Mediagazer: Pulling Punches While Covering Print: A Reply to Ryan Chittum (Clay Shirky)

10:10 PM ET, June 18, 2014

Top News:

Print still matters, even if some would like to believe it shouldn't — I have to say, I find it funny to be called an apologist for the legacy news industry, as Clay Shirky suggested in an overnight post. — The newsonomics of the Orange County Register's (new, newer, newest) plan — January 23, 2014

Discussion: Media Nation, @billadairduke, @dankennedy_nu, David Higgerson, @bgrueskin, @jeffjarvis, WGBH News, About Editing and Writing, One Man and His Blog, @oliverburkeman, @vosdscott, @glyph and @laura_nelson

Clay Shirky:

Pulling Punches While Covering Print: A Reply to Ryan Chittum — Background: Yesterday, I wrote something about how nostalgia blunted skeptical coverage of Aaron Kushner's dumb — and now failing — plans to build a newspaper empire in southern California. I particularly singled out Ryan Chittum …

Discussion: LA Observed, @ryanchittum, @billadairduke, @ckrewson, @ryanchittum, @ceodonovan, @pottsmark, @mathewi, @mathewi, @jbenton, @adamweinstein, @jeremylittau, @ceciliakang, @mjenkins, @janinegibson, @will_bunch and Clay Shirky

Timothy B. Lee / Vox:

Disruption is a dumb buzzword. It's also an important concept — Jill Lepore isn't a fan of Clay Christensen's concept of disruptive innovation. Writing in the New Yorker, she laments the growing ubiquity of the term in business in general and Silicon Valley in particular.

Discussion: Digitopoly, PandoDaily, Joho the Blog, Techdirt, @chanders, stratechery, ReadWrite, The Awl, Guardian, Slate and Forbes

Chris Morran / Consumerist:

No, A Supreme Court Victory By Aereo Would Not Crush The NFL — The Supreme Court could issue a ruling in the dispute between the broadcast networks and startup streaming service Aereo as early as tomorrow (though it could also not come down for quite some time).

Discussion: Washington Post

Cliff Edwards / Bloomberg:
Dish Says It's Interested in NFL Sunday Ticket

Discussion: SeekingAlpha.com

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: Columbia Journalism Review and Financial Times

Sam Petulla / The Content Strategist:
The Financial Times on Why They Ditched CPMs For a New Ad Currency: Time Spent

Discussion: AdExchanger and Business Insider, Thanks:@steverubel

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Vice Media: Time Warner deal will not be at expense of youth audience — Chief creative officer Eddy Moretti says company's prime concern is to ‘protect the brand’ — Vice Media's Eddy Moretti described the company as a ‘20-year startup’ that is nothing without its brand.

Discussion: The Drum and @mathewi

Associated Press:

Philly News Heir Sells Stake; Lenfest Sole Owner — Philanthropist H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest is now the sole owner of Philadelphia's largest newspapers, after his late partner's family sold its $16 million stake. — The deal finalized Wednesday caps a year of turmoil at The Philadelphia Inquirer …

Discussion: Washington Post, Big Trial, Philly.com, Philadelphia Magazine and bizjournals

Sheera Frenkel / BuzzFeed:

Al Jazeera Is Shutting Down Its Offices In Egypt And Terminating All Employee Contracts — Exclusive: Al Jazeera notified dozens of employees Wednesday that it was ending their contracts. The Qatar-based network has not been operating in Egypt since December 2013, but has kept offices in the country.

Discussion: @katebt3000, @buzzfeedben and @dadakim

Saeed Kamali Dehghan / Guardian:

Iranian film-maker jailed for five years for ‘collaborating with the BBC’ — Mahnaz Mohammadi, charged with collusion against Iran's national security, maintains innocence and fears sentence could be due to women's rights work — Prominent Iranian documentary film-maker …

Amir Efrati / The Information:

AMC Networks to launch genre-based subscription video sites this summer — AMC Plans Novel Move into Online TV — AMC Networks, which has vaulted into the first tier of TV programmers in recent years with shows such as “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” is preparing to break …

Discussion: Gigaom

Amy Gesenhues / Search Engine Land:

Canadian Court Orders Google To Remove Sites Worldwide — On the heels of Europe's “Right to Be Forgotten” ruling, a British Columbia court in Canada has ruled Google must block a group of websites worldwide. — The case was opened by industrial networking devices manufacturer Equustek Solutions …

Discussion: Globe and Mail, Michael Geist Blog, Vancouver Sun, TorrentFreak, Techdirt, Gigaom and The Verge

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

Read the internet like a newspaper with PaperLater — Print your pocket queue onto a dead tree — What if you could publish your own newspaper? — For as long as I can remember, I've had too much to read, and too little time to do so. With the rise of the internet …

Discussion: @anxiaostudio and PSFK

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:

Julian Assange to file fresh challenge in effort to escape two-year legal limbo — Two years after WikiLeaks founder took refuge in Ecuadorian embassy, lawyers poised to challenge Swedish detention order — Lawyers for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who on Thursday marks …

Discussion: RT, AdAge, Softpedia News and al.com

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

Why the Oxford Mail is experimenting with WhatsApp — The regional daily has received positive feedback for its WhatsApp service after experimenting with new ways to reach its audience more directly — Credit: By Sam Azgor on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Discussion: HoldTheFrontPage

Monika Scislowska / Associated Press:

Polish authorities try to seize magazine's files — WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish police and state prosecutors on Wednesday raided the headquarters of a magazine that recently published compromising information about the government, in a failed attempt to seize its computers.

Discussion: Bloomberg and Reuters

Todd Wasserman / Mashable:

Univision signs up with Twitter Amplify for sponsored videos of World Cup highlights — Univision Amps Up World Cup Coverage With Twitter Amplify — Univision is kicking off a new deal with Twitter by letting State Farm, McDonald's and Verizon run ads on tweeted videos of World Cup highlights.

Discussion: Variety

Reuters:

News Corp board votes to extend poison pill provision — (Reuters) - News Corp's board of directors voted to extend a poison pill provision it put in place to prevent hostile takeovers when the company controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family split from its cable and entertainment properties last year.

Elizabeth Jensen / New York Times:

WETA to Take Ownership of ‘PBS NewsHour’ — WETA, the Washington, D.C., public broadcaster, is expected to take over ownership and control of “PBS NewsHour” on July 1 from the program's longtime owner, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, the station announced Wednesday.

Discussion: PBS and Washington Post