Mediagazer: NSA and GCHQ spying on WikiLeaks (WikiLeaks)

1:20 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: @georgeprof, @michaelpaulson, @mathewi, @martinepowers, @twallack, @jasonschwartz, @bostonmagazine, @simon_hughes__ 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 …

Discussion: CNET, Firedoglake, The Verge, TheHill, The Next Web, TorrentFreak, @ali_gharib, @johnknefel, @driven_by_data, @onekade, @lilianasegura, @brianboyer, @koenrh, @ioerror, @csoghoian, @micahflee, Softpedia News and @the_intercept

WikiLeaks:
NSA and GCHQ spying on WikiLeaks

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

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 and The Newspaper Guild

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

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

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: TechCrunch and VentureBeat

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, @careyathearst, @carr2n and @hearstcorp

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

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

Is it time to tie journalists' pay to revenue? — The days of editorial teams being quietly sheltered from the rigors of the sales team are long gone. Instead, journalists today increasingly double as numbers-crunching audience-hunting analytics wizzes, often paid based on the reach, not the quality, of their output.

Discussion: @digiday, @kevglobal and Common Sense Journalism

Jason Koebler / Motherboard:

A Journalist Is Suing the Police Who Grounded His Drone — Rivera took this photo with his drone. Image: Pedro Rivera — A journalist suspended by his news channel for flying a drone near the scene of a car accident in Connecticut is now planning to sue the Hartford City Police Department for lost wages and additional damages.

Discussion: Poynter and @matthew_ryan

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: @vfhollywood and Guardian

Bloomberg:

Talks for including Netflix on Time Warner set-top boxes are on hold after Comcast deal announcement — Netflix Talks for Time Warner Cable Carriage Said to Slow — Netflix Inc. (NFLX)'s effort to secure a place for its video-subscription service on Time Warner Cable Inc. set-top boxes …