Mediagazer: Researchers created fake social network to access & understand China's internet censor systems (Jason Koebler/Motherboard)

9:25 AM ET, August 25, 2014

Top News:

Rukmini Callimachi / New York Times:

Peter Theo Curtis, Abducted by Nusra Front in 2012, Is Released — An American journalist held captive for nearly two years by Al Qaeda's official branch in Syria has been freed, according to a representative of the journalist's family and a report on Sunday by the Al Jazeera network.

Edmund Lee / Re/code:

New York Times's Digital Subscription Growth Story May Be Ending — The New York Times has bet on digital subscriptions to play a central role in its long-term future. But while selling access to the paper's Web and mobile versions was an initial hit, growth is slowing …

Discussion: @pkafka

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Following layoffs memo, Jeff Zucker tells CNN employees they need to “do less and do it with less” — CNN chief: News operation will do less with less — CNN chief Jeff Zucker recently shared not so encouraging words with some of the news operation's employees, many of whom have been bracing for potential jobs cuts.

Discussion: TVNewser, @passantino, The Huffington Post and Inside Cable News

Fox News:

US, UK eye rapper as British-born militant who beheaded journalist James Foley — American and British intelligence officials are eyeing a British-born rapper as the militant who beheaded journalist James Foley. — A senior Western intelligence official told Fox News that 23-year-old …

Discussion: The Sunday Times, New York Times, CNN, Guardian, Softpedia News, CNN, UK - The Huffington Post, NY Daily News, Washington Post, Telegraph, India & World, Middle East, Sky News, BBC and The Independent

Christopher Massie / Columbia Journalism Review:
To publish or not: James Foley video spotlights media's tough call

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Latest News & Headlines, Business Insider, @cjr, @storyful, BetaNews, USA Today and The Intercept

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Erosion of newspaper coverage in Ferguson and similar places reduces civic engagement; solutions are digital — Was Ferguson a ‘news desert’ until two weeks ago? — Coming late to the Ferguson story, I have a modest thought to add to the ongoing discussion of why the police shooting …

Discussion: Latest News & Headlines, Mashable, @abeaujon, @kellymcb, @aspiegelnpr and @libbyanelson

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:
The Guardian and St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial pages are teaming up for Ferguson coverage

Discussion: Gawker, Latest News & Headlines, KSDK-TV, Washington Post, @tonymess, American Journalism Review, @mccanner, @losowsky and St. Louis Public Radio

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
HuffPost's Ferguson Fellow: ‘This is huge for me’

Discussion: @mattdpearce, @sujatamitradc, @benmullin, @ryanjreilly and The Huffington Post

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Time Inc. Faces a Looming Existential Magazine Deadline — What should a magazine company be now? The most storied one in America has to come up with an answer fast. — In the 92 years since Henry Luce co-founded Time Inc., there have been just seven journalists to hold the title of editor-in-chief.

Discussion: @peterlattman, @markleibovich, @mlcalderone, @raju, @gabrielsherman, @mattbuchanan, @harrymccracken, @sarahw, @pkafka and FishbowlNY

David Carr / New York Times:

Its Edge Intact, Vice Is Chasing Hard News — In early 2010, I wrote a column about Vice in which Shane Smith, one of the founders, suggested that he and his band of insurgents were building “the next MTV.” And then there was a promise to become “the next CNN” — outrageous claims at the time …

Discussion: @shaunrandol and @ellenbarrynyt

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:

Quartz has a new look—and for the first time, a homepage — We just shipped version 3.0 of Quartz, which you are looking at right now. It's our second major redesign in as many years, a rapid pace of reinvention that makes good on our promise to continually evolve and improve on what a purely digital news organization can be.

Discussion: @samuelrsolomon, @qoreilly, @jackdearlove, @zseward, @vivian, @chiaraalbanese, @danieldrepper, @davidbauer, MediaWire Daily and Talking Biz News

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Vice News sparks debate on engaging younger viewers — Traditional broadcasters such as BBC and Channel 4 examine how to attract generation focused on YouTube and social media — Vice News report on The Islamic State has attracted more than 2.5m views on YouTube

Discussion: @eelcoromeijn

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

ScrollMotion VP: tablet magazines were flawed; pubs should build in utility, customization — “The tablet magazine has been flawed from the start” — Magazine publishers have a tablet problem. According to one designer, they always have. Four years after Apple introduced the iPad, tablet apps are stagnating.

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Upworthy's Traffic Goes Lower, but Revenue Is Climbing — The last time we checked in on Upworthy, the viral Web-sharing startup, we found that its traffic was sagging. Not a big deal, said CEO Eli Pariser: The company was training more people to find stuff to share, so it hadn't spent as much time sharing stuff.

Source:

Why journalists from NYT and BuzzFeed published raw data from Ferguson reporting on GitHub — Thoughts on recent dataset postings from BuzzFeed and the New York Times — Thoughts on recent dataset postings from BuzzFeed and the New York Times — Last Friday, the New York Times published …