Mediagazer: Another reverse for the fake sheikh as victim's conviction is quashed (Roy Greenslade/Guardian)

1:15 PM ET, January 31, 2011

Top News:

Al Jazeera camera equipment seized — Camera equipment remains seized after release of six Al Jazeera jounralist who were briefly detained in Cairo. — Six Al Jazeera English journalists, who were briefly detained in Egypt, have been released, however; their camera equipment remains confiscated by the military.

Discussion: TVNewser, The Awl, Poynter, Free Press, Babylon & Beyond, CNET News, Guardian, @nolanjazeera, mediabistro.com, Boing Boing, @aymanm, The Huffington Post, Broadcasting & Cable, The Daily Beast and Felix Salmon

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:

Cable companies: Add Al Jazeera English *now* — What the Gulf War was to CNN, the people's revolutions of the Middle East are to Al Jazeera English. But in the U.S., in a sad vestige of the era of Freedom Fries, hardly anyone can watch the channel on cable TV. — Cable companies: Add Al Jazeera English NOW!

Discussion: Doc Searls Weblog, Multichannel, Jon Slattery, Media News International, Aljazeera, The Huffington Post, Inside Cable News, Online Journalism Review and Boing Boing

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Nick Kristof turns to Facebook to report from Egypt

Discussion: TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:
Anonymous on TV, Al Jazeera reporters still tweeting

Discussion: Yahoo! News, The Wire, Journalism.co.uk and Aljazeera

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Center for Public Integrity, NewsBeast sign content deal — Romenesko Misc. — Under the agreement, Newsweek/Daily Beast will pay the Center for Public Integrity for exclusive stories. It's the Center's first pay-for-content deal in more than two decades, says a release.

Discussion: @mathewi and @jayrosen_nyu

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Newsweek and Daily Beast Hire Two More — Tina Brown's Newsweek-Daily Beast hybrid continues to add to its roster of writers as it prepares to start a completely reconfigured magazine this year. — Wayne Barrett, a former Village Voice investigative reporter, and Peter J. Boyer …

Discussion: Poynter, Gawker, LA Observed, MediaPost, FishbowlNY and The Empire

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab: NewsBeast and CPI: A mutualization made in heaven

CBS News:

Julian Assange, The Man Behind WikiLeaks — Talks To Steve Kroft About The U.S. Attempt To Indict Him And The Criticism Aimed At Him For Publishing Classified Documents — (CBS) Just a few months ago, most people had never heard of a Web site called WikiLeaks, or of its mysterious and eccentric founder, Julian Assange.

Discussion: The Awl, The Firewall, The Huffington Post, The Wire, Fast Company, TechCrunch, The Nation, kateoplis and New York Times, more at Techmeme »

Alan Rusbridger / Guardian:
WikiLeaks: The Guardian's role in the biggest leak in the history of the world

Discussion: Media News International, via:sdkstl

Evan Rudowski / paidContent:UK:

A News Corp. Digital History Lesson For The Daily — Evan Rudowski is co-founder of SubHub, a paid content platform. He was previously an online manager at Newsday and business development director at News Corp.'s iGuide. — As I watch the coverage of Rupert Murdoch's upcoming iPad publication …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur: Why The Daily will succeed - or not

Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:

Why I was wrong about Quora as a blogging service ... I must apologize to Dave Winer. He warned me about supporting services that aren't the open web and I wasn't willing to listen to him a month ago, because I was infatuated with a cool new service that lots of insiders were supporting.

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Quora Review, broadstuff, parislemon and TeleRead, more at Techmeme »

Nick Summers / New York Observer:

Exclusive: Ex-Gawker Guy Snyder to Head Atlantic Wire, New Manhattan Staff — Former Gawker editor-in-chief Gabriel Snyder has been tapped to run The Atlantic Wire and build up a news aggregation staff in New York, as the 154-year-old magazine continues to carve out a home on the web.

Discussion: Mediaite, Poynter, Yahoo! News, FishbowlNY, @gabrielsnyder, @annaholmes and @nicksumm

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Exclusive: KIT digital Acquires KickApps, Kewego AND Kyte For $77.2 Million — TechCrunch exclusive - If you'd never heard about KIT digital before, you will after today. — The provider of cloud-based video asset management solutions has acquired not one, not two but three social software and video companies.

Discussion: KIT digital, paidContent, Broadcasting & Cable, VideoNuze, MediaMemo, @rafat, GigaOM and NYConvergence.com, more at Techmeme »

Douglas Quenqua / Media Decoder:

A Phish Fan's Secret Smile — CNBC may not have known it, but last week, the financial news network ran one of the greatest Phish shows in recent memory. — The band itself was nowhere to be seen. But Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Company and an occasional commentator …

Discussion: @myersnews

Benjamin Wallace / New York Magazine:

The Geek-Kings of Smut — After once being the best thing that ever happened to porn, the Internet is now wreaking havoc: destroying some fortunes, making bigger ones, and serving as a stimulus plan, in more ways than one. — For one brief moment here at the 2011 Adult Video Awards in Las Vegas …

Discussion: SAI and @iwantmedia

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

iPad Mags Need A New Blueprint — Ever since the iPad came out, print media companies have been feeling their way in this new medium, but so far they've just been stumbling over themselves. — They are latching onto the iPad as a new walled garden where people will somehow magically pay …

Discussion: TeleRead and Canadian Magazines

Eric Pfanner / DealBook:

Hearst to Buy Lagardere's Magazine Unit for $889 Million — Lagardère, the French media conglomerate, said on Monday that it had agreed to sell its international magazine business, including titles like Car and Driver and non-French editions of Elle, to the American publishing company Hearst for 651 million euros.

Discussion: The Wrap, MinOnline, Press Gazette, Media News International, Folio, The Fix, Gawker and Fashionista

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Political Blogs Are Ready to Flood Campaign Trail — MANCHESTER, N.H. — Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who is flirting with a bid for president, has none of the usual campaign accoutrements. No tour bus, campaign manager or yard signs. Few Americans, in fact, even know his name.

Discussion: CJR, Yahoo! News, Cision and Crikey

Bloomberg:

Sienna Miller Hack Attack May ‘Poison’ News Corp.'s BSkyB Deal — Sienna Miller's phone-hacking claims against Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid threaten to tarnish News Corp.'s reputation just as it seeks government approval for the purchase of British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc.

Alan Rusbridger / Guardian:

News of the World: a year of Andy Coulson's editorship in data. Visualised | Alan Rusbridger — Andy Coulson's editorship of the News of the World examined in a year of celebrity stories. By Alan Rusbridger — • Get the data — A mole has sent in this data …

Mike Shields / Mediaweek:

Pay Walls Crumble — The New York Times is ignoring the deep flaws in its online business model, say industry observers, blowing a chance to transform online publishing by instead opting to earn a few quick bucks. — Based on the details that have emerged, the Time's meek metered approach …

Discussion: Noted

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:

AOL Europe Acquires Branded Video Network goviral For $96.7 Million — AOL Europe has lead an acquision of video distribution network Goviral today, to the tune of $96.7 million. Goviral distributes branded video content for mainstream brands, as well as content producers and advertising agencies.

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

IntoNow Can Hear What You're Watching On TV. The Media Check-In Game Just Changed. — “The problem was that no one wanted to type in the bar they were at,” Adam Cahan told us when we met with him last week to see his latest venture, IntoNow. He wasn't talking about his startup.