Mediagazer: IMDbPromo.com, Which Claimed to Boost Star Rankings on IMDb, Shuts Down (Todd Spangler/Variety)

9:40 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: @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

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

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

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

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.

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

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