Top News:
Adam Hochberg / Poynter:
New project from Gannett uses Oculus Rift to deliver news via virtual reality — News for the Minecraft generation: Gannett experiments with virtual reality — One of America's largest media companies is hoping that young readers want to get their news the same way that video gamers play World of Warcraft and Doom.
Discussion:
Mediaite, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, The Huffington Post, Pocket-lint and Businessweek
Scott Stossel / Nieman Reports:
Atlantic editor Scott Stossel on keeping one of America's oldest print magazines relevant — Scott Stossel, editor of The Atlantic, has reason to be nervous. That's partly because of his personality—detailed in “My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind” …
Discussion:
FishbowlNY and bookforum.com
Peter Kafka / Re/code:
AT&T, Chernin buy majority stake in Fullscreen YouTube network, valuing it between $200-300M — AT&T & Chernin Buy Fullscreen, the Big YouTube Video Network — Otter Media, the Web video joint venture between AT&T and the Chernin Group, is confirming its deal to buy a controlling stake in Fullscreen …
Discussion:
Hollywood Reporter, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Gigaom, Capital New York, Business Insider, Mashable, Bloomberg, Variety, @pkafka and The Next Web
Folio:
How HBR Has Turned Its Old Content Into New Revenue — A Q&A With Sarah McConville, Harvard Business Review's VP of Marketing. — Smart media companies have figured out how to continuously pull in revenue from some of their oldest content—sometimes going back over a hundred years.
Discussion:
@raju
Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
New York Times Launches ‘First Draft’ Politics Site And Newsletter — NEW YORK — Carl Hulse, a veteran of The New York Times for nearly three decades, considers there to be a hole in the paper's Washington report. — The Times, online and in print, covers the day's big news and often looks more broadly at the political landscape.
Chris Dannen / FastCoLabs:
Can Longform Become A Netflix For Journalism? — If you consider yourself a reader, you've probably heard the web is destroying your ability to focus and financially crippling the people that write for you. But Aaron Lammer, cofounder and editor of Longform, thinks it doesn't have to be that way.
Emily Bell / Guardian:
News Corp shouldn't blame Google for the media's woes — There are many reasons for the EU to much more robustly police Google, but newspaper websites' troubles aren't among them — What do Google and Scotland have in common? One is a territory bravely battling for its independence …
Discussion:
@raju and @eatatjoe2
Jon Russell / The Next Web:
Blogging platform Svbtle moves to paid membership, costs $6 per month for new users — Svbtle, the stylish blogging platform that opened up to all users at the beginning of the year, has pivoted into a paid-for service, which costs $6 per month. — Created by prominent designer Dustin Curtis …
David Streitfeld / New York Times:
Amazon has held a secret retreat for authors called “Campfire” for four years, but this weekend some Hachette supporters weren't invited — A Writerly Chill at Bezos' Fire — When Jeff Bezos tells writers to keep quiet, they obey. — Every fall, Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon …
Discussion:
@arablit, @jimaley, @neil_irwin, @petersterne, @ivanthek, @shelfawareness, @david_connell and The Verge
Guardian:
Iran's Jila Baniyaghoob on journalism, prison and Rouhani — Iranian journalist and activist says freedom of speech and the press have not improved one iota under the new administration — Jila Baniyaghoob interviewing Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf in Kabul in 2003. Photograph: Courtesy of Jila Baniyaghoob
Donna M. Airoldi / Street Fight:
Report: Online and Digital Ads to Reach 25% of Local Media Revenues in 2015 — Total local media revenues are expected to reach $139.3 billion next year, up from $137 billion this year, for a 1.6% growth rate, with digital and online advertising surpassing the one-quarter mark for the first time …
Discussion:
NetNewsCheck Latest
Rui Kaneya / Columbia Journalism Review:
How comics journalism brings stories to life — Chicago's Illustrated Press is at the forefront of a burgeoning movement — CHICAGO, IL — For much of last year, Darryl Holliday worked the “crime and mayhem” beat at DNAinfo Chicago, documenting the consequences of violence on the city's South Side.