Mediagazer: In Connecticut, the Independent Media Network tries to succeed where Patch couldn't (Caroline O'Donovan/Nieman Journalism Lab)

8:00 PM ET, February 18, 2014

Top News:

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

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

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

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

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

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

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

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: Forbes and The Whip

Jim Romenesko:

U.S. News deletes archived web content published before 2007 — A Romenesko reader recently noticed that U.S. News wiped out a good chunk of its archives. He writes: “The way that I stumbled upon this is that I am constantly going back into archives of various publications while doing research.

Discussion: @dancow, @beschizza, @clare_oc, @notjessewalker, @mtdukes and @felixsalmon

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: Home Media Magazine, CNET, Lost Remote, TechCrunch and @dangillmor

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, @meganrosem, @isandy_c and @dmacap

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: WebProNews, TechCrunch, Variety, Pulse 2.0 and VentureBeat

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

In Connecticut, the Independent Media Network tries to succeed where Patch couldn't — AOL's Patch was perhaps the most noteworthy attempt to network local online news. It was built around hundreds of locally focused sites, yes, but it relied on a common technology back end and a shared ad sales staff.

Discussion: @niemanlab

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 …