Mediagazer: After criticism, Talking Points Memo defends its new sponsored content (Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo)

6:15 PM ET, March 28, 2014

Top News:

FiveThirtyEight admits issues with climate-science article, will commission rebuttal — FiveThirtyEight to Commission Response to Disputed Climate Article — FiveThirtyEight relaunched less than two weeks ago. It's been a heck of a learning experience.

Discussion: @sam_schulman, @juddlegum, @ccolose, @cbasturea, @kellyhereid, @annleegibson, @jayrosen_nyu, Talking Points Memo, The Huffington Post and Boing Boing

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

FiveThirtyEight Apologizes On Behalf Of Controversial Climate Science Writer — NEW YORK — Two prominent climate scientists say Roger Pielke Jr., a controversial writer at Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight site, sent emails threatening possible legal action in response to their criticism of his findings for the data-driven news site.

Discussion: Washington Center …, Talking Points Memo, @ryangrim, @dhberman, @pdykstra, New York Magazine and Fact-Based, In-Depth News

Dylan Byers / Politico:

New York Times names Jake Silverstein as Magazine editor — Texas Monthly editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein has been hired to serve as editor of The New York Times Magazine, two sources with knowledge of his hiring told POLITICO. Times executive editor Jill Abramson is expected to announce …

Discussion: New York Times, Capital New York, FishbowlNY, Poynter, Capital New York, New York Magazine, @clarajeffery, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @silvermanjacob, @harpers, @edmundlee, @edmundlee and NY State of Politics

Jeremy Wagstaff / Reuters:

Journalists, media under attack from hackers: Google researchers — (Reuters) - Twenty-one of the world's top-25 news organizations have been the target of likely state-sponsored hacking attacks, according to research by two Google security engineers. — While many internet users face …

Jon Swaine / Guardian:

Faith and a media icon: Newsweek's unconventional new owners — It was meant to herald the triumphant return to newsstands of a venerable 80-year-old American media institution with a proud journalistic record. — Newsweek's 4,500-word relaunch cover story on Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto …

Discussion: Gawker, @jayrosen_nyu, @alexkoppelman and Poynter

Matthew Lynch / Capital New York:

Jonathan Mahler to join Times media desk — Author, columnist and longtime New York Times Magazine contributor Jonathan Mahler will join the paper's media desk full time next month, media editor Peter Lattman told staff in a note today obtained by Capital. — According to the memo …

Discussion: AdAge and FishbowlNY

John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:

Wheeler: L.A. Test Makes Compelling Case For Channel Sharing — FCC chair says broadcasters can have their cake and eat it too — FCC chairman Tom Wheeler says the results of the Los Angeles channel sharing test demonstrates the once in a lifetime opportunity the incentive auctions provide …

Discussion: TheHill

Alina Selyukh / Reuters:
U.S. TV stations' test finds channel-sharing technically viable

Discussion: Adweek, wirelessdevnet.com, Los Angeles Times, FierceWireless, Broadcasting & Cable, Gigaom and Re/code

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

After criticism, Talking Points Memo defends its new sponsored content — A Note on Sponsors — As you can see, over there to the right we have what's labeled a “Sponsored Message” from PhRMA. As I mentioned yesterday, they're sponsoring a new section of IdeaLab we launched this week.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, @bmorrissey and @joshsternberg

John Vomhof Jr. / Minneapolis/St. Paul …:

Glen Taylor reportedly nearing deal to buy Star Tribune — Taylor Corp. and Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor is close to a deal to buy the Star Tribune, according to a local report that cites unidentified “people in the know.” — Business Take, a daily business newsletter published …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, @barryjohnson and @mspbjnews

Mark Mueller / New Jersey Online:

Amid changing media landscape, Star-Ledger, NJ.com and affiliates form new company — Executives of The Star-Ledger, NJ.com and affiliated newspapers announced that a new media company, NJ Advance Media, would provide content for newspapers and the website. (Frances Micklow/The Star-Ledger)

Discussion: Capital New York, NorthJersey.com and New York Post

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

Newsrooms freeze out freelancers moonlighting for brands — For the freelance journalist, the siren call of “brand journalism” is tough to resist. It's a growth industry, and one that pays pretty well at a time when the $2-a-word magazine piece is hard to find.

Discussion: @niemanlab, @mikestiles, @digiday and @slosee

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

Ex-Gawker EIC Daulerio plans tabloid-like network of sites named Ratter in SF, LA and NYC using Kinja — A.J. Daulerio to start up ‘Ratter’ — A.J. Daulerio, a former editor of Gawker and Defamer, plans to launch a network of sites under the brand name Ratter, with city-specific sites for Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

Discussion: @scroll, @murderkroger, @brfreed, @neetzan and @mathewi

Michelle Castillo / Adweek:

Facebook Algorithm Tweaks Hurt Viral Sites More Than Other Publishers — Publishers are claiming that content they share on Facebook pages isn't reaching as many readers as it used to. — Adweek reached out to comScore to find out how referral traffic through Facebook has changed …

Discussion: @adweek

Re/code:

Ready for Marissa's Closeup? Yahoo Is Considering Creating Its Own YouTube (and Poaching YouTube Stars) — Google-owned YouTube hasn't had a serious competitor for years. But Yahoo would like to try: The Web giant has been working on a plan to lure some of YouTube's most popular stars …

Discussion: AdExchanger and Gigaom

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

The case against the venture capital craze for content — Last year marked a major shift in venture capital interest back toward media companies, which investors have traditionally shunned. And for fast-growing digital media companies, it's hard to resist the allure of venture capital.

Discussion: @janinegibson, @richantoniello, @yummymummyclub, @digiday and @jpych, Thanks:@rbilton

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

Music-tech heavyweights pile into $8.5M round for Bandpage — Bandpage has raised a fresh $8.5 million in funding for its community building platform, according to a SEC document filed today. — Investors include Mohr Davidow Partners, longtime VC (and Pandora board member) Robert Kavner …

Marcus Wohlsen / Wired:

Amazon's Bold Plan to Start a Last-Place TV Network — The many-legged business beast known as Amazon is growing one more tentacle. — According to the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, Amazon has plans to launch a Hulu-like service that will stream TV shows and other video to people across the net for free.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Lost Remote, The Switch, Talking Biz News, Digital Trends and Variety

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Johnston Press posts £287m loss — Value writedowns contributes to loss, but company boosts operating profits for first time in seven years to stand at £54.3m — Johnston Press chief Ashley Highfield is confident growth in digital revenues will soon outweigh the decline in print.

Discussion: Scotsman, BBC, Talking New Media, London News, dailyrecord, Stock Market Wire, MediaTel, Wigan Today, The visitor, Home on News, @jeffmoriarty, HoldTheFrontPage, @alexgubbay, @bernardginns and @marksweney

Walter Hamilton / Los Angeles Times:

Tribune's profit declines 43% — The parent of the Los Angeles Times and other media outlets reports net income of $241.6 million last year, down from $422.5 million in 2012. — Tribune's financial results showed the pressure facing newspaper companies as they grapple with the migration of readers to digital devices.

Discussion: Chicago Tribune, digitalfacility.com, Chicago Business, @ckrewson, @rosental, Wall Street Journal, digitalfacility.com, Variety and TVSpy

Erik Wemple:

MSNBC disputes Pew study on newsgathering reduction — The Pew Research Center's “State of the News Media 2014” report contained some hard-to-swallow data for MSNBC. It chronicled, for instance, the network's awful drop in daytime audience and its primetime difficulties.

Discussion: Mediashift, Marketing Charts … and Mediaite

Preetam Kaushik / The Huffington Post:

American Media Brands Cast Web Over News in India — The Indian news cycle has been operating at a feverish pitch of late. The world's most populous democracy is about to choose a new government, politics is at its polarizing best, and a colorful cast of characters vying for power is supplying a constant stream of sound bytes.

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Why the ABC News ‘Pink Slime’ Ruling Is Bad for the Media Business — The judge is not only allowing defamation to proceed. She won't allow the First Amendment to bar a tortious interference claim either. — Diane Sawyer — For those who have seen the Academy Award-nominated film …

Discussion: TVNewser, Bloomberg, Reuters, @ashmessesq and The Huffington Post

Nick Summers / The Next Web:

Dropbox acquires reading platform Readmill, will close it on 1 July — Readmill has been acquired by Dropbox and is now in the process of closing its reading platform. In a blog post, the Berlin-based startup said it was joining Dropbox to work on “new ways to read together” …

Discussion: readmill.com, Gigaom, GalleyCat and @ryantate

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Softcover Is A New Self-Publishing Platform Aimed At Technical Authors — Softcover is a startup offering what it calls a “frictionless” platform for self-publishing e-books. — Co-founder Michael Hartl is an author himself, having written the Ruby on Rails Tutorial.

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Takes Another Crack At Read-It-Later With “Save” Button — Facebook's undying quest to be your newspaper has seen it launch multiple News Feeds, the standalone Paper app, trending topics, and more. You're not always able to stop what you're doing and read what you discover, though.

Discussion: Times of India, WebProNews, Business 2 Community, NDTV Gadgets and AllFacebook

John McDuling / Quartz:

Inside Twitter's plan to fix itself — “I am not going to be satisfied until we reach every connected user on the planet, period,” Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo declared at an investor conference last month. Them's fighting words for any internet company. But especially for Twitter, which has a user growth problem and knows it.

Discussion: @rubinafillion, @jmcduling, @rlytle and Business Insider

BBC:

Phone-hacking trial: Rebekah Brooks was ‘relieved’ to resign — Charlie Brooks has told the phone-hacking trial that his wife, Rebekah, was relieved when she was asked to resign from her position as chief executive of News International. — He said Rupert Murdoch had tried to stop …

Discussion: ITV, Guardian, thedrum.com, Press Gazette, Guardian and Guardian