Mediagazer: The nonprofit Africa Check wants to build more fact-checking into the continent's journalism (Joseph Lichterman/Nieman Journalism Lab)

2:45 PM ET, March 19, 2014

Top News:

Leon Wieseltier / The New Republic:

Nate Silver could learn a lot from those op-ed columnists he maligns — Nate Silver could learn a lot from those op-ed columnists he maligns — I wish to say a word or two in defense of “bulls**t.” That is Nate Silver's meticulously chosen term—he does nothing imprecisely—for opinion journalism.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells / New York Magazine:
Why Do We Expect So Much From Nate Silver?

Discussion: The Week, @bryanjoiner, MIT, @thestalwart, @nymag, Talking Points Memo, Columbia Journalism Review, @jayrosen_nyu, @themarkberman, @chadwickmatlin, @edmundlee and @moorehn

Justin B. Smith / Medium:

Bloomberg Media—A New Direction — Bloomberg L.P. has built a significant media business over the last 20 years. Our television, digital, magazine, radio and live event platforms span the globe. Our influence is considerable, but Bloomberg Media's greatest potential has yet to still be realized.

Discussion: Poynter, @atossaaraxia, @daweiner, Talking Biz News, @msquinn and @brianstelter

Brian Morrissey / Digiday:

Justin Smith's plan for where Bloomberg Media goes next — It has now been 100 days since former Atlantic Media CEO Justin Smith took over as CEO of Bloomberg Media. He has used that time to craft his vision for where Bloomberg goes next. — In Smith's eyes, Bloomberg Media's opportunity is immense.

Discussion: TVNewser, Mediawire Daily and Talking Biz News

Allison Schrager / Quartz:

The problem with data journalism — The recent boom in “data-driven” journalism projects is exciting. It can elevate our knowledge, enliven statistics, and make us all more numerate. But I worry that data give commentary a false sense of authority since data analysis is inherently prone to bias.

Discussion: @moorehn, @urbaninstitute, @noahpinion and @glichfield

Ben Branstetter / Daily Dot:

Newsweek's Bitcoin facepalm got Internet culture wrong — When Newsweek ceased publishing their print edition at the end of 2012, ending an 80-year stint as a stalwart of the American news industry, it was largely seen as the first national casualty of the digital era, a titan felled …

Discussion: PandoDaily and The Huffington Post

Eugene Volokh / Washington Post:
Reverse defamation, the Newsweek Bitcoin story, and Satoshi Nakamoto

Discussion: @jerrybrito and @marshallyoum

Michael Holden / Reuters:

News Corp executives pressured ex-reporter to take phone-hacking rap - court — (Reuters) - The former royal editor at Rupert Murdoch's now defunct News of the World told a London court on Wednesday senior figures at News Corp.'s British newspaper arm put pressure on him to take the flak for phone-hacking to protect others.

BBC: Phone-hacking trial: Andy Coulson ‘urged silence on hacking’

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

Huffington Post UK pursues 60-second political news videos — In its first foray into short-form video content creation, Huffington Post UK has reported ‘more than 25,000’ plays of the first eight versions of its minute-long opinion-led videos — Huffington Post UK is the latest news outlet …

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The nonprofit Africa Check wants to build more fact-checking into the continent's journalism — The words are superimposed over a photo of a soccer stadium sitting empty at dusk: “Imagine a dead body in each seat of this World Cup soccer stadium...THAT is the amount of whites killed in [South Africa] in black on white violence!”

Discussion: Forbes, @raju and @niemanlab

Marc Weisblott / Canada.com:

John Stackhouse is no longer the editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail — There will be a new editor-in-chief at the Globe and Mail next week. — David Walmsley, who was most recently the director of content at CBC News, will return to the national newspaper where he previously worked …

Discussion: @taylor_owen, @newsillustrator, @canadadotcom and @mathewi

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

NAA's new chairman says newspaper biz should have collaborated sooner — At the Newspaper Association of America's mediaXchange conference Tuesday, Robert Dickey, the president of Gannett's U.S. Community Publishing division, said U.S. papers should have collaborated more before the meteor hit:

Discussion: Newspaper Association …, NetNewsCheck Latest, Financial Times, Gigaom, PandoDaily and Nieman Journalism Lab

Thomas Johnson / Re/code:

Q&A with Ryan Singel of Contextly, a content recommendation startup — Not Content With Content: A Q&A With Contextly's Ryan Singel — Listicles. Viral videos. Videos you thought were viral, but were really Jimmy Kimmel — the Internet offers a plethora of daily distractions.

Patrick Frater / Variety:

Asian digital TV penetration to reach 97.5% with revenues of $46B by 2020 — Digital TV To Soar in Asia, Says Report — HONG KONG - Rapid conversion to digital delivery will drive up the number of digital TV homes in Asia by 501 million by 2020, according to new research.

Discussion: WorldScreen.com

Om Malik / Fast Company:

Why native advertising will work for social media but no one else — The lens through which I view the media world is pretty simple: If you are in the business of sucking up attention, then you are in the media business. Both old and new publishers, from The New York Times to BuzzFeed …

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …, @bill_gross, @halvorson and @niemanlab, Thanks:@steverubel

John McDuling / Quartz:

Twitter's dream for TV: You will never watch alone — Twitter's head of television, Fred Graver, admits that his sister is completely baffled by the social network. “She still doesn't get why you would open up Twitter and watch a TV show,” he told a packed audience at Quartz's event …

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Pandora raises One price to $4.99 per month for new subscribers and scraps annual option, blames royalty rates — Pandora today announced changes to its Pandora One subscription plan, which charges users to listen without advertising. The company is keeping the same pricing …