Mediagazer: Ethiopia jails nine journalists, renews press crackdown (Committee to Protect Journalists)

3:00 PM ET, April 29, 2014

Top News:

Vice journalist Tim Pool launches Taggly app on iOS for journalists to watermark images, video — Taggly app launches to watermark images and video — Tim Pool, renowned for his use of mobile technology in reporting, has launched the app for reporters and citizen journalists on iOS

Discussion: The Next Web, @lukewearechange, @mickcote and @sarahmarshall

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney.com:

Media startup PolicyMic raises $10M in funding, Netscape co-founder Jim Clark invests — A $10 million boost for millennial media startup PolicyMic — PolicyMic, one member of a pack of BuzzFeed-like online startups, is taking on $10 million in funding from a number of investors, including Jim Clark, the co-founder of Netscape.

Discussion: @adamostrow, The New York Observer, @andysherry, @brianstelter, @alexmleo and @bthewirz

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

NYU will honor Matthew Power with literary reporting award — The spirit of Matthew Power's writing isn't easy to define, but his friend and editor Roger Hodge took a stab at it anyway: “strong, character-driven narratives with detailed scene writing, beautiful lyrical description,” …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, @poynter and @joshuahersh

Bloomberg:

Vevo Owners Said Close to Hiring Goldman to Explore Sale — Vevo LLC's four owners are close to hiring Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to explore sale options for the music video-hosting service, according to three people familiar with the matter. — The sale of a majority stake is being considered among …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Billboard, @pkafka and hypebot

Fortune:

Disney tried to buy Buzzfeed but talks broke down over price; Buzzfeed sought more than $1B — Disney tried to buy BuzzFeed — The merger conversations happened several months ago, but fell apart over price. — FORTUNE - The Walt Disney Co. was in talks to acquire online content …

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

Glam rebrands as ‘Mode Media,’ dives into streaming video business — Glam Media is giving itself a major makeover. — Today the company announced that it is changing its name to Mode Media to better reflect its extended focus on a wider variety of topic-based publications, including Foodie …

Discussion: Forbes, AdAge, Variety and VBProfiles

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

Survey: 62 percent can't recall anything from native ads — Native advertising is growing in popularity, but it remains controversial. Editorial purists fret that ads that mimic editorial content will confuse readers, undermining the integrity of the journalism surrounding it.

Discussion: @digiday

Kif Leswing / Gigaom:

Sprint will offer discount Spotify subscriptions to customers — Sprint plans to offer its customers Spotify trials and will give them the the ability to pay for the streaming music service via their phone bill, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said at an event in New York on Tuesday.

Discussion: Business Insider, TechCrunch, AdAge, VentureBeat, Pocket-lint, ZDNet, The Next Web and Re/code

Laura Parker / New York Times:

Telltale Games adapts movies, books and TV shows to games, working with HBO on Game of Thrones — A Gaming Company Devoted to Narrative Tackles ‘Thrones’ — SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — Behind closed doors and papered-over windows here, a half-dozen storytellers have been scrambling to conjure …

Discussion: @lauraannaparker, Digital Spy and Polygon

Tony Biasotti / Columbia Journalism Review:

Federal judge: Delayed access to court records raises First Amendment concerns — Courthouse News editor sees “nationwide plague”—and he'll get a chance to make his case — It's been a routine for generations of legal beat reporters: Every weekday afternoon, at courthouses across the United States …

Rosie Baker / AdNews:

News Corp introduces cross-title membership and reward scheme — News Corp is introducing a membership and reward scheme across its portfolio of newspaper titles to offer readers access to content from its online papers through a personalised hub. — The publisher claims …

Discussion: mUmBRELLA, News Corp Australia and B&T

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Ethiopia jails nine journalists, renews press crackdown — The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the Ethiopian government's arrests of nine journalists in one of the worst crackdowns against free expression in the country. — “With the latest arrests, Ethiopian authorities …

Discussion: Reuters, Poynter, @ethanz, @ethanz, @jilliancyork, @joelcpj and allAfrica.com

Ian Burrell / The Independent:

Fears grow that the BBC News Channel could become online only — Fears are growing among BBC journalists that the 24-hour BBC News Channel could follow the youth-orientated BBC3 in becoming an online-only service. — The issue was discussed today at an internal meeting at the Radio Theatre inside …

Discussion: Press Gazette

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

National Journal's chief correspondent Michael Hirsh to become Politico mag's national editor — National Journal's Michael Hirsh Joins Politico Magazine — National Journal chief correspondent Michael Hirsh is leaving the publication to become national editor for Politico Magazine …

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Netflix researching “large-scale peer-to-peer technology” for streaming — Job ad says Netflix wants to “integrate P2P as an additional delivery mechanism.” — When we wrote about the possibility of Netflix using a peer-to-peer architecture for streaming earlier today …

Discussion: SlashGear, Coolest Gadget Reviews, @koenrh, TorrentFreak and BGR

Will Leitch / Sports on Earth:

The sports bubble inflated by cable TV will burst soon with tech and viewership changes — WHEN THE BUBBLE BURSTS — I've talked about this before, but it is worth remembering, one more time, that a lot fewer people care about sports than you and I — the type of people who read …

Discussion: @stevemaxboxing, @pmarca, @alexsimon99, @suzisteffen and @williamfleitch

Society of Editors:

Sir Alan Moses appointed as first chair of Independent Press Standards Organisation — The Rt Hon Sir Alan Moses has been appointed as the first Chair of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). He is the unanimous choice of the independent Selection Panel chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …, @paulscaddy, @joshuarozenberg and Guardian

Associated Press:

AP Veteran David Scott Named Political Editor — WASHINGTON (AP) — David Scott, who leads news coverage in 14 states for The Associated Press as a regional editor, was named Tuesday as political editor to direct the news agency's national political reporting.

Discussion: Politico and @ap_corpcomm

Caysey Welton / Folio:

Digital newsstand app Zinio buys mobile publishing company Audience Media for undisclosed sum — Zinio Acquires Audience Media — Zinio gains new publishing tech that promotes mobile-first products. — Today, Zinio announced that it has acquired mobile publishing app company Audience Media for an undisclosed amount.

Discussion: BroadwayWorld.com, Talking New Media and VatorNews