Mediagazer: Facebook aims to become digital publishing kingmaker by sending massive traffic to news sites (Robinson Meyer/The Atlantic)

11:20 AM ET, February 6, 2014

Top News:

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Times Co. Reports Digital Subscriber Increase, but Continued Ad Declines — The New York Times Company said it added digital subscribers and slowed declines in print and digital advertising revenues during the fourth quarter of 2013, a year of transition for the newspaper publisher.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Capital New York, Mashable and @romenesko

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

New York Times digital subscriptions grew 19% in 2013 — The number of digital subscriptions to New York Times Company products grew from 640,000 at the end of 2012 to 760,000 at the end of 2013, a gain of nearly 19 percent. Revenue from circulation was up about 4 percent over the previous year …

Discussion: investors.nytco.com, The Huffington Post, @mathewi, @edmundlee, @pkafka and @bgrueskin

John McDuling / Quartz:

Can the New York Times' online readership offset its prolonged ad slump? — The numbers: The New York Times Company reported another difficult set of numbers this morning. Revenue in 2013 fell 1.1% to $1.58 billon. Ad sales fell 6.3% in the fourth quarter, but the company …

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

Gannett's print-focused paywalls flounder — The quality imperative and charging for news online — Gannett's fourth-quarter newspaper results, announced Tuesday, were basically miserable. — Revenue at its publishing segment dropped 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter from last year …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Gannett Blog

Eric J. Smith / NetNewsCheck Latest: Gannett: USA Today Inserts To Hit 35 Markets

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:
Newsquest increases circulation revenues as sales go down

Discussion: National Union of Journalists

Sruthi Ramakrishnan / Reuters:

AOL revenue rises 13 percent as ad sales jump — (Reuters) - Digital media and entertainment company AOL Inc reported a better-than-expected 13 percent rise in quarterly revenue as its advertising revenue rose, especially from video. — The company's total revenue rose to $679 million …

Discussion: Capital New York, Street Fight, VentureBeat, Forbes, FishbowlNY, Re/code, TechCrunch, Deadline.com and @aoladvertising

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:

AOL Reports Solid Revenue, but Patch Tamped Down Profit — AOL, the search portal-turned-media company, reported strong revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013 on Thursday, but also a sharp decrease in profits for the year as it dealt with costs related to Patch, its struggling hyperlocal news service.

Discussion: CNBC and Silicon Republic

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

For NBC, a challenge in covering the Sochi Winter Olympics objectively — It may be the most troubled Olympic Games in the long history of troubled Olympic Games. — Construction backlogs. Crony contracts and kickbacks. Security fears. Hotel horror stories.

Discussion: Forbes, @washingtonpost, @joesudbay, Deadspin and Hit & Run

David S. Cohen / Variety:
Winter Olympics: How NBCUniversal's Army Of Techs Conquered Sochi

Discussion: Latest News & Headlines and Forbes

Catherine Taibi / The Huffington Post:
NBC News' Richard Engel: My Computers, Cellphone Were Hacked ‘Almost Immediately’ In Sochi

Discussion: Poynter, Erik Wemple, ABC News, Business Insider and Mediaite

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Marc Andreessen talks about the evolution of the news business and why he is optimistic — Everyone seems to have an opinion about what's wrong with the news business — whether it's the best of times or the worst of times for journalism, whether paywalls are the answer, and so on …

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, @pmarca, @gigaom, @emilybell, @emilybell, @gaberivera, @mg, @ceciliakang, @mikeisaac, @cmschroed, @marklittlenews and Featured stories

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Marc Andreessen: The 'problem with local news is most people don't care'

Discussion: Street Fight, @pmarca, @pmarca, @nitin_mangtani, @pmarca, @anildash, @meganbungeroth, @c_s_green and @themurdochtimes

Michael Wolff / USA Today:

Revenue prospects are dim for the recent flurry of new journalism start-ups — Revenue prospects are dim for the recent flurry of new journalism start-ups — The great foment in the news business involves journalists leaving established news organizations to strike out on their own …

Discussion: @robenfarzad, @jamesbreiner, @myriamrobin, The Huffington Post, @jayrosen_nyu, @carr2n and The Atlantic Online

American Press Institute:

American Press Institute announces major project to improve fact-checking journalism — ARLINGTON, VA—The American Press Institute ("API") announced today that it has received a grant of up to $400,000 over two years from the Democracy Fund. The grant will support research to improve political fact checking.

Discussion: @jessicaplautz, @ampress, @jcstearns and @cjr

Robinson Meyer / The Atlantic:

Facebook aims to become digital publishing kingmaker by sending massive traffic to news sites — And Just Like That, Facebook Became the Most Important Entity in Web Journalism — The graph above tells maybe the most interesting—and definitely the most surprising—story of the past year of digital media.

Discussion: @theatlantic, Kirk LaPointe's … and @lauraolin

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing.com:

Metric warfare on the advertising battlefield: What News UK's debate with the Guardian is all about — The mini war of words between News UK CEO Mike Darcey and the Guardian is being billed as a choice between two models of journalism, between free vs paid, between mass media vs quality media.

Discussion: @rorybrown and Press Gazette

Brian Morrissey / Digiday:

Scoreboard: Upworthy Combats Clickbait Critics With Attention Data — Upworthy has replaced BuzzFeed as the viral star of the moment, an object of both adoration and loathing for its meteoric rise on the back of clicktastic, heartwarming headlines that are shared in tremendous volume on Facebook.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Upworthy Insider, @michaelroston and @ampress

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Sochi 2014: Channel 4 rebrands to back gay rights — Broadcaster to change logo for a day and run ‘Gay Mountain’ advert in support of gay athletes at Winter Olympics in Russia — Channel 4 is to rebrand its on-screen logo with rainbow colours of the gay pride flag - and launch a TV ad campaign called …

Discussion: @guardian

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Celebrity Weeklies, Fashion Magazines Continue to Struggle on Newsstand — Today, the Alliance for Audited Media released its consumer magazine circulation data for the second half of 2013, and once again, the narrative remains the same. Overall circulation remained relatively flat versus …

Discussion: Alliance for Audited Media

Alex Barinka / Bloomberg:

Aereo Reopens New York Online-TV Service to New Subscribers — Aereo Inc., the online-television company that's battling broadcasters in the Supreme Court, reopened its service to New York subscribers after regaining enough capacity to handle demand. — People who were on a waiting list …

Thanks:@alexbarinka

Christopher McKinlay / Medium:

Sorry, Guy: I Won't Come Work For Buzzfeed — Last week Wired magazine published a feature article on how I hacked the dating website OkCupid and met my fiancée. I subsequently received the following job offer via email from Buzzfeed's Director of Partnership Development:

Discussion: @luthorceo, @adamweinstein and @neetzan

Gideon Spanier / London Evening Standard:

Net-A-Porter takes on Vogue with its own glossy magazine — Online fashion retailer Net-A-Porter today launched its own glossy women's magazine, Porter, in an ambitious move that will see an estimated 400,000 copies distributed worldwide six times a year. — Net-A-Porter founder Natalie …

Discussion: Telegraph, Telegraph, Fashionista, Wall Street Journal, thedrum.com and mUmBRELLA

Gideon Spanier / The Independent:

Vodafone eyes pay-TV as UK revenues tumble — Game on? Vittorio Colao suggested buying up Premier League rights could be a long-term possibility for the mobiles giant — Vodafone has given its strongest signal yet that it is considering a game-changing move into pay-TV in Britain …

Matthew Kassel / The New York Observer:

Borowitz Lite: A Twitter King Scales Back His Online Presence — Before heading uptown to a book party at Andy Borowitz's spacious West End apartment last night, I checked his Twitter feed to see if he'd said anything interesting that day. The comedian's hilariously satirical Twitter presence …

Bill Carter / New York Times:

Subdued Send-Off, but Jay Leno Is Exiting on Top — When Jack Paar left the “Tonight” show in 1962, he passed through a set of curtains and the camera zoomed in on a card that read: “No More to Come.” Three decades later, Johnny Carson had Bette Midler serenade him on his penultimate show …

Discussion: Capital New York, Los Angeles Times, @juliebosman, @brianstelter, MiamiHerald.com, Variety and Mediaite

Louisa Loveluck / Telegraph:

British journalist facing Egypt terror charges in Egypt denies allegations — Sue Turton, an Al Jazeera reporter who has previously worked for Channel 4 and Sky News, said she was shocked to see her name on a charge sheet — A British journalist who faces charges of terrorism in Cairo …

Discussion: @afinighan, @felicitybarrtv, GlobalPost, CNN, The Huffington Post and Al Jazeera Press Office