Mediagazer: DreamWorks Studio Needs a New Script (Ben Fritz/Wall Street Journal)

10:00 AM ET, March 14, 2014

Top News:

Rosie Gray / BuzzFeed:

An inside look at what it's like to work at Russia Today, the Kremlin-funded media outlet — How The Truth Is Made At Russia Today — “It was my first job and I feel embarrassed and ashamed.” An inside look at what it's like to work at the Kremlin-funded media outlet.

Discussion: @joshuafoust, @billbrowder, @buzzfeedben, @anowrt, @peterlauria3, @intelwire, @thegoldfarb and @rosiegray

David Remnick / The New Yorker Blog:

Putin Moves Against the Press — One of the most riveting and liberating events of postwar life was the Soviet policy of glasnost, the Gorbachev-era explosion of media. The euphoria came not from the means of transmission but, rather, from what was being transmitted—and read, and heard, and seen.

Max Seddon / BuzzFeed:

Russia Wipes Opposition Sites From The Internet — “I don't even know if anyone is reading this anymore.” — Via blackhole.beeline.ru — Russia has all but eliminated the free media as it fights an information war against the West over Ukraine, with prosecutors blocking independent websites …

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Gigaom, @kasparov63, Softpedia News, @jeremyduns, CNET, TechCrunch, Global Voices, @miriamelder, Reporters Without Borders and Committee to Protect …

New York Times:

Questions About News Photographers in Syria Arise After Freelancer's Death — Late last December, Ahmad Barakat, a tailor turned rebel commander in Aleppo, Syria, buried two sons who died together during a battle with Syrian government troops. The elder son, Mustafa, fought for the Tawhid rebels.

Discussion: @philgreaves01, @jswatz, @donaldrwinslow, Corey Pein and Foreign Policy

Reuters:

Russia accuses U.S. of discrimination against Russian journalists — (Reuters) - Russia accused the United States on Friday of unacceptable discrimination against Russian journalists by barring them from a news conference given by President Barack Obama and Ukraine's prime minister.

Discussion: ITAR-TASS

Ben Fritz / Wall Street Journal:

DreamWorks Studio Needs a New Script — Struggling Studio, Born of SKG ‘Dream Team,’ Strives Not Just for a Hit, but a Franchise — It started with the goal of reinventing the media business. Now DreamWorks SKG is hoping a car chase movie based on a videogame can revive not just the dream, but the company.

Todd Spangler / Variety:

IMDbPromo.com, Which Claimed to Boost Star Rankings on IMDb, Shuts Down — IMDbPromo.com, a service that promised to boost individual STARmeter rankings in the IMDbPro database for upwards of $999, said it has pulled the plug on the service at IMDb's behest.

Discussion: Herald de Paris, filmindustrynetwork.biz and Cinema Blend

Kate Knibbs / Daily Dot:

BuzzFeed aggregation of tweets about sexual assault raises questions about ethics of embedding — The ethics of embedding tweets — Christina Fox, a prolific Twitter user under the name @steenfox, posed a question to her followers: What were you wearing when you were sexually assaulted?

Discussion: Poynter, PandoDaily, BuzzFeed, @anildash, @adrianchen, The Root, @ejleven, @amir, @memories_child, @evanselinger, @kateknibbs, @xmisstanisa, @steenfox, @chiefelk, @anildash, @kvox, The Wire, Washington Post and Talking Points Memo

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

YouTube Gives UK Gov't Broad Powers To Censor Videos It Doesn't Like, Even If They're Legal — A few years ago, then-Senator Joe Lieberman went on a bizarre anti-free speech crusade against YouTube, arguing that by allowing “terrorists” to post videos to YouTube, people were watching those videos and magically turning into terrorists.

Discussion: The Irish Times, @rsaeed, @glynmoody and The Slog.

Joe Coscarelli / New York Magazine:

Nate Silver talks about data journalism, competition and managing FiveThirtyEight — Nate Silver on the Launch of ESPN's New FiveThirtyEight, Burritos, and Being a Fox — Stats superstar Nate Silver hates the term “data-driven.” He also hates the work of just about every popular columnist …

Discussion: American Prospect, @jyarow, @jazayerli, @natesilver538, @emilybell and Poynter

Haniya Rae / Digiday:

How Time Out NY's rethinking for digital — As a print publication of nightlife and restaurant listings, Time Out New York is an outlier in a world with Foursquare, Yelp, Urbanspoon and any number of apps to connect people with things to do and places to go. — That's why it's retooling for digital.

Luis Carlos Díaz / Journalism For Change:

In Venezuelan protests, citizens and the internet fill the information gap — Venezuela: Filling the Information Gap — On February 12th, violent protests in Caracas led to the deaths of three people. Eyewitnesses sent video footage and photographs to the newspaper Ultimas Noticias, which then published them online.

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Survey of nearly a thousand web pages looks at interactive features for news … The Engaging News Project at the University of Texas at Austin has a new report out today called Interactive Features in Online News. In order to get a sense of how features like polls and various share buttons …

Discussion: @johncthompson and Engaging News Project

South China Morning Post:

Fresh China media crackdown hits popular accounts on Tencent's WeChat — At least a dozen popular public WeChat accounts - some followed by hundreds of thousands subscribers - were shut down or suspended yesterday. Some of the accounts were operated by popular columnists …

Discussion: Reuters, PC World, Analects, Associated Press, @jasonqng, @scmp_news, Capital News and New York Times

MediaNama:

Rdio acquires shuttered Indian music streaming service Dhingana — Exclusive: Rdio buys Dhingana to Enter India — US-based music streaming website Rdio has acquired Indian music streaming website Dhingana, Dhingana has confirmed to MediaNama. MediaNama had heard about the development from multiple industry sources.

Discussion: The Next Web, TechCrunch and VatorNews

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Plex opens up Chromecast to everyone, adds automatic camera upload — Media center app maker Plex followed through on a promise Thursday to remove restrictions around its Chromecast implementations, opening up the feature to all of its users including non-subscribers.

Discussion: blog.plex.tv, Engadget and TechCrunch