Mediagazer: Apple to acquire Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $2.6B in cash and $400M in stock to vest over time (Apple)

11:10 PM ET, May 28, 2014

Top News:

Margaret Sullivan / New York Times:

Michael Kinsley Responds to Criticism of Greenwald Review — Mr. Kinsley has asked The Times for the opportunity to respond and I am providing it here:

Discussion: Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, @dougjballoon, @poniewozik, @ethancoxmtl, @jpodhoretz, @jonathanchait, @jamisonfoser, @zackbeauchamp and Pressing Issues

Apple:

Apple to acquire Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $2.6B in cash and $400M in stock to vest over time — Apple to Acquire Beats Music & Beats Electronics — Apple® today announced it has agreed to acquire the critically acclaimed subscription streaming music service Beats Music …

Discussion: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, New York Post, Gigaom, AdAge, 9to5Mac, Re/code, Fortune, @tim_cook, MacStories, Ubergizmo, App Advice, @barbariancap, MacRumors, Mercury News, Business Insider, PandoDaily, Forbes, BBC, @billboardbiz, NPR, ZDNet, The Verge, Mashable, BGR, MacRumors and TIME

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Tim Cook Explains Why Apple Is Buying Beats (Q&A) — The Apple Beats deal has already generated lots of debate, and now that it's official, we will see even more. Here's Apple CEO Tim Cook's extended explanation, via an interview he conducted with Re/code this afternoon.

Discussion: 9to5Mac, Guardian, TechCrunch, MacStories, USA Today, Business Insider, AppleInsider, TIME, Fortune and MacRumors

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The scariest chart in Mary Meeker's slide deck for newspapers has gotten a little scarier — It's an annual moment of print realism here at Nieman Lab: The posting of the attention slide from Mary Meeker's state-of-the-Internet slide deck. I guess I can cut and paste from last year's post:

Discussion: Re/code and @ethanwsj

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, Business Insider, Forbes, ZDNet, Deadline.com, Quartz and Fortune

Nikki Usher / Washington Post:

It's not just Jill Abramson: Women everywhere are getting pushed out of journalism — Blame the techies. — Nikki Usher is the author of Making News at The New York Times and an assistant professor at George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs.

Discussion: @livvybolton, @amandabee, @nikkiusher, @derekwillis, @derekwillis, @katdowns, @nikkiusher, @yurivictor, @derekwillis, @tasneemraja, @rsm, @tasneemraja, @tasneemraja, @rsm, @sisiwei, @markcoddington and @feministabulous

Mandy Jenkins / Zombie Journalism:
Technology is a solution, not a problem, for women in newsrooms

Discussion: @kate_day, @kissane, @mjenkins and @mjenkins

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, Re/code, @pkafka, CNET, Gigaom, Deadline.com, DSLreports, Free Press Blog and Variety

Bill Carter / New York Times:

May Brings a Loss of Viewership for Cable News Channels — May is typically a slow month for television news channels — not much is happening and there is competition from season-ending series elsewhere. — But all the news channels have seen particularly troubling declines in viewership …

Discussion: @mlcalderone

Capital New York:

American Prospect likely to become quarterly ‘journal of ideas’ — The American Prospect's board of directors met this morning to consider a proposal to recreate the Prospect as a print quarterly with a smaller budget, a source with knowledge of the meeting told Capital.

Discussion: @gabrielarana and The Huffington Post

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

Brendan Sasso / NationalJournal.com:

Six Strikes delivers 1.3M copyright violation notices in 10 months, to double in size in 2014 — Entertainment Companies Caught 1.3 Million Alleged Pirates — Under an initiative, movie studios and record labels don't need a court to go after copyright violations.

Discussion: Variety

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, @pewjournalism, @rubinafillion, @brentinmock, @edmundlee, FishbowlNY, @mhugolopez, @monicaranders, The Huffington Post, @niemanlab and @jcstearns

Hadley Malcolm / USA Today:

Target to offer e-books through partnership — Target wants to help host your book club — online. — As the retailer works to build a more competitive e-commerce experience, it's partnering with a startup e-book subscription service called Librify to give customers an online platform for buying …

Discussion: Consumerist and GalleyCat

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: @jbenton and FishbowlDC

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: Consumerist, Daily Dot, The 1709 Blog and DSLreports

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: @elanazak and @sunny_hundal

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

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

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

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

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.