Mediagazer: Newsosaur: Newspapers Can't Merely Dabble at Digital (Alan D. Mutter/Editor and Publisher)

9:30 AM ET, July 11, 2014

Top News:

US knew in advance of British plans to destroy Guardian hard drives containing NSA documents — US given heads up about newspaper data destruction — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration knew in advance that the British government would oversee destruction of a newspaper's hard …

Discussion: RT, @jackgillum, @janinegibson and Guardian

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon Shelves French Book Discounts — U.S. Online Retailer Bows to French Law Protecting Local Bookstores — PARIS— Amazon.com Inc. ended all book discounts in France on Thursday, and began charging a token penny for shipping books, bowing to a new French law aimed at protecting local bookstores …

Discussion: Engadget, France 24 and The Local

Richard Russo / The Authors Guild:

Authors Guild to Amazon in Hachette standoff: “We're not interested in a short-term windfall” — Letter from Richard Russo on the Amazon-Hachette Dispute — We want to share with you an open letter on the Amazon-Hachette, written by Richard Russo, novelist and co-Vice President of the Authors Guild.

Discussion: Bookseller news, @authorplanet, @thegernertco, @watershedchron, @alex_shephard, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and Washington Post

Robert Mackey / New York Times:

Rumor and Leaks Fill a Void as Israel Silences Press Over Killings — Israeli intelligence officials used gag orders in recent weeks to stifle reporting on the initial investigations into both the abduction and the killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, and the apparent revenge killing …

Discussion: @lpolgreen, The Times of Israel, @nytimesworld, BuzzFeed and @robertmackey

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Israeli airstrike destroys press car, killing Palestinian media worker — The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Israel Defense Forces' airstrike on a car clearly marked as a press vehicle in Gaza City on Wednesday. The airstrike killed Hamid Shihab, a driver …

Discussion: Gawker, New York Times, Al Jazeera English, New York Times, IFJ, @ibnlarry, Reuters, IMEMC, The Huffington Post, @josephwillits, @jessradio, @mlcalderone and Reuters

David Drummond / Guardian:

Google's top lawyer describes challenges in implementing EU's Right To Be Forgotten, urges public debate — We need to talk about the right to be forgotten — After the European court ruling, we at Google want to encourage debate on where the public interest lies in restricting web searches

Discussion: Associated Press, Guardian, TechCrunch, Search Engine Land, Electronista, Press Gazette, Washington Post, Business Insider, The Verge and Gigaom

Patrick Kingsley / Guardian:

In Egypt, watching the World Cup means choosing from two politically controversial networks — Egyptian fans must choose Hebrew or Arab channel to watch World Cup final — Ultra-nationalists face difficult choice between ‘enemy’ networks but most people seem only to care about not missing the game

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Sony Threatens to Bypass Licensers in Royalties Battle — A month after the Justice Department said it would review the decades-old regulatory agreements governing the music licensing agencies Ascap and BMI, the world's biggest song publisher has threatened to end its relationship with those groups if the changes it wants are not made.

Discussion: New York Post, @legrandnetwork and The Week

Cory Doctorow / Guardian:

What Canada's national public broadcaster could learn from the BBC — The beleaguered CBC could do worse than look to the BBC's now-shelved plans for a publicly funded online archive of the nation's collective cultural memory — The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) …

Discussion: @jonathan_pinto

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

World Cup shows Twitter's unique strength: dominance in real-time sports news and commentary — Twitterball — In the old days of Twitter — at least ‘old’ by Silicon Valley 2.0 standards, which is anything over five years — you could count on a couple of things.

Discussion: @sporttechie and @kevindeshazo

Alan D. Mutter / Editor and Publisher:

Newsosaur: Newspapers Can't Merely Dabble at Digital — The New York Times wrote the story in 1853 about how Solomon Northup was kidnapped and sold into slavery, but Gawker got most of the page views by publicizing the archived article when “12 Years a Slave” won the Oscar for best picture in 2014.

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Chromecast and Roku sold an estimated 3.8M units each in 2013 in US, compared to 2M Apple TVs — Roku and Chromecast go head-to-head in streaming race, Apple TV falling behind — Roku and Chromecast were the two most successful streaming devices sold in the U.S. in 2013 …

Discussion: BGR, Electronista, MacRumors and 9to5Mac

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Dallas Morning News abandons its “premium experience” strategy — The Dallas Morning News dismantles its paywall in favor of a bisected reader experience — In yesterday's paper, The Dallas Morning News announced it was ending its experiment with a “premium” site.

Discussion: Dallas Morning News, @vwpickard and @jbenton

Richard Sandomir / New York Times:

Sultry Univision Ads Help Steer Women From Soaps to Soccer — In the months before the World Cup, Univision began to unveil its plan to reach female viewers, many of whom are devoted to its daytime talk shows and telenovelas. — The primary weapon for Univision, a Spanish-language media giant …

Pew Research Journalism Project:

America's Shifting Statehouse Press — Can New Players Compensate for Lost Legacy Reporters? — Within America's 50 state capitol buildings, 1,592 journalists inform the public about the actions and issues of state government, according to new data from the Pew Research Center.