Mediagazer: Alex Gonzalez Named Creative Director at Elle (Alexandra Steigrad/WWD)

12:00 AM ET, May 21, 2014

Top News:

Twitter backed out of talks to buy SoundCloud because “the numbers didn't add up” — Twitter Considered Buying German Music-Streaming Service — Twitter Inc. considered buying German music-streaming service SoundCloud, but it has backed out of the talks, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Discussion: VentureBeat, @hamishmckenzie, @caseynewton, Electronista, @briansolis, Re/code, TechCrunch, Gigaom, The Verge, Mashable, Business Insider, bizjournals, SocialTimes, Fortune and Gigaom

Sam Roberts / New York Times:

Arthur Gelb, Critic and Editor Who Shaped the Times, Dies at 90 — Arthur Gelb, who by sheer force of personality dominated the newsroom at The New York Times for decades, lifting its metropolitan and arts coverage to new heights and helping to shape the paper in its modern era, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan.

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Anna Holmes, Jezebel founder, joins Fusion as an editor of “digital voices and storytelling” — Jezebel's Anna Holmes Lands at Fusion, Too — Last month, High Profile Internet Person Felix Salmon left his perch at Reuters, then re-appeared, somewhat confusingly …

Discussion: Cosmopolitan, Fast Company, @rembert, @jbarro, @fmanjoo, FishbowlNY, @clarajeffery, @stuartmillar159, @mlcalderone, @annfriedman, Fusion, @jessicagross, @bendreyfuss, @suzykhimm, @jeffjarvis and Capital New York

Scott Porch / The Daily Beast:

New anthology charts the New Yorker's evolution from ‘breezy’ newsweekly to serious reporting — The Decade When ‘The New Yorker’ Grew Up — Before World War II, Harold Ross's New Yorker was no one's idea of a heavy lift. Then it went off to war and grew up almost overnight.

Discussion: @book_beast

Jeremy Barr / Capital New York:

NYT labs creates Vellum, an algorithmically curated list of stories shared on Twitter — N.Y.T. Labs tool makes your Twitter feed into a reading list — Vellum, a new tool from The New York Times R&D lab, seeks to cut through the clutter on Twitter by creating a reading list of the most-shared articles.

Discussion: @zimbalist and @capitalnewyork

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Samsung launches new video service... in Asia — Samsung announced a new video service on Tuesday, tentatively called Project Glue, that aims to bring U.S. TV shows to audiences in Asia. Project Glue will give users access to an entire season of a TV show for 30 days for as little as $6.50.

Discussion: CNET and The Straits Times

Sarah Ellison / Vanity Fair:

Arthur Sulzberger's First Interview About the Turmoil at The New York Times: “I Would Have Done It Differently” — A week after the firing of Jill Abramson as executive editor of The New York Times, the newspaper's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., sat down with V.F.'s Sarah Ellison for an exclusive interview about the controversy.

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
In speech, Sulzberger praises Jill Abramson as a “powerful” free press advocate

Discussion: New York Post, Vanity Fair and The New York Observer

David Yanofsky / Quartz:
5 years later, only 2 of New York Magazine's 5 “renegade cybergeeks” are still at the NYT

Discussion: Cision, @bydanielvictor, @jonathanellis, @brianstelter, @sashak, @7homaslin, @matthewcalcara, @nabjdigital, @webjournalist, @macloo, @niemanlab, @jeffsonderman and @simonowens

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / Mashable:

Russia Calls for Release of Journalists Reportedly Caught Carrying Anti-Aircraft Missiles — Update: 6:45 p.m. ET — U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki says the journalists were carrying “manned portable anti-aircraft missiles in the trunks of their cars” when they were arrested …

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, Agence France-Presse, presstv.ir, The Voice of Russia, News and RT

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

PolicyMic names Bryan Graham editor of new sports vertical — PolicyMic is rolling out a new vertical tomorrow covering sports, according to a staff memo co-founder and editor in chief Jake Horowitz sent out on Monday night. — Leading new vertical will be Bryan Graham …

David Lieberman / Deadline.com:

Consumers Dislike Cable Companies More Than Any Other Industry: Report — It's time for the pay TV industry's annual slap in the face from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which surveys 70,000 people about the products and services they use most. Cable and satellite distributors …

Discussion: Washington Post, Vox, Consumerist, TIME and BGR

Ryan Faughnder / Los Angeles Times:

Nielsen fleshes out Twitter TV ratings with demographic data — Company Town

Discussion: @nielsensocial, Nielsen, MediaPost, Deadline.com, BroadwayWorld.com, TechCrunch, MediaPost and TVWeek.com

Alexandra Steigrad / WWD:

Alex Gonzalez Named Creative Director at Elle — Alex Gonzalez has been tapped to be Elle's new creative director following the departure of Joe Zee to Yahoo last month. Gonzalez will take the reins at Elle in early June. — Most recently, Gonzalez held a dual role at Elle parent company …

Discussion: Adweek

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Netflix's Neil Hunt Says Personalized Recommendations Will Replace The Navigation Grid — Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt said today that the streaming video service will eventually evolve beyond its current navigation scheme, where users have to browse a seemingly endless grid of movies and TV shows.