Mediagazer: Comcast's Brian Roberts Defends His Time Warner Deal, and His Company (Peter Kafka/Re/code)

4:20 PM ET, May 28, 2014

Top News:

Martin Shepard / the cockeyed pessimist:

Independent publisher says Amazon levels the playing field, and Hachette is just greedy — WHO'S AFRAID OF AMAZON.COM — On May 24, The New York Times ran a page one story “As Publishers Fight Amazon, Books Vanish.” In their alarmist zeal reporters David Streitfeld and Melissa Eddy conjure …

Discussion: Business Insider, @thestalwart, Mashable, Bookseller news, @susanwisebauer, @ericuman, @pmarca and @baratunde

Wall Street Journal:
Amazon Doesn't Expect Quick Resolution to Hachette Dispute

Monica Anderson / Pew Research Center:

As the New York Times' first black executive editor, Dean Baquet is in a distinct minority — Just as the May 14 dismissal of New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson sparked a debate about gender roles in journalism, the ascension of Dean Baquet—the first African-American to run the paper's newsroom …

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, The Huffington Post, @rubinafillion, @mhugolopez, @monicaranders, @edmundlee, @jcstearns and @niemanlab

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Comcast's Brian Roberts Defends His Time Warner Deal, and His Company — The New York Times thinks Comcast shouldn't be allowed to buy Time Warner Cable. Guess what Comcast CEO Brian Roberts thinks? — Okay, you don't have to guess. But Roberts made his case for the merger …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Deadline.com, Gigaom, @pkafka, Re/code, CNET, Free Press Blog, DSLreports and Variety

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

You can add audio and video players inside your tweets, just as WNYC did for a Maya Angelou interview — Interesting tweet an hour or so ago from New York public radio giant WNYC: … That's audio of an interview WNYC's Brian Lehrer did with Angelou in 2013 — playing right in the tweet.

Discussion: @radiodiaries and @niemanlab

WashPostPR / Washington Post:

The Washington Post partner program signs on nearly 100 newspapers — Digital First Media, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Columbus Dispatch among the latest to join pilot program — Nearly 100 newspapers will participate in The Washington Post partner program first announced earlier this year.

Discussion: FishbowlDC and @jbenton

Anne Mortensen / The Independent:

A journalist goes missing nearly every day in Ukraine — It's not just journalists who are being victimised by pro-Russian separatists, but entire newsrooms — The campaign by pro-Russian separatists to muzzle local Ukrainian journalists appears to be succeeding.

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Comcast, Verizon and Co. Stop Mass Piracy Lawsuits on Appeal — Two years ago district court Judge Beryl Howell, a former RIAA lobbyist, granted adult movie company AF Holdings the right to obtain the personal details of more than 1,000 Internet users suspected of downloading their works using BitTorrent.

Discussion: Daily Dot, Consumerist, The 1709 Blog and Gigaom

Andrew Zajac / Businessweek:
Prenda-linked porn copyright trolls lose effort to get over 1K IP addresses in federal court

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Network World and Techdirt

Aditya Kalra / Reuters:

Twitter to take India election innovations global — (Reuters) - U.S. social networking company Twitter is planning to replicate parts of its India election strategy across countries that go to polls this year, after it emerged as a key tool for politicians and media companies during the world's largest democratic exercise.

Discussion: @sunny_hundal and @elanazak

Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune:

Chicago Public Media taking over distribution of ‘This American Life’ … Chicago Public Media will begin self-distribution of its signature program, “This American Life,” on July 1, taking over key business functions for one of public radio's most significant franchises.

Discussion: This American Life Updates, Public Radio Exchange, New York Times, Poynter and @currentpubmedia

William Turvill / Press Gazette:

UK daily newspapers have doubled in price since 2004 and shrunk in size - no wonder sales are down — Every month when the latest set of ABC national newspaper circulation figures are released, journalists across the country heave a collective sigh of despair.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Print still attracts more advertising than it deserves, Mary Meeker says — Newspapers and magazines attract 19 percent of total advertising spending, Mary Meeker says in her annual Internet trends report. But consumers, she says, spend only 5 percent of their time reading them.

Discussion: kpcb.com, Forbes, Deadline.com, Re/code, Business Insider, Quartz, ZDNet and Fortune

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

The Hill launches contributors platform — Congressional newspaper The Hill has launched a contributors platform, for which so far more than 100 experts in various policy fields have signed on to write for the site, the company announced today. — Contributors will be selected by editors at The Hill …

Discussion: FishbowlDC

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

Platform or publisher? Medium keeps blurring the line — The old question for tech platforms like Google and Yahoo was: Are you a platform or a publisher? For upstart Medium, the answer is clearly both. — The blogging platform, founded by Twitter CEO Ev Williams, continues to blur the line between platform and publisher.

Discussion: @digiday

Index on Censorship:

Index launches project to map media freedom violations in Europe — Index on Censorship and Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso are launching mediafreedom.ushahidi.com to track media violations in Europe. — Index on Censorship, (London, United Kingdom) and Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso …

Discussion: @mjrharris

Sophie Gilbert / Washingtonian:

Can Andrew Sullivan Re-Conquer Washington? — After 18 miserable months in New York, the pioneering blogger is back in DC with plans to transform journalism all over again. — For almost a quarter of a century, or most of his career, one pundit or another called Andrew Sullivan the future of journalism.

Discussion: @markhor, @agolis, @joshuafoust and @dylanbyers

John Plunkett / Guardian:

Netflix beats BBC and ITV to “The Crown,” a £100m series on Queen Elizabeth II — Netflix plans £100m epic on the Queen — The Crown, inspired by Peter Morgan play The Audience, will span Queen Elizabeth II's six decades on the throne

Discussion: Daily Mail, The New York Observer and Rolling Stone

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix Buys Pay-TV Rights to Sony Animated Films

Discussion: Home Media Magazine and The Wrap

Jon Boone / Guardian:

Geo TV apologizes for saying Pakistan's spy chief plotted to assassinate journalist Hamid Mir — Geo TV owners print front-page apology to Pakistan's ISI spy chief — Move comes in week regulators rule on coverage that include claims Zaheer-ul-Islam behind attempt on life of star journalist

Discussion: @fispahani and @aqpk

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Newsweek strikes deal to build foreign editions — Newsweek has entered into a partnership with the global media consultancy Empirical Media to strike new foreign licensing agreements for the print magazine and its website. — Empirical, which is headed up by veteran media executive …

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

Reader revenue and the great newspaper ad bubble — Four decades of artificially high advertising goes pop — Newspaper advertising will almost surely fall to the lowest level on record this year, as ads continue to migrate to the Web. — Meanwhile, reader revenue—subscriptions and newsstand sales …

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Attorney general, top journalists discuss prosecutors' latitude in leak investigations — What is ordinary about “ordinary newsgathering”? — That question was at the heart of discussions Tuesday between Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and a group of media representatives over rules …

Discussion: New York Times, Poynter, USA Today, Associated Press and Politico