Mediagazer: An Interview with Ann Wroe, Obituaries Writer for The Economist (Isabelle Fraser/The Hairpin)

11:25 AM ET, June 10, 2014

Top News:

Mark Kleinman / Sky News:

Time Warner said to be considering 50% stake in Vice Media, in a deal valuing the company at $2.2B — Time Warner In Talks About $2.2bn Vice Deal — Shane Smith, the company's co-founder and chief executive — Vice Media, the digital group which has mounted an aggressive assault …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Marc Lavallee is NYT's new head of interactive news technology — Marc Lavallee is the The New York Times' new head of interactive news technology, according to a memo sent to staffers. He was previously deputy editor of interactive news. This is the one of roles Aron Pilhofer held …

Discussion: @pmaiorana

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

Report: Global digital news audience increased by 23% in 2013 — According to the World Press Trends report, more people are reading the news than ever before - but news outlets need to improve audience engagement to make their businesses sustainable — Read more — Other top stories

Discussion: WAN-IFRA

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:

Time Inc. Has a Big Problem—So Does Digital Journalism — Time Inc., the mother of newsmagazines, was born in 1922. She survived wars and recessions, grew up to be fabulously rich by mid-century, married the media giant Warner Communications, entered the golden years as one of the largest media companies …

Discussion: New York Times, @dskok, Poynter, @editorialiste, @stevebuttry, @pernillet, @alexremington, @pmarca, AdAge, Gigaom, @jbenton, @theatlantic, Mashable, Variety and Deadline.com

Bloomberg:

AT&T Settles Suit Over Refusal to Carry Al Jazeera — AT&T Inc. (T) settled a lawsuit over its refusal to carry Al Jazeera Satellite Network's U.S. cable-news channel on its pay-television service. — The accord will allow Al Jazeera America onto AT&T's U-verse pay-TV service as part of the settlement …

Discussion: Reuters and Wall Street Journal

Isabelle Fraser / The Hairpin:

An Interview with Ann Wroe, Obituaries Writer for The Economist — I am not embarrassed to admit that the obituaries on the back page of The Economist make my week. They're thought-provoking and written with energy. Each column is a window onto another world, where genocidal SS captains escape …

Discussion: @robinsloan

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

Cisco report says video to make up 84% of all US internet traffic by 2018, up from current 78% — Cat Videos, Binge TV Watching Will Account for 84 Percent of Internet Traffic, Cisco Says — Internet traffic will likely more than double in five years, and much of it will be used for online video …

Discussion: Gigaom, FierceCable, Streaming Media, Mobile World Live and Globe and Mail

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:

Fox News Retracts Fraud Claim Against Former Executive — 1,243g — When Fox News president Roger Ailes fired his close advisor Brian Lewis last year, the channel claimed—via a series of coordinated leaks to Fox-friendly outlets—that Lewis was terminated over “financial irregularities” …

Discussion: @ericboehlert and @gabrielsherman

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Netflix to suspend its controversial ISP error messages — Netflix will stop blaming your ISP when your Orange is the New Black stream starts to stutter, at least for now. The company announced Monday that it will suspend the display of messages that specifically blame individual internet providers …

Discussion: Softpedia News, The Wire, Home Media Magazine, Adweek, Ars Technica, Variety, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, Netflix US & Canada Blog, AdAge, Re/code and The Verge

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Netflix to Verizon: Nope, Your Congested Pipes Are Still Your Fault

Discussion: Quartz, Mashable, Ars Technica and Electronista

Jeff Baumgartner / Multichannel News:

Sony Sets Fall Launch For PlayStation TV — Will Sell Gaming/Media Hub For $99 In U.S. and Canada — Sony will sell the PlayStation TV, a miniaturized gaming console/media player in Canada and the U.S. this fall for $99, the CE giant announced Monday night at the E3 confab in Las Vegas.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Press Association, Softpedia News, BelfastTelegraph.co.uk, BelfastTelegraph.co.uk and Telegraph

Jason Deans / Guardian:

BBC Radio to cut 65 more posts — Cost-savings drive aims to cut 15% of total staff, with stations moved into two ‘hubs’: pop music and classical and speech — BBC Radio director Helen Boaden said the division needed to be as small as possible to meet savings targets as part of the Delivering Quality First initiative

Discussion: Digital Spy, Telegraph, BBC, broadcastnow.co.uk, mirror, MediaTel, Prolific North and Gigwise

Ralph Lee / Guardian:

New D-Rig technology from Channel 4 allows filmmakers to capture their subjects digital lives — Channel 4 is entering a brave new digital world of story telling — D-Rig technology allows a new series to capture contributors' digital activity and lets viewers get the internal experience

Alexander Klöpping / Medium:

Blendle, Dutch startup that charges readers by the article, reaches 60k users, adds Economist — Our Dutch paydike for journalism gets The Economist to try something new — I'm co-founder of a journalistic startup from the Netherlands called Blendle (the first true iTunes for journalism in the world).

Discussion: @raju