Mediagazer: Viacom, 60 Cable Firms Part Ways in Rural U.S. (Shalini Ramachandran/Wall Street Journal)

10:05 AM ET, June 18, 2014

Top News:

Kushner's wrong; trying to save print journalism steals resources from planning for the future — Nostalgia and Newspapers — Aaron Kushner, CEO of Freedom Communications and the architect of a contrarian plan to expand southern California newspapers, began erecting hard paywalls …

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:

Why Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending Otherwise — Ask readers what they want, and they'll tell you vegetables. Watch them quietly, and they'll mostly eat candy. — You may not realize this, but we can see you. Yes, you. The human reading this article.

Discussion: The New York Observer, @misspress, @emmamayalex, @stacyherbert, @jimmyorr, @davidcochrane, @michaellinhorst, @onceupona, @jonathanhaynes, @tomchivers, @rebeccaschinsky, @kctvphotogbrett and Washington Post

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Daily Telegraph's Brogan departs as group seeks 40 new recruits — Ex-deputy editor leaves newspaper along with columnist and blog editor Damian Thompson — Benedict Brogan, the Daily Telegraph's former deputy editor and its chief political commentator, has left the newspaper.

Discussion: Guy Fawkes' blog, Press Gazette and BREITBART.COM

Luke Vnenchak / New York Times:

NYT's content-management system Scoop: managing 700 articles, 600 images, 14 slideshows, 50 videos a day — Scoop: A Glimpse Into the NYTimes CMS — You know the importance of technology to the future of journalism has become a widely accepted fact when a prominent editor decides to join …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, @christianyates, Poynter, @richoakley, @rjs, @leslienassar, @robinsloan, @amyoleary and @wblau

Todd Spangler / Variety:

World Cup Sets New Internet-Video Streaming Record — The 2014 FIFA World Cup is still in its opening round, but the soccer tourney has already broken the previous global record for online-video streaming and set new digital high-water marks for ESPN. — Monday's Germany-Portugal match drove …

Discussion: Forbes, FishbowlNY, The Wrap, Broadcasting & Cable, Wall Street Journal, @raanan, Capital New York, New Yorker, Associated Press and TVNewser

Joshua Brustein / Businessweek:

Stephen Colbert's In-House Tech Startup Wants to Fix TV Scripts — Is it too soon to discuss the legacy of the Colbert Report now that its always-in-character blowhard host is presumably ditching his persona and taking over David Letterman's desk? Sure, he put the term “truthiness” …

Discussion: @bw

Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:

Viacom, 60 Cable Firms Part Ways in Rural U.S. — After Carriage-Fee Dispute, Both Sides Say They Can Live Without the Other — For roughly two months, about 900,000 households in small towns across the U.S. haven't been able to watch Nickelodeon, MTV or Comedy Central …

Juan Antonio Giner / Nieman Journalism Lab:

“From a news business to a networked business”: The FT pushes its workflows to digital — Editor's note: Every year, Innovation Media Consulting prepares a report for WAN-IFRA on the state of innovation at newspapers around the world. The new edition is out now — here's an excerpt …

Discussion: The Content Strategist and Financial Times

Bob Dietz / Committee to Protect Journalists:

Conditions for international reporters deteriorating in China — The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China released at the end of May its annual report on conditions for international journalists working in the country. As we have done in the past, we're posting this year's report as a PDF.

Discussion: @chinahotline and @asiaronn

Henry Taylor / TheMediaBriefing:

UK newspaper sites get majority of traffic from outside the country, but struggle to monetize — The global reality for UK newspapers, and why that's still a challenge as well as a victory — Guardian News & Media, The Daily Mail, The Independent, Advertising, Digital Media, Newspapers

Discussion: @henryctaylor

Jefferson Graham / USA Today:

iHeartRadio crosses 50 million users in 3 years — LOS ANGELES — The iHeartRadio online radio service has cracked the 50 million registered users mark in three years, a feat it says is faster than Facebook or Twitter achieved in that time frame. — The number is far from the 250 million …

Discussion: Clear Channel Communications … and VatorNews

Angela Haggerty / The Drum:

ASA bans Outbrain's native ad ‘recommended’ links on publisher websites — The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a ‘recommended links’ promotion for failing to make clear that linked-to articles were paid for by advertisers. — The ruling against content distribution business Outbrain …

Discussion: Press Gazette, mediaweek.co.uk, marketingweek.co.uk and Guardian

Chilling Effects Clearinghouse:

Twitter Restores Access to Pakistani Notices — Abstract: Today, June 17th, Twitter has restored access to the tweets and Twitter accounts that it blocked in Pakistan on May 18th, using its Country Withheld Content tool. — Pakistani authorities had requested the removal of the material …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, BBC, Softpedia News, Engadget and The Next Web

Jennifer Saba / Reuters:

NY Times top 3 paid generously given its results, size: analysis shows — (Reuters) - While the New York Times Co has shrunk by more than half in the past eight years, the compensation of the top three executives at the company has held steady. Measured against some key metrics …

Discussion: @nycjim, @michaelroston, Poynter, @edmundlee and @mccarthyryanj