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, @rosiegray and The Daily Beast
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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.
Discussion:
Politico, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, New York Times, Latest News & Headlines, The Moscow Times, The Verge, Reuters, Global Voices, New York Times, @digiphile, The New Republic, @nxthompson, New York Times, The Newspaper Guild, Trust.org, Kirk LaPointe's …, ITAR-TASS, The Malay Mail Online, kyivpost.com, Reuters and Guardian
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 …
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:
@donaldrwinslow, @jswatz, 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
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, @adrianchen, @anildash, The Root, @ejleven, @amir, @memories_child, @evanselinger, @kateknibbs, @xmisstanisa, @steenfox, @chiefelk, @anildash, @kvox, The Wire, Washington Post and Talking Points Memo
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
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
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
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.
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.
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