Mediagazer: The Plain Dealer drops PolitiFact, but keeps on factchecking (Anna Clark/Columbia Journalism Review)

3:45 AM ET, June 20, 2014

Top News:

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Why The New York Times and The Washington Post (and Mozilla) are building an audience engagement platform together — Both excitement and skepticism surrounded Thursday's announcement that Knight has invested $3.89 million to help The New York Times, The Washington Post …

Discussion: Scripting News and @niemanlab

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Washington Post, New York Times and Mozilla team up for new Web site comment system — In an unusual partnership, The Washington Post, the New York Times and software developer Mozilla will team up to create digital tools that will make it easier for readers to post comments and photos …

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:
Technology can't vanquish trolls completely, says leader of comments project

Discussion: @poynter and @craigsilverman

Myles Tanzer / BuzzFeed:

“Time spent” vs. page views: representatives of Gawker, Chartbeat, SB Nation, others weigh in — The Page View Just Won't Die — What does an attention-obsessed media look like? And do we want it? — Via chartbeat.com — Every few months media types seem to loop …

Andrew Dugan / Gallup:

Americans' Confidence in News Media Remains Low — Across newspapers, TV, and Internet, confidence no higher than 22% — WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans' faith in each of three major news media platforms — television news, newspapers, and news on the Internet — is at or tied with record lows …

Discussion: Poynter, Mediaite, Radio & Television …, @antderosa, New York Times, The Daily Caller, The Week, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal and Business Insider

Jason Evangelho / Forbes:

Polygon's Brian Crecente Is Experimenting With Livestreamed Game Journalism, And It's Oddly Compelling — At some point later today, Polygon will publish a comprehensive article about Nintendo's Wii U console and the impact both first-party games and third party publishers like Warner Bros. and Ubisoft may have on their hardware sales.

Discussion: @crecenteb

Nicole Schilit / Committee to Protect Journalists:

Forced to flee: A timeline of journalists' flight into exile — Every year, dozens of journalists are forced to leave their homes under threat of imprisonment, torture, violence, or even death, because their work has angered the powerful. Over the past 12 months, the Committee …

Dylan Byers / Politico:

David Brock to launch institute to fund journalism exposing conservative power in Washington — David Brock to launch journalism institute — David Brock, the founder of Media Matters for America and public defender for Hillary Clinton, is set to launch an institute to fund journalism that exposes …

Anna Clark / Columbia Journalism Review:

The Plain Dealer drops PolitiFact, but keeps on factchecking — Truth in Numbers feature brings reader ratings to the truth squad movement — DETROIT, MI — Josh Mandel didn't just lose his 2012 bid to unseat Sherrod Brown and claim one of Ohio's spots in the US Senate.

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Washington Free Beacon suspended from Clinton archives — The University of Arkansas has blocked the Washington Free Beacon from its special collections after the conservative website published audio recordings of Hillary Clinton without asking for the university's permission, the site reported on Thursday.

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon and The Daily Caller

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Gabriel Stricker to head Twitter's media unit; Adam Bain taking over business development — Bain Officially Gets Biz Dev, While Media Unit Moves to Stricker at Twitter (Plus TV Memo!) — As Re/code reported last week, Twitter sales leader Adam Bain will take over business development at Twitter …

Discussion: VatorNews and Wall Street Journal

Edirin Oputu / Columbia Journalism Review:

News organizations are the new journalism schools — Politico and Condé Nast will soon be training rookies — Politico and Condé Nast are entering the j-school business. Last week, Politico announced the creation of a 10-day Journalism Institute for college students …

Discussion: WWD Media Headlines

Todd Spangler / Variety:

ProSieben's Studio71 YouTube Network Launches First U.S. Channel, L.A.-Based ‘The Mansion’ — Studio71, the YouTube multichannel network owned by German broadcasting giant ProSiebenSat.1 Group, has launched its first foray in the U.S. with The Mansion, a channel exploring life and culture in Los Angeles.

Craig Newmark / craigconnects:

Craig Newmark joins the board of Poynter Institute because of his interest in journalism ethics, accountability — Journalism Ethics: Why I'm Joining Poynter Institute — Hey, I just joined the Foundation Board of the Poynter Institute because of my interest in protecting journalism ethics.

Discussion: @ckrewson, @tgdavidson, @craignewmark and @kellymcb, Thanks:@steverubel

TVNewsCheck.com:

Gannett and Sander Media complete sale of three TV stations to Meredith for $407.5M — Gannett-Sander Complete Phoenix Sale — The sale of KTVK and KASW to Meredith Corp. was part of a deal announced last December that also included KMOV St. Louis. — Gannett Co. and Sander Media LLC …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and Meredith Corporation

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

AJC's digital reorganization, part 1: Topic teams inspired by Quartz's ‘obsessions’ — When Bert Roughton Jr. was tasked 18 months ago with reorganizing the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's newsroom to better address the newspaper's digital challenges, he looked outside his own newsroom …

Discussion: @poynter

Baljeet Singh / The Twitter Blog:

Twitter acquires SnappyTV, the service for clipping, editing, and sharing video clips from live broadcasts — SnappyTV is joining the flock — One of the best ways to follow events as they unfold is through real-time videos on Twitter. As we continue to invest in video …

Angela Haggerty / The Drum:

UK national newspaper ad revenue predicted to fall below £1bn for first time this year — UK national newspaper advertising revenue will dip to below £1bn for the first in 2014, according to a forecast from WPP media buying arm GroupM. — GroupM estimates that despite total …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and American Press Institute

Ben Blanchard / Reuters:

China denies trying to ban unapproved critical media coverage — (Reuters) - China is not trying to ban reporters from publishing critical reports without prior approval, an official told state media on Thursday, insisting an order had been misinterpreted and its real goal was to stop journalists abusing their jobs.

Discussion: New York Times, CanIndia NEWS, Businessweek and Committee to Protect …

Tracie Powell / Columbia Journalism Review:

Online publishers still aren't usually liable for user-generated content — A federal court this week reversed a lower court ruling that would've upended that precedent — A federal appeals court judge decided earlier this week that a gossip site is not liable for content it invites users to submit …

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

A reply to Clay Shirky: Who doesn't distinguish between investing in journalism as opposed to print — Who doesn't distinguish between investing in journalism as opposed to print — NYU's Clay Shirky calls Ken Doctor and me shills and nostalgists for our respective coverage …

Discussion: The Wrap, @ryanchittum, College Media Matters and Clay Shirky