Mediagazer: Venezuela Battles Media, Social and Otherwise, to Restrict Protest Coverage (Natalie Kitroeff/The Lede)

8:35 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: @tv6tnt and Business Insider

Natalie Kitroeff / The Lede:

Venezuela Battles Media, Social and Otherwise, to Restrict Protest Coverage — Tensions escalated further in Venezuela on Friday as street protests that began 10 days ago continued and the government persisted in clamping down on coverage of the unrest in the broadcast media and online.

Discussion: New York Times and Mashable

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

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

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

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 …