In the latest edition of our bi-weekly news roundup (the earlier posts can be read here), Susan Clandillon shares the news that caught her eye in the past two weeks. The news round-up is a way for the Future Media Lab. team and members of the Future Media Lab. network to share articles about innovations and developments in the media sector, including references to relevant media policy debates.

Here are Susan’s picks for this week:

1) Last week saw the new Commission finalized and all Commissioners finally making their way through the parliamentary hearings. Juncker’s team is now ready to take office on November 1, although there have been a number of last minute adjustments. Following the rejection of Alenka Bratušek during the Commissioner hearings, we saw the Vice-Presidency for Energy Union going to Maroš Šefčovič who gave up his role as Transport Commissioner to take up Bratušek’s position. This allowed for the incoming Slovenian Commissioner Violeta Bulc to move into the transport role. Further portfolio changes are outlined here.

2. The outgoing Commissioner for Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes this week suggested that the process for European start-ups and young entrepreneurs to apply for funding from the European Commission was in the process of being simplified. Kroes urges young people to make the effort to negotiate their way through the red tape, and to not fear failure.

3. Looking at journalism in a post-Snowden world means looking at encryption tools for journalists, at least in the eyes of Steve Coll of the New Yorker. In his article he looks at new tools and training available to journalists working in the post-digital revolution era. Coll laments the fact that technological disruption has had the knock on effect of harming workplace training programmes through the disruption of traditional business models - read more here.

4. Stepping up to his role, incoming Digital Commissioner Günther Oettinger has announced his plans to reform existing copyright laws, notably including the introduction of an EU Google tax. This would require the search giant to pay a fee for displaying copyrighted material on their site. EurActiv reports.

5. Following days of 10,000 people strong protests across Hungary, Hungarian Prime Minister Vitor Orban has scrapped plans to introduce a controversial internet tax, which was due to place a levy of $0.62 cents on each gigabyte used. For an extensive report into the situation in Bucharest see Ian Traynor’s report published in The Guardian.

6. This week, Dutch start-up Blendle has announced plans to develop a ‘Spotify for Journalism’ whereby web users could buy articles from a range of publishers for a few cents each. Blendle has received a €3 million Series A investment from publishing giant Axel Springer to develop this project. Blendle believes that people are now willing to pay for quality journalism once more, especially in non English-speaking markets.

7. Reddit has announced the launch of its new crowdfunding platform, Redditmade which allows users to raise money for projects created by communities in the subreddit section of the site, Tom Cheredar of Venture Beat reports.

8. Mobile publishing is also on the agenda this week, as traffic from smartphones and tablets begins to overtake traffic from laptops and desktop computers. More people access the BBC via mobile devices these days than on any other device. For The Guardian, mobile traffic represents 60% of all weekend visitors. But what does this mean for press publishers? Well it requires a rethink according to Jon Bernstein (independent digital media consultant and writer, formerly deputy editor, and later digital director of New Statesman, who makes 7 recommendations for publishers:
1. Plan for the extended week.
2. Think about the format.
3. Remember the web still rules (people prefer news websites to news apps - according to The Guardian)
4. Use apps to upsell products / content with breaking news or personalization.
5. Don’t forget the importance of social media.
6. Viral hits need mobile to succeed.
7. Editorial content is still paramount.

9. Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times examines how Facebook is changing the way in which its users experience and consume journalism. According to new research about 30% of adults in the US consume their news through Facebook. This causes us to revisit the question of whether websites will/can/or should exercise editorial judgement. In her interview with Facebook engineer Greg Marra, we find that Facebook does not view itself as an editor or curator - although they have in the past changed their algorithm, resulting in devastating effects for click-bait driven sites. Read more here.

10. And finally a Friday treat for those brave souls who have made it to the end of the News Round-Up:
Our video this week comes from The Economist’s multimedia library and looks at how protesters all over the world are routing around government censorship through the use of mobile and web technologies - which are truly empowering citizens.