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Media News

A handpicked selection of today’s media-related news. With 24.000 entries, our archives chronicle 15 years of press industry developments. A goldmine for scholars and researchers.

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  • 19 June 2013 | Financial Post

    International privacy officials raise Google Glass concerns in open letter

    Google’s wearable computing project Glass raises significant privacy and data protection concerns, according to an international group of 36 authorities, who have signed a joint letter to Google chief executive officer Larry Page. At issue are the “obvious, and perhaps less obvious, privacy implications of a device that can be worn by an individual and used to film and record audio of other people” – for example, fears of ubiquitous surveillance, and how data collected from the device is stored, shared and used. “Privacy protections are more robust when they’re baked into a design,” Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) digital rights analyst Rebecca Jeschke said in an interview.

    Original source

  • 19 June 2013 | The New York Times

    Tribune faces potentially big tax bill for Newsday and Cubs deals

    The Tribune Company faces a potential tax bill of more than $500 million over the sales of the Chicago Cubs and Newsday despite efforts to minimize the tax consequences of both deals, the company disclosed on Monday. In the footnotes of its financial report for last year, Tribune said the Internal Revenue Service was seeking $190 million in taxes from the 2008 sale of Newsday to Cablevision as well as a $38 million “accuracy-related penalty” and $17 million in after-tax interest. Tribune also disclosed that the I.R.S. might seek $225 million and unspecified penalties and interest for the company’s 2009 fiscal year, in which it sold the Cubs to the Ricketts family for $845 million.

    Original source

  • 18 June 2013 | CNN

    Google seeks to scrub Web of child porn

    Google says it will spend $5 million on an effort to wipe pictures of child sexual abuse from the Web and another $2 million to research more effective ways to find, report and eradicate the images. "The Internet has been a tremendous force for good -- increasing access to information, improving people's ability to communicate and driving economic growth," Jacqueline Fuller, the director of Google Giving, said in a blog post. "But like the physical world, there are dark corners on the web where criminal behavior exists." Part of the $5 million will go to established child-protection groups that have been partnering with Google to fight the problem. They include the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation.

    Original source

  • 18 June 2013 | NDTV

    Mysterious Steve Jobs emails hang over Apple trial

    The late Steve Jobs took center stage Monday in the latest twist in the Apple antitrust trial on ebooks. A federal court attempted to plumb the meaning of a series of unsent emails Jobs addressed to Eddy Cue, an Apple senior vice president assigned with negotiating ebook contracts with major publishers in late 2009 and early 2010 before the launch of the iPad. Even though the emails were never sent, government prosecutors argue that they help establish a pattern of Apple serving as a "ringleader" in a conspiracy with the publishers to force the retail book industry to adopt higher prices of ebooks.

    Original source

  • 18 June 2013 | Wired

    European roaming charges will end in 2014

    Roaming fees for voice calls, texts and internet access will be a thing of the past across Europe from 2014, after European politicians voted to fast-track reforms of the European telecoms market. The European Commission -- a group of 27 politicians who represent the best interests of Europe as a whole, rather than individual countries, voted in Brussels to push the reforms through before the next European elections, which will happen in May 2014. The resulting legislation will come into force on 1 July 2014.

    Original source

  • 18 June 2013 | The Huffington Post

    Media coverage of same sex marriage favors supporters: Pew study

    Around the time the U.S. Supreme Court was considering the same-sex marriage issue, news reports had more comments from supporters than opponents, a study released Monday concluded. The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at nearly 500 stories on the topic over a two-month period that began just before the court started hearings in March on legalizing same-sex marriage. By a 5-to-1 margin, the stories with statements in support of legalization outweighed those dominated by opponents' views.

    Original source

  • 18 June 2013 | Poynter

    Tribune files post-bankruptcy financial results

    Tribune Co. on Monday filed financial results for 2012, its last year in bankruptcy. In its publishing division, advertising revenues were down 6.7 percent over 2011, and circulation revenues rose 8.75 percent, “driven by subscription price increases and the implementation of digital subscription programs,” Robert Channick writes in The Chicago Tribune. Circulation revenue declined in 2011 “due to a decline in daily (Monday-Friday) net paid print circulation copies at all newspapers, partially offset by an increase in Sunday net paid print circulation copies at all newspapers except Baltimore,” a management analysis says.

    Original source

  • 18 June 2013 | Tech Crunch

    Big brands are growing more quickly on Twitter than Facebook (according to Optimal)

    Here’s a fun comparison from Optimal, a social advertising and analytics startup: If you look at big brands on social networks, their following seems to be growing more quickly on Twitter than on Facebook. Optimal says it looked at the data from 4,330 brands, representing a total of 3.49 billion Facebook Likes and 595 million Twitter followers. Last week, those brands added 18.5 million new Likes and 4.5 million new followers — so on a percentage basis, their following grew 55 percent more quickly on Twitter than it did on Facebook.

    Original source

  • 17 June 2013 | ABC News

    Julian Assange meets with Ecuador’s foreign minister Richard Patino in London

    Ecuador's foreign minister has met with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Richard Patino is in London for talks on the fate of Mr Assange, who has been taking refuge inside the Ecuadorian embassy for almost a year. Mr Assange, 41, took refuge at the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations. Ecuador has granted the Australian national asylum, but he is likely to be arrested by British police if he leaves the embassy. Mr Patino's meeting with Mr Assange came as he prepared for a meeting today with his British counterpart William Hague to discuss a possible solution to the year-long diplomatic stand-off over Mr Assange.

    Original source

  • 17 June 2013 | The Guardian

    Apple joins Facebook and Microsoft in revealing US surveillance requests

    The technology firm Apple says it has received 4,000-5,000 surveillance requests from the US government about its customers since December 2012. The company's disclosure comes after the Guardian revealed the existence of a US National Security Agency programme called Prism to tap into data held by Apple, Google, Facebook and other tech companies. Apple's move comes after Facebook and Microsoft revealed on Friday the numbers of requests they had received. A statement released on the company's website on Monday read: "From December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from US law enforcement for customer data.

    Original source

  • 17 June 2013 | The Next Web

    Short-film site Viddsee launches mobile Web app to optimize videos for smaller screens

    Singapore-based video site Viddsee has launched a mobile web app, as the startup seeks to cater to a growing percentage of its audience accessing the site via mobile devices. Viddsee is an online video platform for indie filmmakers across Southeast Asia to showcase their short films where people can watch them for free. The desktop web app was launched in late January, and Viddsee has about 150 short films on its site now, including Chinese films from Singapore, Indonesian shorts and more. The startup says about 40 percent of its audience watch their short films on mobile, and a mobile web app would help to “ensure a good browsing and watching experience for our users.”

    Original source

  • 17 June 2013 | The Huffington Post

    Fox News sued after accidentally airing suicide

    The family of the man whose suicide Fox News accidentally aired is suing the network. Last September, the network was following a high speed car chase in Arizona when driver JoDon Romero got out of his car and shot himself. The broadcast failed to cut away in time, and viewers saw the apparent suicide. Shep Smith, who was anchoring at the time, apologized profusely, saying, "We really messed up. And we're all very sorry." Courthouse News Service reported that Angela Rodriguez, the mother of three of Romero's children, is suing the network and News Corp. in Maricopa County Court. She has claimed "emotional distress" to her kids, saying that the two oldest children heard about the suicide while they were at school, watched the clip when they got home and realized it was their father.

    Original source

  • 17 June 2013 | 9 News World

    Internet heralds ‘death of photo album’

    The growing trend of sharing photographs online heralds the "death" of the traditional photo album, according to a new study. It found two-thirds of Britons now catalogue their pictures on computers, tablets or smartphones. Around one in five people take photos with the intention of posting them on sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, it revealed. Meanwhile the so-called "selfie" - a snap taken by the photographer holding a camera at arm's length - has become the most popular image captured by young people. These account for 30 per cent of the pictures shot by those aged 18-24 and, according to the study, men take more pictures of themselves than women.

    Original source

  • 17 June 2013 | The Washington Post

    China detains journalist who documented labor camp abuses, Tiananmen crackdown accounts

    Chinese state security officials have detained a journalist who recently disappeared after completing a documentary on labor camp abuses, the photographer’s sister and close friend said Thursday. The detention of Beijing-based video and photojournalist Du Bin, 41, is likely related to his work, said democracy activist Hu Jia, who said he’s been a close friend of Du’s for more than a decade. Du had recently completed a documentary exposing torture allegedly inflicted on detainees at a notorious labor camp in northeastern China as well as a 600-page book about the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, published in Hong Kong.

    Original source

  • 14 June 2013 | Reuters

    Pandora sued by Broadcast Music Inc over license fees

    Broadcast Music Inc, a songwriters rights organization, is suing Pandora Media after the Internet radio company rejected a higher license fee for playing songs across various devices including mobile phones. In a lawsuit filed with the Manhattan federal court on Thursday, BMI said it had proposed an increase in Pandora's fees "consistent with market rates to reflect the explosive growth of the Internet music streaming marketplace." Broadcast Music Inc collects license fees on behalf of over 600,000 affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed.

    Original source

  • 14 June 2013 | The LA Times

    Gannett’s TV deal for Belo worries media watchdogs

    Gannett Co.'s proposed acquisition of Belo Corp. is the latest in a slew of deals in the television industry. Last week, Media General acquired Young Broadcasting to create a company that will own 30 TV stations in 27 markets. In April, Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired Fisher Communications for $373 million. Gannett's $2.2-billion deal -- $1.5 billion in cash and the assumption of about $700 million in debt -- will give it 43 stations in markets reaching about one-third of the country. Gannett, already one of the larger owners of TV stations, will now become the biggest independent owner of stations that carry CBS and NBC content.

    Original source

  • 14 June 2013 | TIME

    At trial, Apple exec Eddy Cue says company didn’t fix e-book prices

    A top Apple Inc. executive described as Steve Jobs’ right-hand man took the witness stand at a Manhattan price-fixing trial and denied scheming with major book publishers to drive up the cost of electronic books. Eddy Cue was questioned about meetings he had in 2009 with chief executives of publishing houses about what they called their “Amazon problem” – the discounted $9.99 price that Amazon.com set for e-books. “They expressed to us that they wanted higher prices,” he said.

    Original source

  • 14 June 2013 | The Guardian

    ERT: BBC director calls on Greek government to reopen broadcaster

    The BBC's director general, Tony Hall, has called on the Greek government to reopen the state broadcaster immediately condemning its sudden closure as "undemocratic and unprofessional". In a petition to the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, the directors general of 50 European TV and radio broadcasters including the BBC urged him to see sense pointing out that "public service media and their independence from government lie at the heart of democratic societies". The other signatories included the heads of German, French, Swiss, Danish, Spanish and Italian TV.

    Original source

  • 14 June 2013 | The New York Times

    Condé Nast faces suit from interns over wages

    Two former interns filed a lawsuit against Condé Nast on Thursday, saying the company failed to pay them minimum wage at their summer jobs at W Magazine and The New Yorker, and asked that it be approved as a class-action suit. Lauren Ballinger, who worked as an intern at W Magazine in 2009, and Matthew Leib, an intern at The New Yorker in 2009 and 2010, said in the suit that Condé Nast, which owns the magazines, paid them less than $1 an hour. According to court papers filed Thursday morning in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Leib was paid $300 to $500 for each summer he worked.

    Original source

  • 14 June 2013 | Dividend

    News Corporation CFO to retire

    News Corp announced yesterday that its veteran Chief Financial Officer, David De Voe, will retire at the end of the fiscal year. DeVoe, however, will remain on the company’s Board of Directors. DeVoe, who has served as CFO for over 20 years, will be replaced by John Nallen. In addition to CFO, Nallen will also serve as the Senior Executive Vice President of the company, which will be re-named 21st Century Fox. Nallen’s appointment is effective July 1, 2013.

    Original source

  • 13 June 2013 | The Verge

    Steven Spielberg and George Lucas predict ‘massive implosion’ in film industry

    George Lucas and Steven Spielberg think the film industry is heading towards a cliff. The pair behind some of the most successful franchises in movie history think that conservative programming choices and rapidly evolving distribution schemes have set the stage for a massive upheaval — and internet-based services may become the dominant medium when moviegoing as we know it crashes and burns. The duo were joined during a panel at the University of Southern California by Microsoft President of Interactive Entertainment Don Mattrick, who played backup with the occasional Xbox reference as Lucas and Spielberg took center stage.

    Original source

  • 13 June 2013 | The Wall Street Journal

    Washington Post to sell space on its online opinion pages

    The Washington Post said on Wednesday that it will let special-interest groups and others buy space on online opinion pages to respond to the paper’s editorials, in the latest example of a mainstream publisher offering so-called sponsored content. The Post’s launch of “Sponsored Views” comes as marketers are increasingly turning to self-created articles and videos, rather than traditional advertising spots, in order to pitch their products and viewpoints. While the television industry has relied on such branded content since the era when on-air stars pitched cleaning products in the first “soap operas,” newspapers and magazines have been much slower to embrace the business.

    Original source

  • 13 June 2013 | The Drum

    Global study highlights growth of digital journalism ahead of Online Media Awards

    A global survey of journalists has underlined the growth of online journalism, with 30 per cent of media desribing their offering as 'digital first' and more than half of journalists admitting they source stories from services like Twitter. The sixth Orialla Digital Journalism Study sampled the views of 550 journalists from 15 countries across Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. The research revealed digital media was impacting publications' revenue models, with the number of respondents saying their outlet has a mobile app almost doubling over the past two years to 40 per cent, while the use of premium apps to monetise content has gone up by a third since last year.

    Original source

  • 13 June 2013 | Reuters

    Disney’s ESPN to close 3D cable TV network this year

    Walt Disney Co's TV sports network, ESPN, said it will shut its 3D cable channel in the United States, ending a three-year experiment after sports fans failed to embrace the technology in their homes. ESPN launched the 3D cable channel in 2010 and will close the channel by the end of the year, said ESPN spokeswoman Katina Arnold. It presented 3D broadcasts of college football games and the Masters golf tournament, among other offerings. Despite declining costs for 3D televisions and widespread use of 3D in movies, consumers have not rushed to bring the technology into their homes.

    Original source

  • 13 June 2013 | Mediaite

    CNN’s John King blasts GOP rep. Peter King for saying reporters should be charged over NSA leaks

    CNN reporter John King joined his colleague Jake Tapper in dismissing the claims by Rep.Peter King (R-NY) that the journalists who vetted and reported leaks by Edward Snowden relating to the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices should be prosecuted. King explained concisely why the notion that reporters should be liable for leaking state secrets when they have cooperated with the government during the vetting process did not make sense.

    Original source

  • 13 June 2013 | Al Jazeera

    Facebook adopts hashtags

    Facebook Inc, the world's No 1 social network, has announced that it will adopt hashtags, one of the most recognisable features of its younger rival Twitter, in a move to position its web service as an important complement to television, sporting events and breaking news. Facebook said on Wednesday that it will begin to roll out the feature on its social network, making it easier for users and advertisers to find hot spots of user activity around specific events or topics. The hashtag, which appears as the # symbol and was first popularised on Twitter, enables users to follow specific topics of conversation within a social network's ever-changing stream of user comments.

    Original source

  • 12 June 2013 | The New York Times

    Greece shuts broadcaster in bid to show resolve

    Under pressure from its creditors to cut public employment, the Greek government said Tuesday that it was closing down its state-run television and radio broadcaster, idling 2,900 people — less than 1 percent of the public work force — and outraging the country’s powerful labor unions. Describing the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, known as ERT, as a “haven of waste,” a government spokesman said ERT, which went off the air at 11 p.m. local time, would reopen soon as a “modern state organization” with a fraction of the current staff.

    Original source

  • 12 June 2013 | The Washington Post

    U.S. disrupts al-Qaeda’s online magazine

    U.S. intelligence operatives covertly sabotaged a prominent al-Qaeda online magazine last month in an apparent attempt to sow confusion among the group’s followers, according to officials. The operation succeeded, at least temporarily, in thwarting publication of the latest issue of Inspire, the English-language magazine distributed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. When it appeared online, the text on the second page was garbled and the following 20 pages were blank. The sabotaged version was quickly removed from the online forum that hosted it, said independent analysts who track Islamist militant Web sites.

    Original source

  • 12 June 2013 | Deadline

    BBC accused of misleading parliament over failed £100M digital media initiative

    The BBC is in hot water again, this time over the handling of the Digital Media Initiative, a project to digitize archive content and make it easily accessible to production staff. The project was cancelled last month, but had already cost the broadcaster and taxpayers nearly £100M. Now, the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) contends that it was misled over the status of the initiative during evidence given in 2011 by the BBC and its then-director general Mark Thompson. Thompson has been summoned to answer questions at a July hearing.

    Original source

  • 12 June 2013 | BBC

    News Corp shareholders vote to split company into two

    News Corp shareholders have rubber-stamped Rupert Murdoch's plans to hive off the struggling publishing business into a separate company and rename the entertainment business. With all the imagination of a Hollywood blockbuster sequel, the two separate publicly traded companies will be called - wait for it - News Corporation, and 21st Century Fox, a cunning update on the iconic film studio's name. "Son of" News Corp will comprise the publishing and newspaper businesses; 21st Century Fox, the TV and film businesses. But one thing is certain, the Murdoch family will remain firmly in control.

    Original source

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