Mediagazer: Zanny Minton Beddoes appointed new editor of The Economist (Economist Group)

5:00 PM ET, January 22, 2015

Top News:

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, Forbes, @jyarow, @jasonkirksbn, UK Blog on The Huffington Post, @caseynewton, @adrjeffries, @urbanstrata, @verge 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, International Business Times, Ars Technica, @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

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

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: 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

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

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

Bruce Weber / New York Times:

Tony Verna, Who Started Instant Replay and Remade Sports Television, Dies at 81 — The Army-Navy game of 1963 was an important one in that season's college football landscape. With a Heisman Trophy winner and future pro star at quarterback, Roger Staubach, Navy, the No. 2 team in the nation …

Discussion: @dleonhardt