Mediagazer: Data journalists should build their own data sets rather than rely solely on official sources (Liliana Bounegru/Harvard Business Review)

4:20 AM ET, May 22, 2014

Top News:

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

PBS shouldn't ‘get in the way of reporters or photographers covering news,’ ombudsman says — A PBS staffer was “clearly wrong” to try to stop a reporter from photographing hotel security detain a protester at PBS' annual meeting last week, PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler writes.

Discussion: PBS

Mong Palatino / Global Voices:

Free Speech Curtailed as Thailand Declares Martial Law — Media censorship is worsening in Thailand as more TV cables and radio stations were closed down by the army to ‘maintain peace and order’ in the country. Martial law was declared by the army on May 20, 2014 to end violence …

Discussion: prachatai.com and SEAPA

Thomas Fuller / New York Times:
Thai military bans 14 tv channels, 3,000 radio stations, and tries to prohibit interviews

Discussion: @supinya, Committee to Protect …, Reporters Without Borders, Daily Mail, ITAR-TASS, The Straits Times, NDTV News, India & World, @fratticcioli and @erikafry

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

A challenge for free speech: Twitter's “country-withheld content” tool spreads to Pakistan — Twitter's selective censorship of tweets may be the best option, but it's still censorship — Twitter's ability to block certain tweets or users from being seen in specific countries …

Discussion: Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, @jamesvasile and @jilliancyork

Liliana Bounegru / Harvard Business Review:

Data journalists should build their own data sets rather than rely solely on official sources — What Data Journalists Need to Do Differently — The role of the data journalist has increased dramatically over the last decade.The past few months have seen the launch of several high-profile …

Discussion: @icijorg and Kirk LaPointe's …

Emily Bell / Columbia Journalism Review:

For the Times' innovation report to stick, its journalists need to be on board — Doing journalism and keeping up with what is happening within journalism and the wider digital ecosystem at the same time is impossible — It is somewhat ironic that one of the authors of The New York Times' internal memo …

Discussion: rabble.ca, @mathewi, @smfrogers, The Changing Newsroom, @digiphile, Forbes and Sparksheet

Beth Healy / The Boston Globe:

Worcester Telegram & Gazette sold to Halifax Media Partners — Halifax Media Group has agreed to buy the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from Boston Globe Media Partners, the companies said Wednesday. — Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Halifax, based in Daytona Beach, Fla., is relatively new to the newspaper business.

Discussion: Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Media Nation and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Steve Rubel / AdAge:

Social-Media Companies and Publishers Consciously Uncoupling Products in Quest for Mobile Users — Social-Media Companies and Publishers Consciously Uncoupling Products in Quest for Mobile Users — Behind all the headlines about native advertising, programmatic buying and every …

Thanks:@steverubel

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

How Vox is providing structure and allowing journalists to share “informal” information — Building permission structures for short content (Vox edition) — When people talk about blowing up the traditional article model of news, they don't mean that the standard news article form is bad, per se.

Discussion: metamedia and @niemanlab

Susan Currie Sivek / Mediashift:

The Challenge of Measuring Multi-Platform Success for Print Magazines — It seems like a simple task: Keep track of new magazine launches, monitor the results, and see how much the industry grows and changes. — But when you start digging into that project in more detail, it gets complicated.

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

Condé Nast Traveler to relaunch as publishing platform Aug. 18 with 25 outside contributors — Why Condé Nast Traveler is taking the platform approach — Increasingly, traditional publishers are finding that the easiest way to build audience scale is by opening up their sites to outside contributors.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, @herrkwak and @abeaujon

Cora Currier / Columbia Journalism Review:

National security journalists say it's only getting harder to report on intelligence agencies — Anti-Leaks directives formalize post-Snowden secrecy — This spring, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued new policies requiring that all public writings and remarks …

Jihii Jolly / Columbia Journalism Review:

How algorithms decide the news you see — Homepage traffic for news sites continues to decrease. This trend is the result of an “if the news is important, it will find me” mentality that developed with the rise of social media, when people began to read links that their friends and others in their networks recommended.

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Spotify: five big challenges looming for the streaming music service — Winning over artists, going mainstream, turning a profit, facing big-tech competition and (perhaps) going beyond music — Spotify announced today that it now has 10m paying subscribers and 40m active users …

Discussion: NME

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Google cheated ad partners, says lawsuit, but case points to dirty tricks campaign — Someone claiming to be an ex-Google employee suggested in April that the company conspires to steal revenues from its partners who host Google-provided ads on their websites.

Discussion: opptrends and WebProNews

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

AOL is looking to personalise readers' experiences on its publishing sites without collecting personal information — AOL is looking to personalise readers' experiences on its publishing sites without collecting personal information — Read more — Other top stories — Also on Journalism.co.uk...

Discussion: @antoniospadaro and @maymann

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing:

Why Future's future shouldn't just be about advertising — Future, Advertising, Consumer Media, Digital Media, Mobile — If you were (or are) running a magazine publisher today, would you really bet the farm on advertising? — That appears to be what David Hepworth, writing in the Guardian …

Discussion: Guardian, Thanks:@mediabrief

Orhan Coskun / Reuters:

Turkey says Twitter to be sensitive on court orders, to set up live support: official — (Reuters) - Twitter will be more sensitive in responding to Turkish court orders calling for content to be removed from the site, and will open a live customer support service in Turkish to address complaints …

Discussion: @mathewi

Tom Meagher / Source:

Project Thunderdome went open source during shutdown, its developers wish they had sooner — LESSONS FROM THE PROJECT THUNDERDOME SHUTDOWN — The Scramble to Open Source and What You Can Do To Help — Nearly every time the data team at Project Thunderdome prepared to launch an interactive graphic, a

Discussion: @dfmthunderdome, @ultracasual and @source

Jordyn Taylor / Betabeat:

NYU freshman John Meyer launches Fresco, curation news app, to compete with Circa — 19-Year-Old Tech Pro Wants to Revolutionize News, Will Drop Out of School If Necessary — John Meyer isn't sure if he'll go back to school in the fall. Currently finishing up his freshman year …

Discussion: @thestalwart and @johnhmeyer123

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Samsung confirms acqui-hire of Shelby.tv team — The team of New York-based video discovery startup Shelby.tv is indeed heading to Samsung: A Samsung spokesperson confirmed the acquihire Wednesday, sending us the following statement via email: … Gigaom first reported on Tuesday that Samsung was acqui-hiring Shelby.tv.

Discussion: Digital TV Europe