Mediatwits #98: ‘Fifth Estate’ Dramatizes WikiLeaks; Twitter IPO Mania

Last week, Twitter made headlines by revealing its IPO plans to raise up to $1 billion. After Facebook, the social microblogging site was one of the most anticipated public offerings of the year. The IPO filing made a few details about Twitter’s business model clear: namely, the company is losing money and user growth is declining. No matter: some estimate that TWTR will be worth up to $20 billion when it begins trading. This week, we’re joined by Zach Seward of Atlantic Media/Quartz and Dennis Berman of the Wall Street Journal to discuss Twitter’s filing, as well as regular guests Monica Guzman of the Seattle Times and GeekWire and The Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox. In addition, we’ll chat about the Wikileaks-inspired “The Fifth Estate,” which will be released Oct. 18. The film will be the second about the international leaking organization this year, following the spring release of “We Steal Secrets.”

Andrew Lih will host while Mark Glaser is on paternity leave.

Watch the podcast LIVE at 10:30 a.m. PT / 1:30 p.m. ET right here:

Subscribe to the MediaShift audio podcast here.

Listen to the Mediatwits and follow us on SoundCloud!

Thanks to SoundCloud for providing audio support. Subscribe to the Mediatwits audio version via iTunes.

Follow @TheMediatwits on Twitter.

Mediatwits Bios

Andrew Lih is a new media journalist and associate professor of journalism at the American University School of Communication. He is the author of “The Wikipedia Revolution” (Hyperion 2009, Aurum UK 2009) and is a noted expert on online collaboration and journalism. He is a veteran of AT&T Bell Laboratories and in 1994 created the first online city guide for New York City (www.ny.com). Follow him on Twitter @fuzheado and buy his book here.

Mónica Guzmán is a columnist for the Seattle Times and Northwest tech news site GeekWire and a community strategist for startups and media. She emcees Ignite Seattle, a grab-bag community-fueled speaker series. Mónica was a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and seattlepi.com, its online-only successor, where she ran the experimental and award-winning Big Blog and drew a community of readers with online conversation and weekly meetups. Follow her on Twitter @moniguzman.  

Ana Marie Cox is a senior political columnist for The Guardian. She is the founding editor of the Wonkette blog and has covered politics and the culture of Washington, D.C. for outlets including the Washington Post, Playboy, GQ, Mother Jones and Elle. She is the author of the novel “Dog Days” and lives in St. Paul, Minn. Follow her on Twitter @anamariecox.

Special Guests

Zach Seward is senior editor of Quartz, where he guides the editorial strategy, leads a team of visual journalists, and writes about technology and media. Previously, he worked at the Wall Street Journal, first a reporter covering education and health, then as the editor of outreach and social media. Before that, he was associate editor of Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, reporting on the news industry.

Dennis Berman is Business Editor of The Wall Street Journal, overseeing the staff and coverage of business around the globe. He also writes a column, “The Game,” which covers the future of business. Previously, Berman was the Journal’s mergers and acquisitions reporter, and in 2007, he launched Deal Book on WSJ.com.

Podcast Topics:

1. Twitter files for IPO:

Twitter’s IPO filing opened its business records to public scrutiny for the first time, yielding a wealth of details about the micoblogging site. Despite the site’s popularity among celebrities and politicians — from the Pope to Anthony Weiner — Twitter has yet to turn a profit. Meanwhile, it attracts fewer users than Facebook and generates less revenue. The future of Twitter might lie with a global focus: of its average users, over three-quarters are from outside the United States. The IPO is expected to go public Nov. 15.  What’s the future for Twitter? Will it be able to turn users into cash?

2. “The Fifth Estate,” premiering next week, dramatizes Wikileaks:

Though the Wikileaks documentary “We Steal Secrets” was released earlier this years, Julian Assange and his controversial organization are once again in the spotlight. This time, he’s getting the Hollywood treatment — and he’s not happy about it. Assange has criticized “The Fifth Estate,” which premiers Oct. 18, for basing its script on books he calls inaccurate. Wikileaks, which leaks secret government information, has been responsible for many significant classified information dumps in recent years. How does the media portray the notorious Julian Assange? What is his and his organization’s role in the current media landscape?

Other stories:

Twitter gets its strongest TV tie-up so far (AllThingsD)

One big benefit of the social web: Journalism emerges wherever it is needed (paidContent)

Opinion: Twitter’s new media evangelist needs more than 1,200 tweets (Medium)

Vevo lands on Samsung smart TVs. Next up: Chromecast? (GigaOm)

Twitter appears to be exploring personalized breaking new notifications with @Eventparrot Experiment (TechCrunch)

Claire Groden is the podcast intern for PBS Mediashift and a current senior at Dartmouth College. You can follow Claire on Twitter @ClaireGroden.