Mediagazer: Amazon unveils six new tablets and e-readers, moving even further into hardware (Hayley Tsukayama/Washington Post)

11:40 PM ET, September 17, 2014

Top News:

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:

How the new Wall Street Journal iPad app is taking advantage of new features in iOS 8 — When Apple launched the first iPad in 2010, The Wall Street Journal was one of the first news organizations with a dedicated app on the new tablet. In the four years since, tablets have become mainstream …

Discussion: TIME, ReadWrite, @pgcat, @zseward, @lauraelizdavis, Pocket-lint, ZDNet, The Next Web and Neowin

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:

iOS 8: How 5 news orgs have updated their apps for Apple's new operating system — As iPhone users frantically delete apps and photos from their phones to make space for the iOS 8 update, many news organizations are also taking advantage of Apple's new mobile operating system to release …

Discussion: @ctrouper, THE DEFINITIVE SOURCE, BuzzFeed and Capital New York

BBC:

NewsCorp: Google is a ‘platform for piracy’ — The chief executive of NewsCorp has written to the European Commission calling for a tougher approach to search giant Google. — In the strongly worded letter, Robert Thomson says “the shining vision of Google's founders has been replaced by a cynical management”.

Discussion: News Corp and @jeffjarvis

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine: A most cynical letter from a most cynical company

Justin McCarthy / Gallup:

Trust in Mass Media Returns to All-Time Low — Six-percentage-point drops in trust among Democrats and Republicans — WASHINGTON, D.C. — After registering slightly higher trust last year, Americans' confidence in the media's ability to report “the news fully, accurately, and fairly” has returned to its previous all-time low of 40%.

Discussion: TVNewser, Poynter, New York Times, The Huffington Post, @zigmanfreud, US News, @brianstelter, @corbettreport, Washington Post, @motokorich, BREITBART.COM and The Week

Jesse J. Holland / Associated Press:
66% black and 75% Hispanic news consumers doubt media reports about their communities

Discussion: American Press Institute, FishbowlNY, Politico, @tbr1, @jasfly and Poynter

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

Amazon unveils six new tablets and e-readers, moving even further into hardware — Amazon announced six new tablets and e-readers on Wednesday, the latest sign that the Web retailer is trying to reach consumers through devices where it can sell more books, movies and TV shows.

Discussion: Gigaom, Ars Technica, Business Insider and The Verge

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Apple, Amazon offer family sharing for digital media — If you spend any time at all buying digital music, movies or other media, you get used to dealing with nonsensical rules about what you can and can't do with the things you bought. But every so often the digital media business surprises you and gets it right.

Discussion: @pkafka, @pkafka and The Verge

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Under new ownership, WJLA-TV takes a slight turn to the right — There's a new owner and a new approach to the news at WJLA-TV, Washington's ABC affiliate. Under the direction of its ambitious corporate parent, the station's news operations have taken a subtle but noticeable turn to the right.

Discussion: @profblackistone, @mollyesque, @jakesherman, @reedfrich, @tnofuentes, @abeaujon, @chriswi3nters, @drewmtips, TVSpy, @milesgrant and Broadcasting & Cable

Jason Lynch / Quartz:

Why TV time slots still matter for new shows — The fall season—TV's annual version of Thunderdome—is almost upon us. During the next month, the US broadcast networks will debut 20 new series they hope will connect with audiences (with three additional new shows premiering slightly later in the fall).

Discussion: @qz

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
How Much Television Can the TV Biz — and Viewers — Handle?

Discussion: @maskedscheduler and @teelajbrown

Catalina Albeanu / Journalism.co.uk:

Channel 4 News to use Snapchat and WhatsApp in #indyref coverage — Channel 4 News has set up accounts on the two platforms to send breaking news, analysis, and fun updates, and capture the “in the moment” feeling on the night of the vote — Credit: By Maurizio Pesce on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Discussion: Lost Remote and @catalinacma

John McCarthy / The Drum:
Facebook to introduce Scottish indyref 'I'm a voter' button on referendum morning as it reaches 10m posts on the vote

Discussion: BBC, Reuters and dotRising

Jane Johnston / The Conversation:

Are bloggers ‘journalists’? New Zealand's High Court says yes — A New Zealand High Court judgment handed down on Friday will have far-reaching implications for journalists and bloggers, as courts around the world consider the rapidly changing definitions of journalism...

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Latest report about Zakaria's CNN work does show plagiarism, 2 journalism ethics experts say — The wrongs of Fareed Zakaria — For the past month, two anonymous media watchdogs have been accusing the journalist Fareed Zakaria of serial plagiarism. Across multiple reports …

Discussion: @dylanbyers, Mediaite, Poynter and Our Bad Media

Justin Ellis / Nieman Lab:

The Guardian brings newspaper comics back to life with The Last Saturday — The Guardian is giving new life to the traditional newspaper comic strip with The Last Saturday. Instead of Marmaduke or the ongoing exotic adventures of Mark Trail, The Last Saturday is a weekly graphic novella made to be read in print and online.

Discussion: Comics Alliance and kottke.org

Jihii Jolly / Columbia Journalism Review:

How to teach news literacy when the government is watching — The news literacy movement reaches Vietnam, but not without difficulties — Two years ago, Vietnamese journalist and lecturer Huyen Nguyen went with some colleagues to a news literacy workshop in neighboring Cambodia after applying …

Discussion: Guardian

Liam Corcoran / The Whip:

How sites like The Verge, Vox, Business Insider performed on Facebook and Twitter in August — How Different Sites Are Stacking Up On Facebook — We look at social engagement growth patterns from sites outside the top 25 publishers. — Every month, we see some new names on our Facebook publishers charts.

Discussion: @reckless and @ezraklein

BuzzFeed:

EXCLUSIVE: Egypt Begins Surveillance Of Facebook, Twitter, And Skype On Unprecedented Scale — “We are looking at any conversation, any interaction, we might find worrying or would want to keep a closer eye on.” Sheera Frenkel reports from Jerusalem and Maged Atef from Cairo for BuzzFeed News.

Discussion: @naderism, @russellbrandom, @matin and The Verge

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:

The New York Times Could Never Have Published TMZ's Ray Rice Video — Over the past week, The New York Times has busied itself by dissecting TMZ's graphic video of Ray Rice punching Janay Palmer in an Atlantic City casino. This is partly motivated by professional envy …

Discussion: @mediadissector, @yayitsrob, @yayitsrob, Poynter, @scnewsdude, @daviduberti, @tolles, @thefilmgoer and @mattdpearce

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian / Foreign Policy:

China's Social Media Underground — Fake terrorism threats, online dissidents, and smear campaigns by bogus accounts — it's all part of Twitter's Chinatown. — GOOGLE +

Chris Ip / Columbia Journalism Review:

On media freedom, United Nations plays by its own rules — Months of international crises raises the stakes for reporting on the UN, but investigative journalists remain without a right to information — From Ukraine to Syria to Gaza, a relentless summer of international strife is raising …

John Eggerton / Multichannel News:

Satellite TV bill passes Senate committee after amendments including channel unbundling were dropped — STAVRA Bill Passes Senate Commerce — Amendment Falls a Senator's Rise to Support Passable Bill — With entangling amendments dropping like flies in deference to the retiring committee chairman …

Discussion: The Hill, American Television Alliance, Ars Technica, TVfreedom.org and Radio & Television …

Gautam Naik / Wall Street Journal:

‘Poop & Pooches,’ a Magazine Devoted to Dog-Haters, Is a Hit in Germany — Biting Satire Makes Readers Sit Up, Roll Over, Beg — HAMBURG—In 1992, four journalists sat at a local pub and played a drunken game: What's the most absurd magazine title you can come up with?

Discussion: Nation & World News, The Rakyat Post, @andrewlavallee, International Business Times, hngn.com, @ding_jin, @timaeppel, @raju, @wsj and @publicroad

Rod Nordland / New York Times:

In Brutal Year for News Media in Afghanistan, a 7th Journalist Is Killed — KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan woman has become the seventh journalist killed in Afghanistan so far this year, an Afghan media group said Wednesday, adding to a toll that has already made 2014 by far the deadliest year …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Nation, @cjchivers, Khaama Press (KP), @eckholm and @floydwhaley

Deron Lee / Columbia Journalism Review:

How a Nebraska newspaper kicked off a major prison sentencing scandal — The Omaha World-Herald found that hundreds of inmates were being released early — PRAIRIE VILLAGE, KS — “Had the World-Herald not broken the story, nothing would have happened.” — So said Nebraska state …

Discussion: @cjr, @mattwynn, @redcloud_scribe, @coreyhutchins, @ryanpitts and @cjr

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

How linking to knowledge can help attract a solvent audience for news publishers — How Linking to Knowledge Could Boost News Media — A key way to differentiate value-added news from commodity contents is to rework the notion of linking. Thanks to semantics and APIs, we could move from dumb links to knowledge linking.

Discussion: @mjbroersma and Quartz