Mediatwits #75: Fox Threatened by Aereo; Cass Sunstein Makes Government 'Simpler'

Published: April 12, 2013, 6:58 p.m.

This week's Mediatwits podcast includes a former Obama "regulatory czar," a cornered Fox, a Tumblr of layoffs, and a ray of hope for -- yes! -- newspapers. Special guest Cass Sunstein was the former head of OIRA for Obama, helping to set, slim down and remove various rules at agencies. He'll be talking about his new book, "Simpler," where he describes the process of making government work without cutting it to the bone. Our roundtable includes host Mark Glaser, Guardian's Ana Marie Cox, Seattle Times' Monica Guzman and USC's Andrew Lih. News Corp. execs are threatening to pull the Fox network off the airwaves because upstart Aereo (backed by Barry Diller) has been winning court cases and lets people watch broadcast shows on demand without having cable. Plus, Tumblr eliminated its editorial staff of four, and the Newspaper Association of America cleaned out newspapers' couches and found $5.5 billion in change lying around! Who knew?