Mediagazer: Dish's Charlie Ergen: I'm Nervous About Comcast-TWC, Surprised Our Business Hasn't Been Worse (Jeff Bercovici/Forbes)

5:40 PM ET, February 21, 2014

Top News:

Report: Baltimore City Paper staffers will lose their jobs, but could be rehired by the Sun — Fern Shen reports Baltimore City Paper staffers met Thursday afternoon with their new boss at the Sun and were told that everyone loses their jobs, but could be rehired.

Discussion: bizjournals, Baltimore Brew, @camilledodero, @maura, The Huffington Post and @carr2n

Tom Scocca / Gawker:

Baltimore Is One Step Closer to Being a Zero-Newspaper Town — It's not even possible to get mad at the Baltimore Sun now. The Baltimore Sun is a nursing home where newspapering goes to die, or to sink into terminal urine-soaked frailty and confusion. Yesterday it announced it had received …

Discussion: @crash_landers, @tomscocca, @johnmcquaid, @jackshafer, @max_read, Digital Media Wire, Erik Wemple, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Baltimore Sun, AAN and Poynter

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Proposed FCC study of news organizations sparks outcry — A proposed government study of how media organizations gather news has incited a powerful backlash, particularly among conservatives, who said that it could be part of an official effort to intimidate or second-guess journalists.

Discussion: Media Channel, Fox News, Poynter, Broadcasting & Cable, The Switch, Hit & Run, Hot Air, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Mother Jones, @jondelano, Los Angeles Times, The Verge, The Newspaper Guild and The Hill

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times: FCC's new closed captioning rules had long journey

Pew Internet:

Mapping Twitter Topic Networks: From Polarized Crowds to Community Clusters — Summary of Findings — Polarized Crowds: Political conversations on Twitter — Conversations on Twitter create networks with identifiable contours as people reply to and mention one another in their tweets.

Discussion: Al Jazeera America, PBS, Des Moines Register, @accenturesocial, Business Insider, @jesseholcomb, The Technology Chronicles, CNET and Washington Post

Leo Mirani / Quartz:
Turns out Twitter is even more politically polarized than you thought

Discussion: @gregdklein, SocialTimes and AppNewser

Guardian:

Phone-hacking trial told of ‘bin man’ who sold documents to newspapers — Rebekah Brooks explains reference to ‘binology’ on invoice sent to the News of the World in 2001 while she was editor — A man who used to go through the bins of lawyers and other high profile people would sell material …

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Is There Any Escape From ‘Recommended for You’? — Based on what The New York Times thinks I'm interested in reading, I am not a fun person. — “Recommended for You,” which tracks readers' habits and predicts their interests, finds me especially interested in the troubles of Gov. Chris Christie …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, @justinbrookman, @mathewi, @dangillmor and @sulliview

Frank Bajak / Associated Press:

Activists say Venezuela is blocking walkie-talkie app Zello and websites Pastebin and NTN24 — INTERNET A CRUCIAL VENEZUELA BATTLEGROUND — LIMA, Peru (AP) — The battle for Venezuela is being fought as vigorously online as in the streets, with authorities cutting off the Internet …

Discussion: @nancypelosi

Hadas Gold / Politico:
Venezuela revokes CNN press credentials

Discussion: Poynter, @maitwiter, BBC, Mediaite, @nickkristof, @cnnee and @hadas_gold

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Sources say Amazon readying a Web TV box competing with Apple TV and Roku, for March rollout — Amazon Gets Its TV Box Ready, Again — Amazon is gearing up to take on Apple and Roku, again. — Industry sources say Amazon is getting ready to launch a Web TV box that would compete …

Discussion: Pulse 2.0, VentureBeat, Polygon, WebProNews, 9to5Mac, Forbes, VatorNews, ReadWrite, BGR, MacRumors, The Verge, Mashable, AppleInsider, TechCrunch, CNET, GeekWire, App Advice, Business Insider and VG247

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Dish's Charlie Ergen: I'm Nervous About Comcast-TWC, Surprised Our Business Hasn't Been Worse — Optimism is supposedly one of the qualities people look for in politicians and business leaders. Apparently no one told Charlie Ergen, who seemed less concerned with soothing investors …

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Southern Living Puts its Name on Branded Communities — Diehard fans of Time Inc.'s Southern Living can live in a Southern Living-branded house filled with Southern Living-branded décor, thanks to the brand's formidable stable of brand extensions. There are home goods (furniture …

Discussion: @steve_katz

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Om-Niscient: A Much-Deserved Mash Note to Tech Blogger Om Malik — Of course, I was jammed yesterday with a trip and then the big news of Facebook forking over $19 billion for WhatsApp in the endless hamster-wheel cycle that is sometimes my life, so I missed the news about Om Malik.

Discussion: TechCrunch, @doctorparadox, @hunterwalk, @mhelft, Om Malik, @jayrosen_nyu, @mathewi, Talking Biz News, Pulse 2.0, Gigaom, PE Hub Blog, @carr2n, @thekenyeung, @pkedrosky, @alexia and @mikeisaac

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:

Garrick Utley, Former NBC Anchor and Foreign Correspondent, Dies at 74 — Garrick Utley, a former anchor for NBC News who for many years was one of a rare breed in television news reporting, a full-time foreign correspondent, died on Thursday night at his home in Manhattan. He was 74.

Discussion: Gawker, Robert Feder, Capital New York, CNN and @louiseslaughter

Jeff Bercovici / Playboy:

Nick Denton: Gawker, Crowdsourcing & Kinja — Manti Te'o had a fake girlfriend. Rob Ford smoked crack. Brett Favre texted photos of his junk to a young woman. That these and countless other onetime secrets are now public knowledge is thanks to Nick Denton, the founder and owner …

Discussion: Forbes, Capital New York, The Wrap, @taylorlorenz, @thestalwart, @mslaurenrae, bookforum.com, @psigrist, @pkafka, @jayrosen_nyu, @lhfang, Erik Wemple and @jyarow

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Telegraph: Jason Seiken confirms MacGregor and Evans in editing roles — TMG editorial chief also announces three deputies and creates digital director roles for content and visual journalism — Telegraph Media Group's editorial chief, Jason Seiken, has announced a number of changes to the senior editorial team.

Discussion: Press Gazette and @mediaguardian

Associated Press:

White House bars media from Dalai Lama meeting — WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House defended its decision Friday to bar reporters and photojournalists from a meeting between President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, while acknowledging the news media's legitimate interest in covering the two leaders' encounter.

Discussion: Politico, The Huffington Post, @fieldproducer and NPPA

Angela Doland / AdAge:

Western TV Hits a Big Draw for Online Viewers — and Advertisers — in China — Brands Reach Out to Young, Educated Audience That Loves ‘House of Cards’,'Sherlock' — How to Make Credible Green Marketing Claims — While Americans shell out for Netflix subscriptions to see the second season of …

Eric Lipton / New York Times:

Comcast's Web of Lobbying and Philanthropy — WASHINGTON — Only a few hours had passed after the $45 billion merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable was announced last week when an early voice emerged endorsing the giant deal. — “Win-win situation for American businesses,” …

Discussion: @tackettdc, @nickconfessore, @nickjrusso, @amychozick and @brianstelter

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Charter CEO Rutledge: After Losing Time Warner Cable, We're Still Interested in Acquiring Subscribers — Charter Communications may have been blindsided by Comcast's $45 billion bid last week for Time Warner Cable — topping Charter's hostile takeover offer — but president and CEO Tom Rutledge …

Discussion: MediaPost, USA Today, Reuters, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Hollywood Reporter and multichannel.com/rss

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Ireland's newspapers lose print sales, but national titles hold up well — Ireland's three home-grown national titles have enjoyed a reasonable six months in terms of circulation, according to the latest set of ABC audited sales figures. — But the year-on-year comparisons reveal …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Publishing businesses contributed to revenue gain at former Washington Post company — Revenue from businesses including Slate, Foreign Policy and the advertising agency SocialCode was up 77 percent at Graham Holdings Company in 2013, the company said in its year-end earnings report.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, TVSpy and Business Wire