demand and its new sports television service. — The company reported pre-tax profits of £617m for the last three months of 2013, on revenues of £4.6bn.

Discussion: Telegraph, London News, RTTNews, This is Money, BelfastTelegraph.co.uk and Guardian

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook's New “Creative Labs” Lets The 6,000-Employee Giant Move Fast Like A Startup — It's tough to experiment with a billion people watching. At that scale, Facebook's mantras of “move fast and break things” and “Done is better than perfect” don't quite work.

Discussion: The Verge, Facebook, Business Insider, Businessweek, CNET and @annepascual

Lance Ulanoff / Mashable:
Facebook Paper Is Content — But Don't Call Facebook a Media Company

Discussion: @agolis, @jason, Re/code, Ars Technica, Wired, Guardian, Kirk LaPointe's … and Gigaom

Donna Tam / CNET:

Amazon considers $40 increase in Prime subscription fee — Amazon may increase its US Amazon Prime membership fee by $40 dollars more, the company's chief financial officer announced Thursday during an earnings call. — CFO Tom Szkutak said growing transportation costs may cause …