Mediagazer: Roku Said to Be Weighing Initial Public Offering in U.S. in 2014 (Bloomberg)

8:30 PM ET, February 21, 2014

Top News:

CNN:

Venezuela tells CNN journalists to ‘get out’ — Sorting fact from fiction in Venezuela — (CNN) — Venezuela has revoked or denied press credentials for CNN journalists in the country, following the president's announcement he would expel CNN if it did not “rectify” its coverage of anti-government protests.

Discussion: Business Insider

Hadas Gold / Politico:
Venezuela revokes CNN press credentials

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

Frank Bajak / Associated Press:
Activists say Venezuela is blocking walkie-talkie app Zello and websites Pastebin and NTN24

Discussion: @wexler and @nancypelosi

Jim Romenesko:

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, @carr2n and The Huffington Post

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, @objectguerilla, @max_read, Digital Media Wire, Baltimore Sun and Erik Wemple

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Netflix packets being dropped every day because Verizon wants more money — Verizon wants to be paid by consumers and Cogent, but Cogent refuses to pay. — The battle over who should pay to carry Netflix traffic is heating up again, and one of the main players blames Verizon's greed …

Discussion: CNNMoney.com

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:
Direct connection between Comcast and Netflix networks suggests peering agreement reached

Discussion: The Verge, Engadget and BGR

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, @dangillmor, @mathewi, @justinbrookman and @sulliview

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

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

Leo Mirani / Quartz:

Turns out Twitter is even more politically polarized than you thought — This is what Twitter looks like when two groups with different political views talk about the same thing: — As part of a new study on Twitter's network structures, the Pew Research Center and the Social Media Research …

Discussion: @gregdklein, SocialTimes and AppNewser

Pew Internet:
Mapping Twitter Topic Networks: From Polarized Crowds to Community Clusters

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

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

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, NPPA and @fieldproducer

Bloomberg:

Roku Said to Be Weighing Initial Public Offering in U.S. in 2014 — Roku Inc., the maker of set-top boxes that connect TVs to the Internet, is weighing an initial public offering in the U.S. this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. — A decision to move ahead hasn't been made …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Gigaom and @zseward

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

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

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Attorney General Signs New Rules to Limit Access to Journalists' Records — WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who drew fire last spring over the Justice Department's aggressive tactics for secretly obtaining reporters' phone logs and emails as part of leak investigations …

Discussion: Associated Press

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, @mhelft, @hunterwalk, @doctorparadox, @jayrosen_nyu, Om Malik, @mathewi, Talking Biz News, Gigaom and Pulse 2.0

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

TV antenna maker Mohu targets cord cutters with new Channels device — Mohu, best known for its Mohu Leaf TV antenna, is introducing a new device that combines over-the-air TV with online video services. The company will launch a Kickstarter campaign for its new Mohu Channels product early next week …

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

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 …

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: @mediaguardian and Press Gazette

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

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Purdue clears police who detained student journalist — Police at Purdue University were within their rights to detain a student journalist and seize his camera, an investigation led by the school's police chief determined. — Hayleigh Colombo and Dave Bangert of the (Lafayette, Ind.) …

Discussion: jconline.com