Mediagazer: Why Twitter's new policy is helpful for free-speech advocates (Zeynep Tufekci/technosociology)

10:10 PM ET, January 27, 2012

Top News:

Why Twitter's new policy is helpful for free-speech advocates — I know many people are upset at Twitter's announcement that it will now be able to block tweets country by country. There has been a lot of excellent writing / reporting on the content explaining that this is not as bad as it looks.

Discussion: Anthony De Rosa, Guardian, The Huffington Post, Washington Post, Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Wrap, TechCrunch, PopWatch, Forbes, Reuters, NetNewsCheck Latest and J-School, more at Techmeme »

Jillian C. York:

Thoughts on Twitter's Latest Move — Today, Twitter announced a new system that will allow the company to geolocationally block (or, to use their terms, “withhold") specific tweets in specific countries. On the company blog, Twitter explained: … It's been difficult to comment …

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
How much should we trust our new information overlords?

Discussion: Forbes, Boing Boing, ReadWriteWeb and FT Tech Hub, more at Techmeme »

Danny Sullivan / Marketing Land:
Twitter Now Able To Censor Tweets, If Required By Law, On A Country-By-Country Basis

Alex Klein / Jim Romenesko:

Yale Daily News editors sat on explosive Patrick Witt story for months — Earlier this year, national news outlets breathlessly reported that Yale's quarterback, Patrick Witt, had chosen to skip a Rhodes Scholarship finalist interview in order to lead our team against Harvard in the annual Game.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Gawker, Forbes, College Media Matters, newsfeed.time.com, Deadspin, National Review and New York Times

Maureen O'Connor / Gawker:
Sitting on Quarterback Sex Assault Story, Yale Daily News Considered Seeking a Private Jet for Witt

Discussion: msnbc.com, CollegeFootballTalk and Bleacher Report

Bloomberg:

New York Times Co. Faces Leadership Vacuum — The departure of New York Times Co. (NYT) Chief Executive Officer Janet Robinson last month leaves the company with a leadership vacuum amid falling revenue, profit squeezed by pension costs and pressure from family members to restore a dividend once worth more than $20 million a year.

Discussion: Capital New York, FishbowlNY, Business Insider, @edmundlee, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post and Future of Journalism

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Adam Jacobi says CBS fired him over Paterno death report — In a series of tweets, Adam Jacobi says CBS let him go after he published a story Saturday night saying that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had died. Jacobi tweets:

Discussion: Erik Wemple, The Next Web and @awallenstein

Matthew Creamer / AdAge:

Dan Abrams on Profitability, a New Food Site and Impending Fatherhood — Plus Why Jane Dough, the Rebranded and Refocused Mogulite, Is Already Doing Better Than Its Predecessor — TV host. Entrepreneur. Friend of David Zinczenko. Acceptor of Andrew Breitbart.

Discussion: @romenesko and FishbowlNY, Thanks:@matt_creamer

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

Bloomberg Executive Is Said to Be in Talks to Lead Dow Jones — News Corporation is said to be in advanced talks to hire Lex Fenwick as the chief executive of Dow Jones, filling a six-month vacancy created when the publisher's top executive resigned amid the phone-hacking scandal in Britain.

Discussion: Moneycontrol and Wall Street Journal, Thanks:@beet_tv

Adveith Nair / Reuters:
James Murdoch to quit GSK board

Discussion: MarketWatch, Guardian, Telegraph and Wall Street Journal

David Lipke / WWD:

Bloomberg to Launch Luxury Lifestyle Magazine — A design spread from the first issue of Bloomberg Pursuits. — Photo By Courtesy Photo Photo By Courtesy Photo — BLOOMBERG'S FASHIONABLE PURSUITS: Users of the Bloomberg Terminal are among the richest demographic in the world …

Discussion: Folio, The New York Observer and Media Buyer Planner

Paul Miller / The Verge:

Debate rages as Spotify, MOG, and Rdio kill / save the music industry — For the conscience-laden music consumer, streaming music services present an interesting quandary. By separating the concept of “legal access to music” from the age-old paradigm of “paying the artist for an entire song or album …

Discussion: ShortFormBlog and VentureBeat

Steve Myers / Poynter:

In another election challenge to AP, Nevada GOP to release caucus results via Twitter, Google — The Nevada Republican Party announced Friday afternoon that it will release up-to-the minute results of its Feb. 4 caucus on Twitter, enabling anyone to get the latest information without relying …

Discussion: Guardian and The Newspaper Guild

Dylan Byers / The Politico:

Reuters laments Marco Rubio ‘fiasco’ — Reuters is still kicking itself over an article about Republican golden boy Senator Marco Rubio that yielded five corrections yesterday and may have warranted more. — One senior staffer at Reuters described the episode to me as a “fiasco,” another as a “disgrace.”

Discussion: FishbowlDC, Mediaite, Poynter, The Daily Caller, Reuters, Big Journalism and National Review, Thanks:@beet_tv

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

As Goodreads Ends Sourcing From Amazon, Users Fear Lost Books — Book-centered social networking site Goodreads, which allows users to keep records of the books they read and share the information with others, has long sourced most of its basic book data from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN).

Discussion: TeleRead

Guardian:

Who next for BBC director general role? — Mark Thompson has signalled that he is ready to step down, but who will take over from him? We look at the main contenders — Peter Fincham, ITV director of TV — Has led a creative revival at ITV, with hits such as Downton Abbey, since joining the commercial broadcaster in 2008.