Mediagazer: Jon Stewart and Brian Williams were both kings of their crafts, with similar backgrounds and divergent futures (David Carr/New York Times)

12:35 AM ET, February 12, 2015

Top News:

Longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Bob Simon, 73, dies in car crash in New York City — CBS News correspondent Bob Simon, 1941-2015 — NEW YORK — Bob Simon, the longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent and legendary CBS News foreign reporter died suddenly tonight in a car accident in New York City.

David Carr / New York Times:

Jon Stewart and Brian Williams were both kings of their crafts, with similar backgrounds and divergent futures — Brian Williams's and Jon Stewart's Common Ground — Other than timing, Jon Stewart's triumphant retirement and Brian Williams's public and humbling disenfranchisement would seem to have little in common.

Discussion: @nomadicnyer, Washington Post, @dangillmor and @nytimesbusiness

David Uberti / Columbia Journalism Review:

Jon Stewart served as an irreverent media critic for a generation turned off by broadcast news — Why the media will miss Jon Stewart — The fake newsman gave viewers what many legacy outlets could not — I was a sophomore at Northwestern University in 2010 when The Daily Show's Jon Stewart …

Discussion: Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic Online, Mediaite, Slate, @cjr, @daviduberti, WGBH News, Media & Entertainment, Rolling Stone, Bloomberg Business, The Huffington Post and New Yorker

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Jon Stewart Helped TV Learn to Love the Internet (Because It Didn't Have Any Choice)

Discussion: Mashable, Mediaite, @pkafka, @tcarmody, The New York Observer, Associated Press, The Wrap, Guardian, The Huffington Post and CNNMoney

Emily Steel / New York Times:

Behind NBC's decision to suspend TV anchor Brian Williams, after an internal probe into his tales of facing danger in Iraq and New Orleans — Frantic Efforts at NBC to Curb Rising Damage Caused by Brian Williams — Hours before Brian Williams took the anchor's chair for the nightly newscast on Feb. 4 …

Discussion: Washington Post, CNNMoney, TVNewser, Salon, The Buttry Diary and PoliticusUSA

Andrew Tyndall / Tyndall Report:

Unlike on cable, network news anchors are dispensable and separable from their shows — Brian Williams is not the Indispensable Man — For those of you who do not watch NBC Nightly News as closely as I do (by which I mean almost the entire population) let me assure you that the suspension …

Discussion: TVNewser, Poynter, Mediaite, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business, NewsLab, Broadcasting & Cable, Forbes, @mlcalderone, @greenfield64, @tednesi, Variety, FiveThirtyEight, Poynter and @frankrichny

Jeb Lund / Guardian:
Brian Williams will lose his job for giving us what we wanted to hear

Discussion: New York Times, New York Magazine, TIME, USA Today, TVNewser, @jayrosen_nyu, @mattdpearce and @eyegiene

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:

Insider view of Jeff Bezos' involvement in product development for the Washington Post's Kindle Fire app — How involved has Jeff Bezos been at The Washington Post? Here's one data point — One question that's been asked a lot since Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post is how involved he is in the newspaper's evolution.

Discussion: Fast Company and @josephjames

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:

Mic.com's News Director Jared Keller appears to have plagiarized at least 20 passages from at least eight sources in the past several months — Plagiarist of the Day: Mic News Director Jared Keller — Mic.com, the news and opinion website aimed at millennials, has a very millennial problem …

Discussion: The New York Observer, Talking Points Memo, @existentialfish, @cathyreisenwitz, @ryanlcooper, @gabrielmalor, Politico, @nxthompson and Capital New York

Committee to Protect Journalists:

South Sudan daily Nation Mirror ordered to stop publishing — The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the ban on independent newspaper Nation Mirror, which was ordered to stop publishing by National Security Service agents in South Sudan's capital Juba, and calls on authorities to immediately reverse the order.

Discussion: Agence France-Presse

Lori Baitarian / Committee to Protect Journalists: Sudan passes freedom of information law but journalists remain wary

John Robinson / Media, disrupted:

Social media spreads news faster and more passionately than traditional media, sometimes creating a perception of bias — The Chapel Hill shootings and the news ecosystem — Update: Read Andria's smart comment. It adds background I didn't take the time to discover.

Discussion: Washington Post, Al Jazeera English, @stevebuttry, @amestsai, @melody_gordon, @susking, @andybechtel, @misskinseylane, @raej, @brown_e_points, Mashable, New York Times, WWNO, Gawker, WTVR-TV and Poynter

John McDuling / Quartz:

Napster still exists, and it has millions of streaming subscribers — Napster was the original online music startup. — For a brief, glorious period in the late 90s and early oughts, the service was being used by many high-school and college students to share and download media files, mainly MP3s.

Peter Sterne / Capital New York:

Rocco Castoro out as Vice Magazine editor in chief, replaced by Ellis Jones; Alex Miller now global head of content — Vice E.I.C. Rocco Castoro out at Vice — Rocco Castoro is no longer the editor in chief of Vice magazine, he announced during an event at the University of Chicago on Wednesday evening.

Discussion: Politico

NetNewsCheck:

McClatchy Q4: revenue down 5.9% to $317.6M, ad revenue down 10.8% to $209.2M, and digital advertising up 3.4% year-over-year — McClatchy Revenues Down For Q4 And Year — The McClatchy Company on Wednesday reported fourth quarter revenues of $317.6 million, down 5.9% compared to Q4 2013 …

Discussion: Forbes, Globe and Mail, CNBC, The Charlotte Observer, Sacramento Bee and PR Newswire

Los Angeles Times:

John Malone joins Lionsgate board in Starz stock swap — Media mogul John Malone is getting into the “Hunger Games” business. — The billionaire media investor will join the board of Lionsgate, the film company behind the “Hunger Games” franchise, in a complicated deal that intertwines …

Discussion: New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Variety

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Twitter to pay about $30M for Niche, and possibly up to $60M with earnouts and employment contracts included — Twitter Buys Niche, a Social Media Talent Agency For at Least $30 Million — Twitter has acquired Niche, a small startup that connects advertisers with social media stars …

Discussion: Business Insider, The Twitter Blog, Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, AdAge, Engadget, The Next Web, Marketing Land, @robbyjayala, SlashGear, Forbes, @joell, VentureBeat, The Niche Project, @hunterwalk and Mashable

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