Mediagazer: After Sale to Disney, Maker Studios' Last Two Founders Leave (Peter Kafka/Re/code)

10:55 AM ET, August 8, 2014

Top News:

News Corp. holds firm on value of print — News Corp., the global publishing conglomerate chaired by Rupert Murdoch, reaffirmed its commitment to print in the face of ongoing financial pressures that have upended the industry as more readers migrate from paper to digital platforms.

Variety:

News Corp ends first year away from Fox with mixed results: $.02/share income; $2.19B revenue — News Corp. Revenues Fall on Weaker Ad Sales, Subscriptions — Revenues at News Corp. fell during the most recent fiscal quarter on weaker subscription sales and a sluggish advertising market.

Discussion: Forbes, Guardian, The Wrap, Yahoo! Finance, @lisaocarroll, Guardian, Poynter, mUmBRELLA, News Corp and Bloomberg

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon — ROUND POND, Me. — Out here in the woods, at the end of not one but two dirt roads, in a shack equipped with a picture of the Dalai Lama, a high-speed data line and a copy of Thoreau's “Civil Disobedience,” Amazon's dream of dominating the publishing world has run into some trouble.

Discussion: Re/code, @publisherslunch, @das_kunk, @mathewi, @nytimesbits, BBC, @raju, @nilofer, @suzannespecnyt, @sarahw, @neil_irwin, @suzannespecnyt, @carolynryan, CNN, Bookseller news and Publishers Weekly

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

How Vice News Got Unprecedented Access To The Islamic State — NEW YORK — When The New York Times reported last month on life in Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of the extremist group the Islamic State, the paper didn't reveal its reporter's identity or that of anyone interviewed out a fear of retaliation.

Discussion: VICE News, The New York Observer, Business Insider, Mashable, @jayrosen_nyu, @mlcalderone, New York Times, The Daily Caller and New York Magazine

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Coming to the Internet: Shows From CBS That You Won't See on CBS — CBS is working on shows that you won't see on CBS. Instead, the plan is for you to see them on the Internet, via video services like Netflix or Amazon's Prime Instant Video. — If that happens, it means CBS will have opened …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Deadline.com and Capital New York

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Ex-Sun reporter charged over stolen phone tells of how career was destroyed — Ben Ashford tells Old Bailey jury that he was sacked by the Daily Mail in the US and had his visa cancelled after his arrest — A former Sun reporter charged with criminal offences in relation to a stolen phone …

Capital New York:

The 60-second interview: Derek Willis, reporter, the Times' The Upshot — CAPITAL: You joined The Upshot in February (in your hiring note, David Leonhardt called you “the intellectual father of the Times' Interactive News department.") How are things going so far? What are your primary responsibilities?

Discussion: @clockwerks, @jacqui and @jeremymbarr

Nikhil Pahwa / MediaNama:

The Hindu asks its journalists to avoid tweeting links from competing publications — The Hindu, a Chennai based English and Tamil language daily newspaper, has asked its journalists, with immediate effect, to avoid sharing or commenting on the content of competing publications, and ensure …

Discussion: The Newsminute, @rupabhshukla, @nicdawes, @ankushatwork and @nixxin

Alexandra Alter / New York Times:

Publisher Hachette's 3-Way Deal to Acquire Perseus Fails — The Hachette Book Group's deal to acquire the independent publisher Perseus has collapsed after months of negotiations, representatives from each company said on Thursday. — The three-way agreement among Hachette …

Discussion: Publishers Lunch, Reuters, @carlzimmer, Publishers Weekly and Bookseller news

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Turning a profit in the Netherlands: How a Dutch hyperlocal network has grown — While lots of U.S. media companies are still struggling to figure out how to make hyperlocal news financially viable, in the Netherlands, a four-year-old network of hyperlocal sites began turning a profit earlier this year.

Discussion: Street Fight

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

Nic Pizzolatto & HBO Refute ‘True Detective’ Plagiarism Claims — At the beginning of this week, with Emmy voting campaign in full swing, a story surfaced online that posed the question whether True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, a nominee for writing the episode “The Secret Fate of All Life …

Discussion: Lovecraft eZine, Daily Dot, Rolling Stone, Digital Spy, Hollywood Reporter, NME News and Inside TV

Joe Miller / BBC:

Wiki wars: Do Wikipedia's internal tiffs deter newcomers? — Berlin-born Knut has been at the centre of one of Wikipedia's fiercest edit battles — As WikiMania, the annual conference for the Wikipedia faithful, gets under way, there is bound to be much back-slapping over the successes …