Top News:
CBS 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.
Discussion:
New York Post, NY Daily News, TVNewser, TVNewser, Poynter, Variety, @scottpelley, New York Times, CBS New York, Talking Points Memo, @jaketapper, @howardfineman, New York Magazine, @jenearlyspeakin, @carr2n, @xeni, Gothamist, UPROXX, Politico, Gawker, abc7chicago.com, Hollywood Reporter, Fox News, Business Insider, The Wrap, Mediaite, LA Observed, The Huffington Post, The Week and Broadcasting & Cable
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 — Brian Williams Scandal Prompts Frantic Efforts at NBC to Curb Rising Damage — Hours before Brian Williams took the anchor's chair for the nightly newscast …
Discussion:
CNNMoney, TVNewser, The Huffington Post, Salon, Inside Cable News, The Buttry Diary, PoliticusUSA, Broadcasting & Cable and The Wrap
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Washington Post:
Within NBC, an intense debate over whether to fire Brian Williams — (Stephanie Klein-Davis/Roanoke Times via AP) — Senior NBC officials seriously considered firing anchor Brian Williams because he lied to his viewers about riding in a military helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during …
Discussion:
NPR
Stephen Battaglio / Los Angeles Times:
Lester Holt seen as heir apparent to Brian Williams at ‘Nightly News’ — In the hallways at NBC headquarters here, the walls are adorned with photos of “Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams covering stories around the world, underscored by snippets from a recent ad campaign: “He's been there.
Discussion:
The Maynard Institute …, MadameNoire, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, USA Today and Mashable
Reporters Without Borders:
Freedom of information declined in 2/3 of the 180 countries surveyed for World Press Freedom Index — World Press Freedom Index 2015: decline on all fronts — The Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index ranks the performance of 180 countries according to a range of criteria …
Discussion:
PC World, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, www.eng.24.kg, EUobserver, See it First, Shanghaiist, Hurriyet Daily News, The Times of Israel, The Local, wort.lu, The Moscow Times, The Local, Mumbrella Asia, American Press Institute, Voice of America, @postbaron, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, @rdewan, @pankajpachauri and DW.DE
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:
@josephjames, Fast Company and Washingtonian
BBC:
Al Jazeera trial: Egypt court frees journalists on bail — A court in Egypt has ordered the release on bail of two Al Jazeera journalists, at the start of their retrial on the charge of spreading false news to help a terrorist group. — Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were imprisoned …
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, Mediaite, Slate, @cjr, @daviduberti, Media & Entertainment, New Yorker, WGBH News, The Huffington Post, Rolling Stone and Bloomberg Business
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David Dawson / The Diplomat:
Chinese Authorities Snuff out Last Online Remnants of the New York Times — The paper's last social media account vanished from Sina Weibo this week. — Likes — On Monday the Chinese authorities played one of the last cards in their war against the New York Times in Chinese cyberspace.
Discussion:
@andrewjacobsnyt and China Digital Times
Will Steacy / Popular Mechanics:
How The New York Times Works — This is how the Gray Lady gets made in 2015 — Ernie Booth, the operations manager of the main printing plant of The New York Times, is walking the floor. The plant is a 515,000-square-foot building in Queens, on the Van Wyck Expressway, half a mile from LaGuardia Airport.
Discussion:
@mlcalderone, @grantwiggins, @antderosa, @viasimonromero, American Press Institute, JIMROMENESKO.COM and FishbowlNY
Melody Kramer / Medium:
64 Ways To Think About a News Homepage — Last September, I went to Chicago for a conference. On the third day of the conference, I slipped away to my friend Max's apartment on a mission. The mission was to gather together a lot of very smart people who don't work in news—and ask them to design a new news homepage.
Discussion:
@mattliddy and @amylangfield
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.
Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
Major news organizations to reveal new freelancer safety guidelines … A coalition of prominent news outlets and journalism advocacy groups Thursday will release a set of guidelines at Columbia Journalism School for the protection of freelancers. — The recommendations …
Discussion:
dartcenter.org, Thanks:@benmullin
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
YouTube experimenting with personalized radio feature, based on YouTube Mix video playlists — YouTube Radio — YouTube has a feature called YouTube Mix, which automatically creates a playlist with many videos related to the video that's currently playing.
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.