Mediagazer: Authors Guild Met With DoJ to Seek Investigation Into Amazon's Practices (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg/Wall Street …)

11:22 PM ET, October 1, 2014

Top News:

A mixed bag on apps: What The New York Times learned with NYT Opinion and NYT Now — The New York Times' announcement today that it was cutting 100 positions in its newsroom was coupled with changes to two of its most closely watched experiments, each just a few months old: NYT Now and NYT Opinion.

Discussion: Nieman Lab, @nycjim, @jbenton, @ameenarasheed, USA Today and @jayrosen_nyu

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

New York Times to cut 100 jobs through buyouts and layoffs, NYT Opinion to be shuttered — New York Times Plans Cutbacks in Newsroom Staff — The New York Times plans to eliminate about 100 newsroom jobs, as well as a smaller number of positions from its editorial and business operations …

John Herrman / The Awl:
NYT Opinion was interesting software but op-ed franchise stopped accumulating fans decades ago

Discussion: @jfruh, @timfernholz, @nbj914 and @mathewi

Reuters:

France's Orange to market Netflix in November - CEO — France's biggest telecom operator Orange has reached an agreement with Netflix to offer the video streaming service on its set-top boxes from November, its chief executive Stephane Richard told Le Monde newspaper on Wednesday.

Discussion: Bloomberg

Elsa Keslassy / Variety:
Report: Netflix Attracts Over 100,000 French Subscribers in Two Weeks

Discussion: Home Media Magazine

David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

Egypt Seizes Newspapers to Censor an Article — CAIRO — The Egyptian authorities on Wednesday confiscated all the copies of one of the country's largest private newspapers in order to censor an article, just days after President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi vowed in an American television interview that there was …

Discussion: @rajivwashpost and Daily News Egypt

Edmund Lee / Re/code:

Financial Times Editor Lionel Barber: “Now Software's Driving the Journalism” (Q&A) — Lionel Barber, the 59-year-old, Oxford-educated editor of the Financial Times, comes across exactly the way you'd expect a 59-year-old, Oxford-educated editor of a significant newspaper to act: Gracious, opinionated, maybe a bit deliberative.

Discussion: @niemanlab, @starexplorer, @shannonpareil, @sub8u, Talking Biz News and Nieman Lab

Mike Farrell / Multichannel News:

Viacom Blocks Suddenlink Subs' Online Access To Shows — No SpongeBob, Daily Show Online After carriage Deal Expires — As expected, Viacom is blocking Suddenlink Communications' customers' access to its online content in the wake of its failure to reach a carriage renewal agreement wit the pay TV provider.

Discussion: Variety, Gigaom and Variety

Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:
More Cable Companies Take TV Off Menu

Discussion: Techdirt, FierceCable, BGR, Ars Technica and Consumerist

Lenny Bernstein / Washington Post:

Reporting on Ebola: First rule is you don't touch anyone — MONROVIA, Liberia — I was goofing around with a small group of young children outside their home on a muddy, cratered road in the New Kru Town slum here. I made a scary face and the kids skittered, giggling, behind a low wall at the front of their shanty.

Discussion: @jfdulac and @matthewltully

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed:

What We're Doing To Keep Building A Diverse Editorial Operation — Diversity in BuzzFeed's editorial operation isn't a side project or special initiative. It's core to how we operate and how we hire. — As we enter another round of intense growth and hiring, I thought it was important …

Discussion: @msmalcriada, @jaycaspiankang, CNNMoney.com, @isaacfitzgerald, @redsteeze, @lauraolin and @wesleylowery

Loek Essers / Computerworld:

Google removes news snippets for some German sites after publishers sought cut of ad revenue — Google bows to pressure, removes news snippets from German search results — In a move to minimize legal risks, Google has stopped showing news snippets and thumbnails for some well-known German news sites in search results.

Discussion: @jeffjarvis, @jeffjarvis and Agence France-Presse

Mark Scott / New York Times:

Netflix's Chief Executive Pushes Net Neutrality in Europe — On Wednesday, Reed Hastings, the Netflix chief executive, took his net neutrality bandwagon to Europe. — Speaking at a conference in Brussels, Mr. Hastings — who has been a vocal critic of plans that would allow Internet service providers …

Discussion: Forbes

Denise Lavoie / Associated Press:

New York Post settles lawsuit over “bag men” cover — BOSTON (AP) — The New York Post has settled a defamation lawsuit over a cover three days after the Boston Marathon bombing that featured a photo of two Massachusetts residents with the headline “Bag Men.” — Neither side would disclose terms of the settlement.

Discussion: Mediaite

Kelly Golnoush Niknejad / Columbia Journalism Review:

How US-based The Tehran Bureau uses crowdsourcing and social media to report on Iran — This is how Tehran Bureau covers Iran — Its reporting model, using undercover journalists and distant editors, is one way to cover closed societies — At the turn of this century …

Discussion: @mathewi and @cjr

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Authors Guild Met With DoJ to Seek Investigation Into Amazon's Practices — Guild Says Retailer Is Abusing Its Market Power in Hachette Dispute — Authors are looking to escalate their fight with Amazon.com Inc. by seeking a government investigation into what they say is the online retail giant's abuse of its market power.

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:

Why The Daily Pennsylvanian is spending $100,000 over the next two years to foster innovation — With staffs full of technology savvy millennials and comparatively few overhead costs, you might think that college newspapers would be among the most digitally innovative news organizations.

Discussion: @fffffrida and @sambrodey

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Tests A New Homepage Highlighting Magazines, Talent... And Twitter — For the past year or so, Yahoo has been working through a major design overhaul under CEO Marissa Mayer, and it looks like it has now started testing out new formats for its biggest property of all, Yahoo.com.

Discussion: WebProNews

Hadas Gold / Politico:

One year after Tina Brown exit, Daily Beast traffic surges — It's been one year since Tina Brown left The Daily Beast, and the site seems to be doing better for it. — In a memo to staff on Wednesday, Editor-in-Chief John Avlon said internal numbers on all platforms showed 21.3 million unique visitors …

Discussion: @olivianuzzi

Patrick Strickland / The Electronic Intifada:

Palestinian Authority arrests two journalists for Facebook posts — The Palestinian Authority's recent arrests of two journalists in the occupied West Bank are part of a broader pattern of monitoring and censoring social media activity, according to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA).