Mediagazer: John Oliver uses slot on HBO to attack NYT, others for using native advertising (Joseph Lichterman/Nieman Lab)

12:40 AM ET, August 5, 2014

Top News:

Josh Schwartz / Chartbeat Blog:

Traffic to Chartbeat customers fell 3% during Facebook outage; mobile went 8.5% down; desktop went 3.5% up — Traffic During the Facebook Outage — As you've all but certainly heard, Facebook had a major outage midday on Friday. Overall traffic on news sites dropped by 3% …

Discussion: niemanlab.org, Poynter, @pbump, BuzzFeed, @justinnxt, Re/code and Tech Times

Jonathan Mahler / New York Times:

Time Warner Rebuff of Fox May Not Just Be Negotiating Ploy — Rupert Murdoch tends to finish what he starts. So from the moment the news broke last month that Time Warner Inc. had rejected an $80 billion bid by Mr. Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, the assumption on Wall Street and in the media world …

Discussion: @adamostrow, @brianstelter, @emilysteel, New Yorker, @poniewozik, Re/code and mUmBRELLA

Cynthia Littleton / Variety: Chase Carey Commits to Staying at Fox If Time Warner Deal Happens: Source

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:

John Oliver uses slot on HBO to attack NYT, others for using native advertising — John Oliver goes off on native advertising — In June, The New York Times published what many considered the “Snow Fall” of native ads. The post, sponsored by Netflix to promote the second season of Orange …

Discussion: Mediaite, Gawker, The Week, bookforum.com, Adweek, @joepompeo, mUmBRELLA, Re/code, Business Insider, The Wrap and AdAge

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google News Gives Publishers More Control Over How It Indexes Their Sites — While European publishers have a rather contentious relationship with Google News, U.S. publishers have no such qualms and are more than happy to be indexed by the search giant's crawlers.

Discussion: Google News Blog, VentureBeat, Search Engine Land, WebProNews and The Next Web

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Tribune Co. Changes Name to Tribune Media — The company, led by CEO Peter Liguori, recently approved the spin-off of Tribune Publishing, which houses the Los Angeles Times and whose stock is set to start regular trading on Tuesday. — Tribune Co. said Monday it was changing its name to Tribune Media Co.

Discussion: New York Times, niemanlab.org, Broadcasting & Cable, Variety and Politico

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
Los Angeles Times CEO Eddy Hartenstein to resign Monday

Discussion: Los Angeles Times

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Mike Nizza named executive editor of Bloomberg's politics site — Bloomberg has hired Mike Nizza away from Esquire as part of the company's efforts to develop a new suite of media brands aimed at a consumer audience, Capital has learned. — Nizza, who currently serves as Esquire's digital editor …

Discussion: @antderosa, @mikenizza and Politico

Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:

Source: Gannett agrees to pay $1.8B for the 73% of Cars.com it doesn't already own — Gannett Said to Agree to Buy Rest of Cars.com for $1.8 Billion — Gannett Co. (GCI), the owner of USA Today, has agreed to pay $1.8 billion for the 73 percent of auto-sales website Cars.com it doesn't already own …

Discussion: @pkafka, USA Today, @jonmarino and New York Times

Gilad Lotan / Global Voices:

Analysis: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter serve as siloed propaganda engines for Gaza news — Israel, Gaza, War & Data - The Art of Personalizing Propaganda — Instagram co-tag graph, highlighting three distinct topical communities: 1) pro-Israeli (Orange), 2) pro-Palestinian (Yellow), and 3) Muslim (Pink).

Discussion: @robertmackey, @saharhghazi, @southernlimitnz, @zephoria, @ethanz, Medium, @pemiblue, @ajc110, @ethanz and @kissane

Aki Tsuchiya / Guardian:

Television must mine bigger data or risk being Netflixed — Figures relating to consumer habit fuels decisions across a growing range of industries - and it's time for TV to catch up — In retail, Amazon and Tesco have blazed trails, mining insight from millions of consumers at scale …

Discussion: Capital New York

Frank Rose / Wired:

How the Smartphone Ushered In a Golden Age of Journalism — When I first — arrived in New York, some time back in the last century, I gazed in awe and fascination at subway riders reading The New York Times. Thanks to a precise and universally adopted method of folding the paper …

Discussion: @frankrose, @signored and @thefoodeconomy

Chris Smith / Digiday:

Trinity Mirror sees digital experimentation pay off — Add Trinity Mirror Group to the list of newspapers showing an affinity for digital. — The change in direction for one of Britain's biggest newspaper publishers effectively began in May 2013, when it launched the first series …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Gigaom, @macloo, @mrjohncrowley, @digiday and @richwater

Reid Cherlin / Rolling Stone:

Former Obama spokesman explains the toxic relationship between media and the White House — The Presidency and the Press — The White House distrusts the media, reporters feel persecuted - a former Obama spokesman on the history of the toxic relationship