Mediagazer: Society needs people whose attention is not caught up in the news of the moment (Alain de Botton/The Huffington Post)

6:35 PM ET, February 18, 2014

Top News:

BostonGlobe.com is moving to a metered paywall … That's one of the takeaways from this long profile of the John Henry-era Globe by Jason Schwartz in Boston Magazine. The Globe famously split its web presence in 2011 into a completely free Boston.com and a mostly hard-paywalled BostonGlobe.com.

Discussion: @niemanlab

Jason Schwartz / Boston Magazine:

Will John Henry Save the Globe? — Maybe, but his ambitions are much grander. “I feel my mortality,” he says. So here's his plan: He's going to use the time he has left on earth to try to save journalism itself. — Just days after striking a deal to buy the Boston Globe …

Discussion: @mathewi, @dskok, @martinepowers, @georgeprof, @dankennedy_nu, @jayrosen_nyu, @twallack, @michaelpaulson, @jasonschwartz, @bostonmagazine and @simon_hughes__

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Whisper publicizes and claims it vetted a new Gwyneth Paltrow affair rumor shared by a user — Whisper, The Sequoia-Backed Secret Sharing App, Makes A Move Into TMZ Territory — Whisper, the popular anonymous social sharing startup that's raised $24 million from venture capital giants …

Discussion: Betabeat, @neetzan, Gawker, Business Insider, @ryanlawler, The Huffington Post, @neetzan, @fmanjoo, @whisperapp and BuzzFeed

Graydon Carter / Vanity Fair:

Graydon Carter explains why Vanity Fair didn't run with Gwyneth Paltrow piece — The Paltrow Affair — Not to bore you with the details, but the whole Vanity Fair-Gwyneth Paltrow brouhaha began innocently enough at a routine morning editorial meeting last spring.

Discussion: The New York Observer, WebProNews, Guardian, @vfhollywood and @jayrosen_nyu

The Intercept:

Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters — Top-secret documents from the National Security Agency and its British counterpart reveal for the first time how the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom targeted WikiLeaks …

WikiLeaks:
NSA and GCHQ spying on WikiLeaks

Discussion: @freedomofpress, @wikileaks, alexaobrien.com/secondsight, @csoghoian and Softpedia News

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Study says civic participation fell in Denver and Seattle after newspapers closed — Civic engagement in Denver and Seattle “dropped significantly from 2008 to 2009,” Portland State University professor Lee Shaker says in a paper published at the end of January called “Dead Newspapers …

Discussion: @haldonahue, The Breakdown, Kirk LaPointe's … and The Newspaper Guild

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Reality check: No, Upworthy's traffic didn't get crushed by Facebook's algorithm change — A week or so ago, Business Insider had a post about how a recent change to Facebook's newsfeed algorithm had “crushed” traffic to Upworthy, the viral-news site that relies on social platforms for much of its audience …

Discussion: Salon and @antderosa

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:
Mental Floss a big winner after Facebook's mysterious ‘high quality’ algorithm change

Discussion: Digiday, WebProNews, @poynter and @englishjason

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Journal pushes enterprise, data, ‘immersive storytelling’ — The Wall Street Journal is making moves to ramp up its enterprise coverage. Managing editor Gerard Baker announced three appointments that “will strengthen our investigations team, enhance our data-reporting resources and advance …

Discussion: @mathewi and @danieldrepper

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Showtime App Goes Live on Roku — But Comcast Is Not on Board — Showtime Networks has launched its authenticated streaming-video service on Roku broadband set-top boxes, providing access to to hundreds of hours of on-demand content and live TV feeds, available to subscribers of several major pay-TV partners.

Discussion: CNET, Home Media Magazine, Lost Remote and TechCrunch

Mike Hopkins / Hulu Blog:

Hulu hires former SVP at Sony Network Entertainment Tian Lim as CTO — A World-Class Builder Joins the Hulu Ranks — Hulu is the best place for world-class builders. Hands down. Our business at its core is defined by the building and innovating that happens daily at Hulu.

Discussion: Pulse 2.0, TechCrunch, WebProNews, VentureBeat and Variety

Alain de Botton / The Huffington Post:

Society needs people whose attention is not caught up in the news of the moment — On Not Caring About The News — We should go a little easier on ourselves when it comes to indifference to the news, and recognize that we're one of the first generations to have to deal with the torrent …

Discussion: @alaindebotton, @isandy_c, @meganrosem and @dmacap

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

Portions of Forbes Site Still Down After Hacker Attack — Business news site Forbes.com was still recovering today from the after-effects of an attack by hackers that exposed the email addresses of more than a million of its users and forced it to take its blogging platform down.

Discussion: Forbes, Softpedia News and Talking Biz News

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Some people want a lot more Winter Olympics; some people want no Winter Olympics at all — The folks at NBC's Breaking News have a post up looking at how their users responded to the arrival of a huge story — the Sochi Winter Olympics. (Breaking News is ahead of the pack at encouraging readers …

Discussion: The Whip

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Hearst Is Staking Its Future on an Editor Turned CEO — When SmartMoney made its debut in 1992, it was anything but another staid business magazine. A joint venture of Dow Jones and Hearst Magazines, it mixed humor with provocative stories, many of which regularly incensed advertisers.

Discussion: @lmoses, @hearstcorp, @careyathearst and @carr2n

Mike Shields / Adweek:

Big YouTube channels launch GOVA to protect interests of web video companies — Big YouTube Channels Join Forces to Help Drive Ads Meet GOVA, the Global Online Video Association By Mike Shields — The Web video world is getting its own trade organization: GOVA, the Global Online Video Association …

Discussion: Top Digital Journal News and AdExchanger

BBC:

The BBC, NBC News, Reuters, and others call for release of Al Jazeera journalists — Open letter from BBC News and international news organisations to the Egyptian authorities concerning Peter Greste — Open letter from BBC News and international news organisations to the Egyptian …

Discussion: TVNewser, @dhrutishah, Guardian, @malonebarry, @aljazeera, @ssirgany, @andrroy, @halagorani and @mishalhusainbbc

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Press freedom groups urge David Cameron to lay off The Guardian — A group of the world's leading press freedom bodies is calling on prime minister David Cameron to distance himself from the investigation into The Guardian over the leaks by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Discussion: Committee to Protect … and @arusbridger