Mediagazer: Icahn to Seek 2 Seats on Gannett's Board (Michael J. de la Merced/New York Times)

5:05 PM ET, January 22, 2015

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Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Bill Gates is guest-editing The Verge in February — Technology will build a better, safer, healthier world by 2030 — I'm very excited to announce that Bill Gates will be The Verge's first ever guest editor in February. This is a new type of collaboration for us, but there's no one better …

Discussion: Poynter, @jyarow, @jasonkirksbn, UK Blog on The Huffington Post, @caseynewton, @adrjeffries, @urbanstrata, @verge, Forbes and FishbowlNY

Linda Ge / The Wrap:

DreamWorks Animation to Cut 500 Jobs, Release Fewer Films — DreamWorks Animation will release two films per year, down from three, and cut approximately 500 jobs across the board in a restructuring of its core feature animation business, the company announced Thursday.

Discussion: Variety, Hollywood Reporter, PR Newswire, @bloombergdeals and @lucas_shaw

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

Journalist and Anonymous advocate Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison on charges stemming from Stratfor hack — Barrett Brown has been sentenced to 63 months in prison — After years of legal battles, Barrett Brown's legal saga has finally come to a close.

Discussion: Guardian, Boing Boing, The Daily Dot, Wired, @danstuckey, Associated Press, @tinkersec, Techdirt, Ars Technica, International Business Times, @xeni, @dellcam, Crime Blog, @danstuckey, @danstuckey, @danstuckey and @dellcam

Antoni Slodkowski / Reuters:

Japanese reporter's bid to save friend led to Islamic State abduction — (Reuters) - It is an unlikely friendship that ties the fates of war correspondent Kenji Goto and troubled loner Haruna Yukawa, the two Japanese hostages for which Islamic State militants demanded a $200 million ransom this week.

Discussion: The Independent and TIME

Martin Fackler / New York Times:
Japan Says Efforts to Contact Islamic State About Hostages Have Failed

Discussion: NBC News, NY Daily News, Telegraph, International Business Times, @nytimesworld, News24, @nytimes, BelfastTelegraph.co.uk, New York Times and NBC News

Paul Rosania / The Twitter Blog:

Twitter rolls out “While you were away” feature to iOS users, coming soon to Android and web — While you were away... Today we're introducing something new to your home timeline: a recap of some of the top Tweets you might have missed from accounts you follow.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, The Wrap, Re/code, @johnbattelle, SocialTimes, Ubergizmo, @twitterads, @jayrosen_nyu, Cult of Mac, TechCrunch, New York Times, App Advice, Mashable, GeekWire, VentureBeat, The Next Web, The Verge, MacStories, MacRumors, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, Engadget and iMore

Economist Group:

Zanny Minton Beddoes appointed new editor of The Economist — The Economist Group announced today (January 22nd) that Zanny Minton Beddoes has been named as the 17th editor of The Economist. — She succeeds John Micklethwait, the editor for the past nine years, during which time the circulation grew from 1.1 million to 1.6 million.

Discussion: Guardian, Politico, Talking Points Memo, @maggiejordanacn and @bklynmiddleton

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Why White House used Medium for State of the Union: “We're trying to find audiences where they are” — Medium editor on SOTU coup: ‘People are already here’ — Newish publishing platform Medium scored a coup yesterday evening when the White House published President Obama's prepared State …

Discussion: The Content Strategist, Gigaom, @sulliview, Poynter, @andybechtel, @jayrosen_nyu, @kreissdaniel, @anildash, @dangillmor, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, @lisenstromberg, @pfeiffer44, OnPolitics, iMore, @ryan and VatorNews

Nathaniel Lubin / White House Blog:
State of the Union online: over 1.2M views of White House live stream, 400K views of transcript on Medium

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, White House.gov Blog, Washington Post, @whitehouse, @jtsthehill and CNNMoney.com

Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
State of the Union Drew Lowest TV Audience in 15 Years

Discussion: CNNMoney.com, Nielsen, TVNewser, Politico and Broadcasting & Cable

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:

NYPD increasing patrols near Gawker, BuzzFeed, Daily Beast offices after Charlie Hebdo attack — The NYPD Is Patrolling Gawker Because of the Charlie Hebdo Attack — The New York City Police Department has assigned police officers to guard the Manhattan offices of at least three media outlets …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Politico, Mediaite, PandoDaily, @brianstelter and @mlcalderone

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Super Bowl Ads: NBC Turns to Tumblr to Post Spots After They Air on TV — NBC Sports has launched a new Super Bowl page on Yahoo's Tumblr that the programmer will use to feature Super Bowl XLIX's TV ads immediately after they air on NBC on Sunday, Feb. 1. — The new NBC Sports Tumblr page …

Discussion: The Wrap, Forbes, AdAge, Broadcasting & Cable, NetNewsCheck Latest, Multichannel News and Wall Street Journal

Tim Peterson / AdAge:
Facebook enabling advertisers to target people posting on Super Bowl topics in near real time

Discussion: AgencySpy, Poynter, TVSpy, LostRemote, SocialTimes, Forbes, Marketing Pilgrim, Cult of Mac, AdExchanger, AdAge and Radio & Television …

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

Garrett Graff named editor of Politico Mag — Garrett Graff, the former editor-in-chief of the Washingtonian, will be editor of Politico Magazine, Politico editor Susan Glasser announced in a staff memo Thursday. — Graff, who succeeded Glasser as acting editor when she became editor …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Capital New York

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Amazon launches Kindle Textbook Creator to help schools turn PDFs into digital books — Amazon has unveiled a new program designed to help educational establishments and authors produce ebooks for students. — With KDP EDU and the Kindle Textbook Creator, Amazon is expanding its Kindle Direct Publishing …

Discussion: Amazon.com, GeekWire, TechCrunch, Engadget, Gigaom, GalleyCat and The Next Web

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Journalism site success means uniquely defining beats and a different mission than industry standard — A brief sketch of the “full stack” (intellectually speaking...) news and information company. — Meaning: it has its own way of doing things, its own ideas about what is worth doing, and it implements them from end to end.

Discussion: Andreessen Horowitz, @jayrosen_nyu and @monkbent

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:

Tumblr's Creatrs Network connects Tumblr's top artists with brands to help make ads — Tumblr wants its best artists to create ads people actually like — Tumblr's beautiful, GIF-filled feed is what keeps bringing visitors back, and it wants to make sure the feed stays that way even as brands begin to fill it with ads.

Discussion: Wired, TechCrunch, SocialTimes, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal and The Next Web

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

Saavn, 'India's Spotify', Reveals It Has 11M Monthly Users And Hires Ex-Google Exec — It's looking like 2015 will be a big year for India's music streaming space. A week after Rdio's arrival in the country, Saavn — a New York/India startup that was among the first to cater to India …

Discussion: RAIN News, Music Business Worldwide, @jonrussell, Music Week, www.gizbot.com/ and @mahesh10feb

John Otis / Committee to Protect Journalists:

How Ecuador's plans to make communications a public service is threat to free press — Attempts to amend Ecuador's constitution to categorize communications as a “public service” has sparked a fierce debate, with one critic drawing comparisons to the way dictators such as Stalin and Hitler used …

Caroline Alexander / Bloomberg:

Egypt President Seeks End to Jazeera Reporters' Detention — Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said he's seeking a resolution to the case of three Al Jazeera television journalists imprisoned for more than a year. — “We are very keen on sorting this out and getting it finished as soon as possible …

Discussion: TVNewser

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:

Television Becomes a Force at Sundance Film Festival — PARK CITY, Utah — The Sundance Television Festival this is not. — That snarky, small-screen nickname is nonetheless being tossed around by some of the Hollywood attendees who are gathering here for the 31st Sundance Film Festival, which starts on Thursday.

Discussion: The Corsair

Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:

Icahn to Seek 2 Seats on Gannett's Board — Carl C. Icahn is not one to relax for long. — Fresh off signing a truce with eBay, the activist investor disclosed on Thursday that he planned to seek two seats on the board of Gannett, as well as to make proposals to prevent the media company …

Discussion: Poynter, Business Wire, CNBC, USA Today, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Deadline, Wall Street Journal and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Joe Coscarelli / New York Times:

How Björk and Madonna acted quickly when digital thieves leaked album tracks — Björk and Madonna Deal With Leaks of Album Tracks — When nearly 30 new Madonna songs, many of them unfinished demos, surfaced online last month, the singer and her team reacted both emotionally …

Discussion: @kathryngoldman and @joecoscarelli

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

New possible metrics for the value of news and ads: time spent, time well spent, time saved — Time spent or time well spent — how to think about Web traffic — The search for meaningful digital audience metrics took a turn for the better in 2014 when Chartbeat and others began touting …

Discussion: @cfrech, @mbusse and @chartbeat