Morning Media Newsfeed: Nate Silver to Join ESPN | Helen Thomas Dies

[emailonly]{{{ sbox300x250 }}}[/emailonly] Click here to receive Mediabistro's Morning Media Newsfeed via email. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog to Join ESPN Staff (NYT) Nate Silver, the statistician who attained national fame for his accurate projections about the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, is parting ways with The New York Times and moving his FiveThirtyEight franchise to ESPN, the sports empire controlled by the Walt Disney Company, according to ESPN employees with direct knowledge of his plans. At ESPN, Silver is expected to have a wide-ranging portfolio. Along with his writing and number-crunching, he will most likely be a regular contributor to Olbermann, the late-night ESPN2 talk show hosted by Keith Olbermann that will have its debut at the end of August. In political years, he will also have a role at ABC News, which is owned by Disney. Politico / Playbook Early this year, the Times laid out a plan that would give Silver a staff of six to 12 bloggers to focus on a variety of topics, modeled on Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog at The Washington Post. The plan was so specific that it named Megan Liberman, an up-and-coming deputy news editor at The Times, as Silver’s editor. As recently as last month, some executives at the Times were confident Silver would stay, mainly because they had given him everything he had asked for. New Republic ESPN has been trying to land Silver for at least five years. Gary Belsky, a one-time editor-in-chief of ESPN The Magazine and now a content consultant and contributor to Time, told me Saturday the original effort had been spearheaded by Gary Hoenig, then the general manager of ESPN Publishing, and that the original plan had been for Silver to write for the magazine and ESPN Insider, a collection of paywall-protected premium content on the Web. Daily Beast One thing that is clear, however, is that Silver’s move marks a potentially big loss for the Times. “He was doing something that is fairly rare in journalism -- he was doing the math. I say that not entirely jokingly. Journalists are notoriously bad at this,” says Dan Gillmor, a journalism professor at Arizona State University. “For people who care about this sort of thing, it was pretty delicious to watch someone doing the math and to see pundit after pundit make fools of themselves with their ‘intuition.’” Helen Thomas Has Died (TVNewser) Helen Thomas, who covered every president from Eisenhower to Obama, has died. Thomas, 92, was born in Kentucky to parents who were immigrants from Lebanon. Her first job in journalism was as a copygirl for the Washington Daily News. She joined United Press in 1943 where she would remain for 57 years. NYT Colleagues called her the unofficial dean of the White House press corps. Her blunt questions and sharp tone made her a familiar personality not only in the sometimes parochial universe inside the Beltway but also to nationwide television audiences. Forbes / Mixed Media She was famed in journalistic circles for her refusal to be awed by the power of the presidency, asking forthright -- some would say rude -- questions of the sort commanders of chief are seldom called upon to answer. Some of her questions seemed to come pre-loaded with judgment, like one that all but accused the second President Bush of having decided to go to war in Iraq even before taking office. That editorializing streak found more direct expression in the twilight of her career, when she took up writing opinion columns. Poynter / MediaWire Thomas had a front-row seat in the White House press room for years. In 2000, she wrote a book about her career, titled Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media Thomas' career in journalism ended abruptly in 2010 when controversial remarks she made about Israeli Jews to a rabbi were caught on camera. Thomas, a daughter of Lebanese immigrants, told the rabbi that Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine," and that the Jewish people should go home to "Poland, Germany... and America and everywhere else." USA Today / The Oval "Helen was a true pioneer, opening doors and breaking down barriers for generations of women in journalism," President Obama said in a statement. The Washington Post / She The People Thomas had planted the “first woman” flag on just about everything she did. She was the breacher of barriers formal and informal: the first woman to cover the White House fulltime for a news service, the first woman to be elected an officer of the White House Correspondents Association (and later, its president), the first woman to be tapped for the all-male Gridiron Club (also for its presidency). What Thomas figured out early -- and what she taught us -- was that there was value in making powerful people uncomfortable. It was a sign we are doing our jobs right. Still, it is still something that women in particular struggle with. David Shuster Joining Al Jazeera America: Source (HuffPost / The Backstory) David Shuster, a veteran of MSNBC and Fox News, is joining Al Jazeera America as an anchor, according to a source familiar with the deal. Shuster is the latest high-profile journalist to land at Al Jazeera America, which is expected to launch Aug. 20. The Qatar-owned Al Jazeera Media Network is pouring resources into a United States-based cable news network that will replace Current TV. So far, Al Jazeera America has reportedly hired 689 staffers –- about 200 of whom are coming from Current -- while still searching for a top news executive. [emailonly]{{{ jodslot01 }}}[/emailonly] Court Tells Reporter to Testify in Case of Leaked CIA Data (NYT) In a major ruling on press freedoms, a divided federal appeals court on Friday ruled that James Risen, an author and a reporter for The New York Times, must testify in the criminal trial of a former Central Intelligence Agency official charged with providing him with classified information. In a 118-page set of opinions, two members of a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., ruled that the First Amendment does not protect reporters who receive unauthorized leaks from being forced to testify against the people suspected of leaking to them. Why The Boston Bomber Cover Controversy Helps Rolling Stone (TheWrap / MediaAlley) Rolling Stone is riding an Internet backlash over a cover portrait of the accused Boston Marathon bomber all the way to the bank and proving the old adage that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Despite the furor, any hit to sales won't last much longer than the next news cycle, experts and media analysts told TheWrap. In fact, it could help boost the profile of a magazine that has not been at the epicenter of public debate for some time. HuffPost Most Americans think Rolling Stone's "The Bomber" cover featuring accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is inappropriate, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. By a 65 percent to 15 percent margin, respondents to the poll, who were shown the cover image before answering questions about it, said that the cover was inappropriate. Regional Bias And How NPR Covers America (NPR / Ombudsman) It is a persistent complaint among listeners: NPR has a regional bias, and it favors the East and West coasts. "It is past time that NPR relocated its headquarters away from Washington, D.C.," admonished Gregory Elmes, a professor at West Virginia University, where he teaches geology and, fittingly, geography. "Somewhere like St. Louis, Mo. or Denver, Co. might provide your reporters, analysts and hosts with a wider perspective representative of a much broader sweep of the United States." [emailonly]{{{ sbox01 }}}[/emailonly] Discover’s New Look (CJR / The Observatory) It’s been a tumultuous year for Discover magazine, after uprooting its offices from New York to Wisconsin, hiring an almost completely new staff, and, at the apex of the commotion, revamping its website. On Thursday the 33-year-old popular science magazine announced yet another big change: a complete redesign of the print magazine. Brits Who Want Internet Porn Will Soon Have to Ask for It (NY Mag / Daily Intelligencer) Drastic new anti-porn laws that UK Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to announce Monday will outlaw "extreme" varieties (such as scenes simulating rape), and make all content deemed "adult" subject to filters unless users specifically ask for it. Those likely to be celebrating: Adult magazine publishers and 24-hour porno shops, where people can still buy porn anonymously. Sometimes it pays to stay analog. paidContent Even without getting into slippery-slope arguments about censorship, proposals to force porn viewers to register with their Internet service providers fail miserably on a technical level. YouTube Subscription Channels Off to Slow Start -- But Is That A Problem? (The Guardian) Some of the first partners for YouTube's "pilot program" for subscription-based channels, which was launched in May, have said that their paid channels are off to a slow start. A total of 29 channels went live as part of the pilot, with partners including Sesame Street, UFC, National Geographic, PGA and Magnolia Pictures charging $0.99 or more a month for paid channels that would sit alongside their free videos on YouTube. "We had hoped to set the world on fire. We are not setting the world on fire right now," said National Geographic's senior vice president of global strategy. [emailonly]{{{ sbox02 }}}[/emailonly] Glitch in New Gmail Inbox Buries Emails From Google Competitors (Forbes / Mixed Media) Unless you’re one of those hyper-organized Type-A types who’s constantly fiddling with the settings on their social media and/or email accounts, you probably have an inbox that’s spilling over with messages like: "Julia has added you as a friend on Facebook!" In formulating the new Gmail inbox, which rolled out last week, Google's designers surmised, correctly, that these are the sorts of messages you probably don’t need cluttering up your conversations with actual human beings. There’s just one minor problem: Messages from actual human being are also getting routed into the “Social” bucket, it seems -- at least if those human beings happen to work at other social media companies. TV Foresees Its Future, Netflix Is There (NYT) Apple and Google were back making waves in the television world last week, with reports suggesting they were renewing efforts to use technology to transform the box in your living room. But Netflix already has. When It Comes to Digital Content, Are The Emmys Broken, or Just Painfully Behind? (paidContent) While the perception might be that Netflix has changed the game for awards recognition of digital content, Thursday’s less-discussed nominations prove that the Emmys are still way behind the times. [emailonly]{{{ sbox03 }}}[/emailonly] When Openness Backfires: Is There Room for More Gray Area in How Court Records Are Made Public? (Nieman Journalism Lab) Two academics from NYU worry that the old binary system -- a court document is either public or it’s not -- doesn’t mesh well with a searchable online context, and that protecting access might mean rethinking it. The 75 -- 20 -- 5 Rule (Medium / MG Siegler) A few months ago, I found myself in an odd position -- with some time off. A lot of it. Naturally, I decided to use the time not to disconnect, but instead to double-down on tech news. I set out to achieve “Pocket Zero” and catch up on nearly everything I had saved to read later but never got to over the past year or so. A few dozen articles in, a pattern started to emerge. By the time I had read a few hundred articles, I had my thesis for what I’ll call the “75 -- 20 -- 5 Rule.” That is, on any given day, I’d say 75 percent of what you read in the tech press is somewhat accurate, 20 percent is complete bullsh*t and 5 percent is actually true. Geraldo Rivera Tweets Shirtless Selfie (HuffPost) We can't unsee this. Geraldo Rivera brought out his inner-Ron Burgundy early Sunday morning when he tweeted a shirtless selfie. "70 is the new 50," he wrote, adding "Erica and family are going to be so pissed... but at my age..." TVNewser No clothes. Towel only. Below the belt. A hoodie was definitely in order. Mediabistro Blogs AllTwitter Everything You Need to Create Fantastic Social Media Content SocialTimes Why Feedspot Could Be the Best Google Reader Replacement AllFacebook Mark Zuckerberg Secretly Filmed for Documentary 10,000 Words With the Death of AJR in Print, What's in Store for Media Commentary? AppNewser Swedish Gaming Company Paradox Expands Into eBook Business TVNewser President Obama Comments on Zimmerman Verdict in Briefing Room TVSpy 'She's Got Quite the Uterus!': WICS Anchor's Ad Lib Nearly Stops the Show Lost Remote How a Sharknado of Buzz Helped SyFy Connect with Brands on Social FishbowlDC 17 Journos to Appear on Final Edition of The Chris Matthews Show FishbowlNY Super Model Magazine is a Thing That is Happening GalleyCat Calvin and Hobbes Documentary Coming in November PRNewser Children Respond to Interracial Cheerios Commercial AgencySpy Op-Ed: Rethinking Advertising as Digital Relevance MediaJobsDaily Got Work-Life Balance? According to Glassdoor Survey, Yahoo! Sure Does UnBeige Fun Photo: Chair and Chair Alike Advertise on Our Blog Network Mediabistro Chats Now that we’re a few weeks in, who do you think is winning: Instagram video or Vine? http://mbist.ro/13ym9e3 lynaecook that fact I've received no new followers on Vine tells me either I'm terrible on Vine or IG is winning manumuraro Vine, by far. Instagram videos are 15second pictures. DeiDeiBoltz My kids say Instagram; my hubby argues Vine. I'm stuck in the middle! Haven't had the time to experiment with either! MarkLoundy Since you can't edit either before upload — neither one. I prefer @Tout ErinSpandorf I like Vine for the loop and Instagram to have all photos and videos on one account. Follow Mediabistro on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

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Morning Media Newsfeed: Nate Silver to Join ESPN | Helen Thomas Dies | Shuster to Al Jazeera?

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