Mediagazer: How First Look Pushes Verticals Ahead of Overarching ‘Magazine’ Brand (Susan Currie Sivek/Mediashift)

4:55 AM ET, February 21, 2014

Top News:

BBC:

Venezuela threatens to expel CNN over protest coverage — Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has threatened to expel the US news network CNN from the country over its reporting of recent protests there. — Mr Maduro said he would take action if CNN did not “rectify its coverage”.

Discussion: TIME and @fieldproducer

Uri Friedman / The Atlantic Online:

Why Venezuela's Revolution Will Be Tweeted — The country's street protests are playing out dramatically on the social network. — We can't seem to agree about whether social media fuels, merely facilitates, or actually hinders protest movements. But in Venezuela, where five people …

Discussion: @valtmc, @hemlockmartinis and @anupkaphle

Danny O'Brien / Electronic Frontier Foundation: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

‘House of Cards’ Binge-Watching: 2% of U.S. Subs Finished Entire Series Over First Weekend — Binge-watching on the rise compared to drama series' first season — There are some dedicated “House of Cards” fans out there. — Approximately 2% of Netflix subscribers on U.S. broadband networks took …

Discussion: TIME, @awallenstein, @awallenstein, Fox Business and The Verge

Om Malik / Gigaom:

Om Malik leaves day-to-day operations at Gigaom, becomes full partner at True Ventures, site raises $8M more — Now that Gigaom is all grown up, it's time for the next chapter — It's a new year (although it's well underway) and I'm excited to talk about the new phase at Gigaom.

Discussion: Om Malik, Re/code, @alexia, @kentgoldman, @waltmossberg, @om, @tomkrazit, @jason_pontin, @timoreilly, @twittner, TechCrunch, Pulse 2.0, @nitashatiku, @johnolilly, PE Hub Blog, @hblodget, @laurengoode, @carr2n, @satishd, @mims, @pkafka, @rafat, @pkedrosky, @ashleymayer, @msquinn, @thekenyeung, @caseynewton, @mikeisaac and @tonysphere

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

News video curator Watchup will update app in March to incorporate ads, add PostTV as partner — Right back after these messages: Watchup adds ads and partners with The Washington Post — The news video aggregator Watchup aims, in a sense, to recreate something like the traditional …

Discussion: Idea Lab, Venture Capital Dispatch, @niemanlab and @crovitz

Susan Currie Sivek / Mediashift:

How First Look Pushes Verticals Ahead of Overarching ‘Magazine’ Brand — First Look Media has gotten plenty of coverage for its strategy of creating “digital magazines” based on the work of specific journalists with unique voices who will dive deeply into focused topics.

Discussion: @pbsmediashift and New York Times

Maryclaire Dale / Associated Press:

Rivals debate auction rules for Philly newspapers … PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The top investor in Philadelphia's largest newspapers wants the company sold in a quick, closed auction among current partners while a rival wants a slower sale open to all. — The Philadelphia Inquirer …

Discussion: Philadelphia Magazine

Jon Chesto / Boston Business Journal:

Patch's move to bring back laid-off editor is a sign that the firm is hiring journalists again — When Susan Petroni learned on Jan. 29 that she would lose her job as Framingham editor for the Patch network of news sites, the news didn't come as a big shock.

Gregg Carlstrom / Foreign Policy:

Why Egypt Hates Al Jazeera — The network's Cairo-based staff, who stand accused of running a terror cell from a luxury hotel, find themselves caught in the middle of a regional power struggle. Cairo — Last summer, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy was one of thousands of protesters who took to Tahrir Square …

Discussion: @maitelsadany, Latest News & Headlines and @daliaezzat_

Ahram Online:
Trial of Al Jazeera journalists adjourned until 5 March

Discussion: Poynter, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, @jasonleopold, Al Jazeera Press Office, Al Jazeera America, Agence France Presse and Al Jazeera English

Henry Taylor / TheMediaBriefing:

Contributoria catch up Q&A: how the first month went — Described as “if Kickstarter and Medium had a baby”, crowd-funded journalism community Contributoria is now one month old. — The Guardian Media Group-backed startup has signed up more 650 members - 65 percent of which are writers - and 24 projects have been backed.

Discussion: @mattmcalister

Julian Hattem / The Hill:

FCC: ‘No intention’ of muzzling press — The Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) is trying to reassure House Republicans that it has no plans to restrict the freedom of the press. — In a letter released Thursday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told Republican leaders of the House Energy …

Discussion: Poynter, Hit & Run, Hot Air, @sodagrrl and Mediaite

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:
FCC wants to improve quality of closed captioning

Discussion: TVWeek.com

Alex Weprin / Capital New York:

M.L.B., N.B.A., N.H.L. and others to launch joint digital sports channel with Time Inc. — Three of the “big four” U.S. sports leagues are teaming up to launch a new digital video channel, in conjunction with Time Inc. The channel, called 120 Sports, will launch later this spring …

Discussion: Folio, Adweek, WWD Media Headlines, Variety, Business Insider, FishbowlNY, PR Newswire, Tubefilter, @kevinmdraper, @dylanbyers and @capitalnewyork

Sarah Kendzior / Politico:

What does our addiction to disaster porn say about us? — What does our addiction to disaster porn say about us? — Journalist Simon Shuster said it was “straight out of Hieronymus Bosch.” Writer Philip Gourevitch thought it was more like Bruegel. But the main word to describe …

Discussion: Gigaom, Mediaite, @jaunetom, The Daily Caller, @carloalberto, @chanders, @cbrrd, @chanders, @buzzfeedben, @buzzfeedben, @mlcalderone, @mims, Guardian, TIME, @jonathanliew, @yasmeen973 and Erik Wemple

Rem Rieder / USA Today:

Awards underscore the value of important work and reinforce commitment to do it. — Among the long list of inexact sciences in the world, picking award-winners is right up there. And that's true whether the subject is movies, music or journalism. Let's start with movies.

Discussion: @nsncgroup

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Before Facebook Deal, WhatsApp Was Helping BuzzFeed and Shazam Go Viral With New Platform Tools — Unlike mobile messaging competitors like Line and WeChat, WhatsApp has taken a resolute stance against becoming a platform that distributes games and other apps.

Discussion: Facebook, Fortune, Nieman Journalism Lab, Sequoia Capital, The New Yorker Blog, CNNMoney.com, The Verge, DealBook, TechCrunch, Digiday, Quartz, The Verge, Gawker, @nishachittal, @mattbuchanan, @buzzfeedben, @antderosa and @ezraklein

Thomas Erdbrink / New York Times:

Iran's Judiciary Closes a New Pro-Government Newspaper — TEHRAN — An Iranian newspaper aligned with the country's reform-minded new president was closed on Thursday by Iran's judiciary, only six days after its first issue, local news outlets reported. — It is unclear whether the closing …

Discussion: Associated Press

Karen Fratti / 10,000 Words:

National Journal Launches Document Library — Need some background research for a complicated energy policy story? Or a good idea for your niche publication to demonstrate its value for readers? — Take a tip from the National Journal, which launched a the Document Library this week …

Discussion: NationalJournal.com and Lost Remote

BBC:

Brooks denies knowing of NoW hacker — Rebekah Brooks has said she never heard of a private investigator who has since been jailed for phone hacking while she was editor of the News of the World. — Mrs Brooks said that during her leadership of the paper, she never heard investigator Glenn Mulcaire's name mentioned.