Mediagazer: What does the future hold for the CBC? (Simon Houpt/Globe and Mail)

1:00 PM ET, April 13, 2014

Top News:

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

Sun-Times kills comments until it can fix ‘morass of negativity, racism, and hate speech’ — The Chicago Sun-Times has temporarily eliminated story commenting on its website until it can develop a system that will “foster a productive discussion rather than an embarrassing mishmash …

Discussion: Chicago Sun Times, @amzam and @ksablan

Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:

Report: 44% of Twitter Accounts Have Never Sent a Tweet — Twitter is having no trouble signing up users. But some new research provides an update on the size of an ongoing problem: getting people to tweet. — A report from Twopcharts, a website that monitors Twitter account activity …

Discussion: @borthwick, Forbes, @wsjeurope, @sulliview, Gigaom, Mashable, Consumerist and Business Insider

Michael Kinsley / Vanity Fair:

Serious Newspaper Journalism Is Not Over — In most hand-wringing debates about the future of newspapers, high-quality journalism is seen as doomed by the Internet. The author—V.F.'s newest columnist—begs to disagree. — My friend Nicholas Lemann, who recently stepped down as dean …

Discussion: @dvnjr and @vanityfair

Simon Houpt / Globe and Mail:

What does the future hold for the CBC? — Nothing focuses the mind like a crisis. — That seemed hold true for Heather Conway, the executive vice-president of English-language services at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, on Friday morning, less than 24 hours after helping break …

Discussion: @colvinius, @digiphile, @mathewi and @jayrosen_nyu

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:

Texas Monthly to file lawsuit over hiring of Jake Silverstein as editor of NYT Magazine — Texas Monthly to Sue New York Times Over Magazine Editor — The publisher of the Texas Monthly is expected to file a lawsuit against The New York Times and Jake Silverstein, the Monthly's editor …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
Texas Monthly owner: We aren't suing Jake Silverstein

Discussion: @buzzfeedben

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

The New York Times hyped social ad product fades away — The New York Times' Ricochet has stopped rebounding. — When it launched the social ad program in 2012, the Times touted Ricochet as a “new model of digital marketing” that would create a whole new type of inventory — socially driven inventory.

Discussion: @raju and @ampress

Jeanine Poggi / AdAge:

Viacom Looks to Set Social Media Guarantees — Partners with Mass Relevance on Tool to Measure Engagement Across Social Media — Cactus — Viacom is taking steps toward offering advertisers guarantees for the social media impact it can give them. — The company, which owns networks …

Discussion: Marketing Land

Diego Cruz / Journalism in the Americas:

Digital vulnerability could endanger online media's private information — The vulnerability can affect news organizations' websites, as well. — Earlier this week, experts discovered a code defect in software used by almost two thirds of the Internet to encrypt private information …

Discussion: Gigaom, ReadWrite, The ProPublica Nerd Blog, The Next Web and USA Today

Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune:

Tribune Publishing to take on $325 million in debt — Tribune Publishing, the newspaper division of Chicago-based Tribune Co., will carry at least $325 million of debt when it spins off as a standalone company, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.

Discussion: @jeffjarvis and @dangillmor

Paul Bischoff / Tech in Asia:

Weibo's content gap: just 5% of users post nearly all original content — Another scathing report documenting Sina Weibo's decline hit the press yesterday, just one week before the Twitter of China lists on the US stock market. — This one comes from the South China Morning Post via Hong …

Discussion: South China Morning Post

David Kravets / Ars Technica:

Appeals court reverses hacker/troll “weev” conviction and sentence [Updated] — Appeals court skirts Computer Fraud And Abuse Act analysis. — A federal appeals court Friday reversed and vacated the conviction and sentence of hacker and Internet troll Andrew “weev” Auernheimer.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Hollywood Reporter, TechCrunch, Engadget, New York Times, Reuters, Washington Post, Forbes, Guardian, @falconred, Techdirt and @kmactane

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Android TV: Why Google Needs a Second Path to Television — Google has a runaway hit with Chromecast, the cheap, lightweight adapter for slinging Internet video to HDTVs, selling millions of the $35 dongles (just 30 bucks on Amazon!) since its launch last summer.

Press Association:

Metro editor Kenny Campbell to be replaced by NY Daily News' Ted Young — Young to take charge at UK national freesheet, returning to Associated Newspapers after previously editing Mail Online — The editor of Metro, Kenny Campbell, has left after 15 years with the newspaper.

Discussion: Guardian