Guardian Journalist to Write Book on Surveillance

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first reported on a trove of classified documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, will write a book about National Security Agency surveillance, his publisher announced on Wednesday. Mr. Greenwald’s articles on the cache of documents, revealing widespread surveillance by the United States government, appeared in The Guardian newspaper last month. Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor, is currently in diplomatic limbo at the Moscow airport and has applied for asylum in Russia.

The book was acquired by Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, and is expected to be published in March 2014. It will expose “the extraordinary cooperation of private industry and the far-reaching consequences of the government’s program, both domestically and abroad,” the publisher said in a statement.

Since the articles detailing Mr. Snowden’s leaks first appeared in early June, several books about National Security Agency surveillance have been snapped up by publishers: the Penguin Press acquired a book on “the rise of the surveillance-industrial state” by Barton Gellman, a reporter who detailed an Internet surveillance program called Prism in The Washington Post. Robert Scheer, a journalist and editor of the blog Truthdig, has agreed to write about the “escalating conflict between national security and personal privacy” for Nation Books.

Guardian Journalist to Write Book on Surveillance

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first reported on a trove of classified documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, will write a book about National Security Agency surveillance, his publisher announced on Wednesday. Mr. Greenwald’s articles on the cache of documents, revealing widespread surveillance by the United States government, appeared in The Guardian newspaper last month. Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor, is currently in diplomatic limbo at the Moscow airport and has applied for asylum in Russia.

The book was acquired by Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, and is expected to be published in March 2014. It will expose “the extraordinary cooperation of private industry and the far-reaching consequences of the government’s program, both domestically and abroad,” the publisher said in a statement.

Since the articles detailing Mr. Snowden’s leaks first appeared in early June, several books about National Security Agency surveillance have been snapped up by publishers: the Penguin Press acquired a book on “the rise of the surveillance-industrial state” by Barton Gellman, a reporter who detailed an Internet surveillance program called Prism in The Washington Post. Robert Scheer, a journalist and editor of the blog Truthdig, has agreed to write about the “escalating conflict between national security and personal privacy” for Nation Books.

Lindy Hess, Who Trained Many for Publishing Industry, Dies at 63

Lindy Hess, who as director of the Columbia Publishing Course transformed an antiquated training program into an influential part of the publishing world, died on Saturday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 63.

Linda Hess helped shape the publishing industry by training a good percentage of its new recruits in an intensive six-week summer course.

The cause was lung cancer, said her sister, Elizabeth Hess.

For more than two decades, Ms. Hess helped shape the publishing industry by training a good percentage of its new recruits in an intensive six-week summer course and by acting as an industry matchmaker.

“Lindy was the greatest employment agent the publishing industry has ever seen,” said the literary agent Ed Victor. “She would get jobs for a staggering number of her students.”

Notable graduates of the course include Jordan Pavlin, vice president and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf; Molly Stern, the senior vice president and publisher of Crown Publishers and Broadway Books; and David Granger, editor in chief of Esquire magazine.

The course was established in 1947 at Radcliffe College in Cambridge (and originally called the Radcliffe Publishing Course) as a summer program in which recent college graduates were taught the basics of book and magazine editing, design, production and publicity.

By the time Ms. Hess took over the course, however, the consensus was that it had lost touch with the industry and its major players. Ms. Hess, who had worked her way up in publishing, was well connected. She arrived with a prodigious Rolodex under her arm and set about inviting many industry leaders to Cambridge to lecture to the students.

Among the speakers were the industry veterans and former New Yorker editors Robert Gottlieb and Tina Brown, and William Shinker, the president and publisher of Gotham Books.

“We all schlepped up there for her,” Mr. Victor said.

Her biggest innovation was to turn the program into a kind of boot camp. Students put together mock publishing houses, acquiring books, making deals with agents and then editing, designing and marketing the books.

The course moved to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2001 and changed its name.

Ms. Hess sometimes persuaded publishing executives not just to lecture but also to teach for a week.

“I can say no to anybody,” said Nan Graham, the publisher of Scribner. “But I couldn’t say no to Lindy.”

Linda Ann Hess was born on April 1, 1950, in Manhattan, where she attended the Spence School. She graduated from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in English, in 1972.

Alfred A. Knopf hired her the same year to work as secretary to Mr. Victor and Judith Jones, the cookbook editor. She rose through the publishing ranks and became editorial director of Dolphin books, a division of Doubleday, in 1978.

In a business with its share of rivalries and tensions, sometimes hiding beneath clenched-teeth cordiality, Ms. Hess seldom made enemies. And with her multiple contacts in the industry, she made it her mission to find the right job for each student.

“She had a sixth sense about which student would fit well with which person in publishing,” Mr. Shinker said.

In addition to her sister, Ms. Hess is survived by her husband, Dr. William S. Appleton; a son, Samuel Appleton; a daughter, Eliza Hannah Appleton; and a brother, Mortimer Henry Hess III.

As Legal Battle Continues, N.C.A.A. Ends Tie With Electronic Arts

For years, the N.C.A.A. heard concerns that the video games bearing its name and logo infringed on the rights of student-athletes. The animated avatars often bore a resemblance to actual players, with similar attributes and physical characteristics, even the same jersey numbers.

But N.C.A.A. executives dismissed the criticism and did not limit the game’s maker, Electronic Arts, from producing as realistic an experience as possible, for fear of losing the lucrative contract.

On Wednesday, however, the N.C.A.A. became the one to sever ties, announcing that it would not renew its contract with E.A. next year. The decision is perhaps the biggest real-world development in a more than four-year-old legal battle focused on the rights of college athletes when it comes to how their likenesses are used and what, if any, compensation they should receive.

The suit, filed by the former U.C.L.A. basketball player Ed O’Bannon, could change the landscape of college athletics by requiring that student-athletes receive a share of revenue from video games and broadcast rights.

The N.C.A.A. has mounted a vigorous legal defense in the case and maintained Wednesday that it “has never licensed the use of current student-athlete names, images, or likenesses to E.A,” which is also a defendant in the case. The N.C.A.A. cautioned that its decision not to renew the video game contract should not be seen as a signal that it would back away from its legal stand.

“We are confident in our legal position regarding the use of our trademarks in video games,” the N.C.A.A. said. “But given the current business climate and costs of litigation, we determined participating in this game is not in the best interests of the N.C.A.A.”

The N.C.A.A. said that universities licensed their own trademarks for the video game, meaning it could live on without the association’s name on it. The universities “will have to independently decide whether to continue those business arrangements in the future,” the N.C.A.A. said.

Many universities license their rights through Collegiate Licensing Company, which is also a defendant in the case.

O’Bannon’s legal team saw the N.C.A.A.’s move as “arrogant, petty, and punitive,” saying it “undermined” its position “by unilaterally” ending the relationship with E.A. “Rather than share any proceeds from the use of the likeness and names of players in the E.A. game, they bite their nose to spite their face and hurt the players and the consumers,” said Michael Hausfeld, O’Bannon’s lawyer.

E.A. has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

A federal judge in Oakland, Calif., is currently considering whether to allow the case to proceed as a class action, potentially making way for thousands of college athletes past and present to join the case. The judge, Claudia Wilken, heard arguments on the class-action motion last month.

The case file includes e-mails in which N.C.A.A. executives discussed concerns that the video games were “too close to reality.” In 2003, one executive warned another in an e-mail to “be cautious” about addressing such issues, as “any more ‘watering down’ of the video games will likely move the manufacturers to cease operations with us.”

Robert Boland, a sports law professor at New York University, said the move could signal a fracture between the N.C.A.A. and E.A., both defendants in the case.

“You say that in a normal course of business, almost no one would give up the video game and certainly E.A. is the biggest” game maker in the genre, Boland said. “But from a legal standpoint, it looks like the N.C.A.A. has determined that maybe this isn’t a place it should be in.”

Sonny Vaccaro, a former sports marketing executive and a longtime critic of the N.C.A.A., who originally put O’Bannon in touch with his lawyers in this case, said Wednesday’s announcement was “a big victory for college athletes” and evidence that the lawsuit was “starting to gain some traction in the world we live in.”

“I’m very happy because I see it as the N.C.A.A. starting to get the feeling that there can be changes in the future,” Vacarro said.

The N.C.A.A. said that “NCAA Football 2014,” which was released this month, would be the last to include the organization’s name and logo. It said it announced its decision now, well in advance of the contract expiring next June, to give E.A. time to plan for next year.

“I’m sure gamers are wondering what this means,” Andrew Wilson, the executive vice president of E.A. Sports, said in a statement. “This is simple: E.A. Sports will continue to develop and publish college football games, but we will no longer include the N.C.A.A. names and marks.”

“Our relationship with the Collegiate Licensing Company is strong and we are already working on a new game for next generation consoles which will launch next year and feature the college teams, leagues and all the innovation fans expect from E.A. Sports.”

Advertising: Apple’s Move Into TV Relies on Cooperation With Industry Leaders

Pushing the Right Buttons

Apple’s Move Into TV Relies on Cooperation With Industry Leaders

An app lets users stream Sky News through Apple TV, giving the network access to viewers without dealing with cable providers.

When Apple wanted to revolutionize cellphones, it held hands with AT&T. The partners fought endlessly, but the public loved the finished product: the iPhone.

Now, as Apple tries to reimagine television, it is taking the partnership route again, collaborating with distributors like Time Warner Cable and programmers like the Walt Disney Company on apps that might eliminate the unpleasant parts of TV watching, like bothersome set-top boxes or clunky remote controls.

Apple’s broader strategy â€" what its chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, recently called its “grand vision” for television â€" remains shrouded in secrecy, as everything Apple-related tends to be. Some analysts continue to predict, as they have for years, that the company will someday come out with a full-blown television set.

Whether or not an iTV ever materializes, the company’s more modest steps, like improving the $100 Apple TV box that 13 million households now have and adding access to cable channels through the box, suggest that its strategy stands in stark contrast to Google’s, which is contemplating an Internet cable service that would compete directly with distributors like Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Reports emerged earlier this week that Google has held talks with several channel owners about licensing channels for such a service, but no content deals are within reach.

Apple weighed something similar years ago, but its executives concluded that it should work with the industry’s powerful incumbents, rather than against them.

“Apple’s probably going to have greater access to content by deciding to cooperate,” said Natalie Clayton, who oversees digital video research for Frank N. Magid Associates.

Case in point, Apple last month turned on HBO and ESPN apps for Apple TV owners, much to the delight of all involved. But those work only for people who have an existing cable or satellite subscription.

Coming next is an app from Time Warner Cable, allowing some of the company’s 12 million subscribers to watch live and on-demand shows without a separate set-top box. The app will effectively add an Apple layer on top of the TV screen, providing what its proponents say is a programming guide that is far superior to anything offered by Time Warner.

Apple has talked in-depth with other big distributors about similar apps, according to people involved in the talks. Its intent is to collect a fee from distributors in exchange for enhancing their television service and in that way, theoretically, make subscribers more likely to keep paying for cable.

“They’re trying to apply their software expertise, their user interface expertise,” one of the people said. (The people, both at distributors and programmers, insisted on anonymity because they said public comments would interfere with the private talks with Apple.)

Apple has sought support from programmers as well. It has proposed, for instance, an ad-skipping technology that would compensate networks for the skipped ads by charging users. While the idea is far-fetched, it intrigued some of the channel owners who were briefed about it and excited Apple followers when it was first reported by the technology writer Jessica Lessin earlier this week.

For Apple, further moves into television could neutralize some of the skepticism about the company’s future since the death of Steve Jobs in 2011. Investor concerns that the company might not have another iPhone- or iPad-level innovation on the way have dragged down its stock price, which topped $700 for the first time last September, but has recently hovered closer to $400.

For the time being, Apple TV is a small part of its business â€" something best suited to “hobbyists,” as Mr. Cook put it at the D: All Things Digital conference in May. At that time, he hinted at the opportunity Apple saw in the living room, calling traditional TV watching “not an experience that I think many people love” and “too much like 10 or 20 years ago.”

It is easy to see how Apple could help. Products like Apple TV and Roku, which connect TVs to the Internet’s wealth of streaming content, have proliferated because the set-top boxes that cable companies supply have not kept up with shifts in consumer behavior. But the streaming boxes remain a somewhat niche technology.

Apple could choose to market its box more heavily, especially as competition heats up from Amazon and other companies. Or it could eliminate the need for any box at all by building its own TV set. Reports this week that Apple may acquire PrimeSense, a maker of motion-sensing technology that could be used to control a TV without a physical remote, prompted a new round of guessing about that.

In Apple’s partnership approach, some see the company placing a multitude of bets, recognizing that television could evolve in any number of ways.

Through Apple TV, it is simultaneously supporting established distributors and programmers as well as a parallel universe of streaming TV, as represented by Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.

Last month, in a little-noticed move, the company approved an app for Sky News, the British-based cable news channel. Sky could already be streamed live free on the Web, but by creating an app for Apple TV, the channel gained access to the television sets in 13 million homes without the need for complex negotiations with cable companies.

The Sky News app is free, but the software that powers it, from a company called 1 Mainstream, also allows for à la carte subscriptions.

Asked about the implications of the app, Rajeev Raman, the chief executive of 1 Mainstream, said: “It’s a learning year for Apple. And it’s a learning year for all of us, to say, O.K., what really does work?”

In effect the app is a more direct route to consumers for Sky News. Bloomberg TV, already available on cable, tried something similar earlier this year by cutting a carriage deal with Aereo, the streaming service backed by Barry Diller. But Aereo is antagonistic toward networks and existing distributors; Apple, at least for now, is positioning itself as a friend.

CVS and Walgreens Ban an Issue of Rolling Stone

The chain stores CVS/Pharmacy and Walgreens said on Wednesday that they would not sell the latest issue of Rolling Stone, which features a cover photo that some critics and Massachusetts politicians say glamorizes the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The stores cite a cover image of the man accused in the Boston Marathon bombings.

It was explicitly the cover image, a photo of Mr. Tsarnaev that he used online, which shows him with long hair and a trim mustache and in an Armani Exchange shirt â€" not the lengthy article inside â€" that has drawn criticism. Over the day, those objections gathered momentum, aided by social media.

Both CVS and Walgreens made their announcements on Twitter; their messages were passed on hundreds of times.

The cover of Rolling Stone has long been a sign for rock stars, celebrities and even politicians that they have arrived, and the sight of the bombing suspect receiving similar treatment has provoked strong reaction, especially from the Boston area.

By the afternoon, Mayor Thomas M. Menino had sent a letter to the publisher of Rolling Stone, Jann S. Wenner, objecting that the cover “rewards a terrorist with celebrity treatment.” And Gov. Deval L. Patrick of Massachusetts, responding to a question from reporters, said: “I haven’t read it, but I understand the substance of the article is not objectionable. It’s apparently pretty good reporting. But the cover is out of taste, I think.”

The bombings on April 15, which Mr. Tsarnaev is accused of carrying out with his brother, Tamerlan, killed three people and wounded more than 260 near the finish line of the race.

Mr. Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges contained in a sweeping terrorism indictment.

Another chain, Tedeschi Food Shops, which is based in New England, also said it would not carry the issue, dated Aug. 1, explaining on its Facebook page that while the company “supports the need to share the news with everyone,” it “cannot support actions that serve to glorify the evil actions of anyone.”

The magazine published a note atop the article that began: “Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families.” After defending the article, which was written by the investigative reporter Janet Reitman, as fitting the magazine’s tradition of serious journalism, the editors try to turn some of the criticism on its head.

“The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens,” they wrote.

Ms. Reitman reported the article over the last two months, Rolling Stone said, interviewing childhood and high school friends, teachers, neighbors and law enforcement officials. The result, the magazine says, is “a riveting and heartbreaking account of how a charming kid with a bright future became a monster.”

Ms. Reitman, who declined to comment when reached via e-mail, responded on Twitter before the full article was posted online, to a friend writing in support, “It’s kind of astonishing. No one has even read it yet!”

With Contrition in His Voice, Olbermann Returns to ESPN

Keith Olbermann has had a peripatetic and stormy career as a sports anchor and the host of a politics-oriented news program.

He has worked at CNN, ESPN, MSNBC, NBC, Fox and Current TV, routinely producing memorable work but not always getting along with his colleagues..

On Wednesday, he announced that he was returning to ESPN to be the host of “Olbermann,” a late-night sports program on ESPN2. It has been 16 years since he left ESPN, where he was the popular co-anchor of “SportsCenter” between 1992 and 1997.

“It almost defies my ability to talk about myself to say something coherent and relevant about this,” Mr. Olbermann said in a conference call with reporters. He added, “There is no way to forecast my career path.”

The hourlong “Olbermann” â€" which will be shown at 11 p.m. Eastern time, or later if the live games that precede it run long â€" will capitalize on his deep sports knowledge. But he will avoid the political subjects that were at the core of the liberal-leaning “Countdown,” which he hosted on MSNBC from 2003 to 2011, and revived for a year at Current TV before he was fired.

“This is going to be a sports show, and clearly a sports show,” John Skipper, the president of ESPN, said during the call. “Politics and governance and elections will not be the subject of the show.” But he added that politics would not be off-limits to Mr. Olbermann if they interact with sports.

“Olbermann” will make its debut on Aug. 26, nine days after the start of Fox Sports 1, which is being developed by News Corporation to compete against the ESPN sports empire.

“I’d be disingenuous if I said this didn’t help us,” Mr. Skipper said about the rehiring of Mr. Olbermann.

Still, bringing the mercurial Mr. Olbermann back to the network was not a run-of-the-mill personnel move. He had, at times, a rocky tenure at ESPN â€" feuding with other anchors, acting condescendingly to co-workers, and making an unauthorized appearance on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central that got him suspended.

“It was ultimately my decision as to whether the merits of Keith’s singular talent will help us serve sports fans and helps us attract sports fans at 11 p.m.,” Mr. Skipper said.

Mr. Olbermann sounded contrite about his previous behavior and the effect it had at ESPN. He had similar problems at some of his other network postings.

“We can gather everybody who took offense at what I did and we’d need Yankee Stadium,” he said. “I can say, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

To those who are skeptical about his contrition, he said, “All that will make a difference is how I will conduct myself.”

In Public Opinion on Abortion, Few Absolutes

For decades, both sides in the abortion debate have tried to say that public opinion was already on their side and only becoming more so.

Advocates for abortion rights have pointed to polls showing that a majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Abortion opponents have cited polls showing that a majority considers life to begin at conception - and opposes abortion access in many cases.

As with so many other areas this blog covers, abortion is one in which selective readings of the polls can seem to prove opposite conclusions. After writing about abortion and public opinion in Sunday’s Times - arguing that the issue does not benefit Democrats as much as other high-profile subjects, like immigration, guns, taxes and same-sex marriage - I wanted to dig more deeply into the polls and their trend lines. For all the assertions that advocates make about public opinion, I think that a few consistent messages emerge.

The main one is that most Americans support abortion access with some significant restrictions. If you were going to craft a law based strictly on public opinion, it would permit abortion in the first trimester (first 12 weeks) of pregnancy and in cases involving rape, incest or threats to the mother’s health. The law, however, would substantially restrict abortion after the first trimester in many other cases.

Gallup

Intriguingly, such a policy would be similar to the laws in several European countries, like France, where abortions are widely available in the first trimester and restricted afterward. It would also be consistent with much of Roe v Wade.

In perhaps its most famous decision of the last 50 years, the court overturned a Texas law criminalizing abortion, by a 7-2 vote. The justices found that the right to privacy required women to have access to abortions but that the state also had an interest in restricting abortion, to protect “both the pregnant woman’s health and the potentiality of human life.” The decision tried to balance these interests by allowing different restrictions depending on trimester. (A later Supreme Court decision changed the standard to emphasize viability.)

When arguing that public opinion supports broad abortion rights, advocates often point to polls showing strong support for Roe. And they are right about that polling. A January 2013 poll by Gallup was typical: 53 percent of respondents said they did not want the court to overturn “its 1973 Roe versus Wade decision concerning abortion,” and only 29 percent did want it overturned.

I don’t imagine that most people who receive a phone call asking their opinion about Roe know the fine details of the decision when they answer the question. But it is worth noting that the strong support for Roe does not necessarily conflict with the strong reservations Americans express about unrestricted abortion access. Roe distinguished among the different stages of pregnancy and different developmental stages of fetuses.

About one in four Americans says they support abortion without restrictions, most polls show. Somewhat fewer Americans - typically about one in five, though it ranges from one in four to one in eight, depending on the poll - oppose abortion in nearly all cases. The rest of the country - roughly 50 percent of it - supports abortion in some circumstances and not others.

Pew’s polls (PDF), including this one from October 2012, show this pattern:

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

The New York Times/CBS Poll uses a different framework, but the results are consistent. These results are from February 2013:

The New York Times

The Gallup results are also consistent:

As Gallup’s historical chart shows, opinion on abortion has not shifted in a major way over the years. (It also does not vary much by sex, with women as divided as men on the issue.) But if one side has any slight sway on the trends, it is the anti-abortion campaigners’ side. Twenty years ago, the share of Americans saying abortion should always be legal was more than twice as high as the share saying it should never be legal. Since the mid-1990s, the share of Americans who consider themselves as abortion rights advocates (or “pro-choice” in the poll’s available answers) has also declined:

On abortion, as with almost any issue, short poll questions and answers do not capture the full complexity of people’s views. The standard Gallup questions about trimesters do not mention exceptions, for instance. And although a recent National Journal poll may seem on the surface to suggest that a plurality of Americans support the restrictions that the Texas Legislature passed last weekend, the bill includes details ­â€" no exceptions for rape or incest, the effective closing of most of the state’s clinics ­â€" that most Americans would quite likely oppose. On the flip side, some people who oppose a broad abortion ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy also oppose abortion access in some instances, like, for example, for economic reasons or in cases when prenatal screening shows the fetus to have a nonfatal condition.

But be wary of analysts who try to take this complexity argument too far. It’s true that any snapshot of public opinion from a poll is imperfect. It is not true that if you scratch only under poll results deeply enough, you will discover the American people actually take a clear side on abortion. By any objective measure, the country is conflicted.

Rainn Wilson of ‘The Office’ Will Write Book

Rainn Wilson, the actor who played the maniacal but lovable underling Dwight Schrute on NBC’s “The Office,” has struck a deal to write a book about his life, his publisher said on Wednesday. Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House, acquired the book, which is still untitled and scheduled for publication in fall 2014. “Despite what my publisher might say, I wouldn’t call my book a memoir,” Mr. Wilson said in a statement. “If I were in my eighties, had cured a disease and survived a war, I would be entitled to write a memoir. No. The guy who is best known for playing a paper salesman with a bad haircut, tweeting fart jokes and starting a quirky spirituality website does not merit a ‘memoir.'”

Mr. Wilson is the founder of SoulPancake, a philosophy Web site. Two other veterans of “The Office,” B.J. Novak and Mindy Kaling, have forged literary careers of their own.

Shake-Up at Turner Broadcasting, as Phil Kent Is Out

The chairman of Turner Broadcasting, Philip I. Kent, will leave his position in January, according to a memo to the staff on Wednesday morning from Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner.

John Martin, who has been the chief financial and administration officer of Time Warner, will succeed Mr. Kent. Mr. Bewkes cast the move as a mutual decision with Mr. Kent, whose contract was due to expire in 2014.

Turner Broadcasting, which includes the entertainment channels TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies, as well as CNN, has been a stellar financial performer for Time Warner during Mr. Kent’s 11 years leading the division.

But Mr. Bewkes has been making moves to put a new generation of leaders at the top of Time Warner's divisions. In March, he surprised many in the entertainment business by appointing Kevin Tsujihara to be the new chairman of Warner Brothers, and last month, Warner announced that the head of the film division, Jeff Robinov, would be leaving that position, to be replaced by a quartet of former lieutenants now reporting to Mr. Tsujihara.

In another major move, Jeff Zucker, the former chief executive of NBCUniversal, was named president of CNN Worldwide last November, a move that was announced by Mr. Kent, but came after close involvement from Mr. Bewkes.

In his memo, Mr. Bewkes made a point of tying the decision to replace Mr. Kent to a “transition to the next generation of leadership at Turner.”

The news of Mr. Kent’s departure was first reported on the Web site of l Variety.

Mr. Kent was widely respected at Turner, but from his base in Atlanta he had somewhat less direct contact with the Time Warner leadership than executives in New York or Los Angeles. Inside the company there has already been speculation that Mr. Martin will lead Turner from New York, not Atlanta.

In the memo to the staff, Mr. Bewkes praised Mr. Kent for guiding Turner Broadcasting “through a period of rapid change with an unwavering focus on both driving the business forward and making sure that Turner remains a place that nurtures and rewards talent.”

He said the decision to make the change came after a series of discussion about extending Mr. Kent’s contract.

He also praised Mr. Martin as “a broad and strategic business thinker, who is both a great listener and communicator.”

Filmmakers Embrace Reality, on the High Seas and Beyond

Columbia Pictures

Tom Hanks, right, held by pirates in "Captain Phillips."

LOS ANGELES â€" Capt. Richard Phillips was bobbing in a boat full of Somali pirates on the Indian Ocean four years ago when Hollywood recognized an Oscar moment.

Film producers who were glued to the news sensed the stuff of next-wave nonfiction â€" an action hero, in a real-life global drama.

Things turned out well, from a cinematic point of view: Navy SEALs flew to the rescue, three of the pirates were shot dead, and Captain Phillips was freed unharmed.

The resulting movie, “Captain Phillips,” directed by Paul Greengrass, will arrive in October with Tom Hanks in the title role. It is one of a dozen nonfiction narratives that are promising to shake up the coming awards season, and perhaps to reinvent a reality-based movie genre that only a few years ago seemed moribund.

While Hollywood still loves the summer escape movie, sophisticated real-life dramas are filling up the latter part of the year, attracting top-flight stars and directors and finding a niche with audiences continually wired into unfolding news events.

Almost everybody knows something about the tales behind the new films, giving them a recognition factor that serves as a built-in marketing motor.

“The story already exists, everybody around the table says, ‘Yeah!’ ” Mr. Hanks said in an interview, describing the current preference of studio executives as they sift through scripts and proposals.

Hollywood is quick to adopt a winning formula, and the critical and box office success of films like “A Social Network” and “Moneyball” has proved that reality-based narratives can make money and win awards â€" something beyond the ability of most blockbusters.

At the same time, executives and film historians say, media fragmentation has made studios more wary of jumping into purely fictional drama, because they can no longer rely on best-selling novels, original stage shows, or the even the reputation of master filmmakers to supply a mass audience.

“It’s quite possible that we’re in a golden age for this type of film, and we’re just not aware of it yet,” said Robert Birchard, editor of the American Film Institute catalog of feature films.

Since long before Gary Cooper played Lou Gehrig in “The Pride of the Yankees” (released in 1942), the nonfiction genre has tended to “come and go,” Mr. Birchard noted.

It seemed to be fading in early 2010, when a 3-D fantasy, “Avatar,” was all the rage, and â€" despite the real underpinnings of fictions like “An Education” and “The Hurt Locker” â€" only one nonfiction film, “The Blind Side,” figured among 10 best picture nominees at the Academy Awards. But “The Social Network,” which got eight Oscar nominations in 2011, set the film world abuzz with its close examination of Facebook and its founders â€" even as an old-style historical drama, “The King’s Speech,” took the top honors that year. Then, three inventive, reality-based dramas â€" “Argo,” “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty”â€" unexpectedly turned the last Oscar contest into a rousing political brawl.

This year, nonfiction is back with a vengeance, beginning Friday with the national release of “Fruitvale Station,” by the Weinstein Company, about the 2009 shooting of a young man by an Oakland transit officer.

Some of the more notable entries that follow will focus on events or people still prominent in the public consciousness: “The Fifth Estate,” about the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, from the director Bill Condon; Jobs,” about the Apple founder Steve Jobs, from Open Road; and “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” from the Weinstein Company.

Others examine subjects in both the recent and distant past, including “Rush,” about the Formula One racers Niki Lauda and James Hunt, from Ron Howard; “Twelve Years a Slave,” about the 19th-century abduction of Solomon Northup, by Steve McQueen; and “The Monuments Men,” about those who saved great art from destruction by Hitler, with George Clooney, who directed, in a starring role.