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

1:45 PM ET, January 28, 2012

Top News:

Letter to Twitter Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey urging him not to cooperate with censors — Reporters Without Borders has written to Twitter Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey voicing deep concern about yesterday's announcement that Twitter will introduce geolocated censorship …

Discussion: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Gawker, Future of Journalism, The Huffington Post, msnbc.com, VatorNews, PC Magazine, Marketing Pilgrim, The Next Web, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Engadget, China Real Time Report, New Media Age and Softpedia News, more at Techmeme »

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

How much should we trust our new information overlords? — So much is possible with the digital tools we have today: Google provides information from billions of sources instantly; Facebook lets us stay in touch with friends around the globe; and Twitter allows anyone to broadcast their thoughts wherever they are.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Ars Technica, Forbes, The Lede, Boing Boing, The Wrap, NetNewsCheck Latest, Fast Company, the Econsultancy blog and Marketing Land, more at Techmeme »

Nancy Messieh / The Next Web:

Twitter isn't censoring you. Your government is. — It's barely been a day since Twitter made the announcement that, going forward, tweets could be censored based on the local laws that govern a user's location, and the rumour mill is hard at work trying to figure out the reasons behind the decision.

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Wall Blog, FT Tech Hub and VentureBeat

Zeynep Tufekci / technosociology:

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: Future of Journalism, The Huffington Post, Mashable!, Washington Post, Guardian, Anthony De Rosa, PC Magazine, Threat Level, PopWatch, Techdirt, Reuters, Mixed Media, Digits, J-School and Gov 2.0

Jillian C. York:
Thoughts on Twitter's Latest Move

Tim Castle / Reuters:

UK police arrest Murdoch tabloid staff — (Reuters) - Police arrested four current and former staff of Rupert Murdoch's best-selling Sun tabloid and a policeman on Saturday in a probe into suspected payments by journalists to officers for information, police and the newspaper's publisher said.

Discussion: Reuters, Guardian, The New York Observer, BBC, @dansabbagh, @joshhalliday, @timescrime and Guardian

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

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: Future of Journalism and TeleRead

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: College Media Matters, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Forbes, National Review, Bleacher Report, Gawker, Deadspin 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: newsfeed.time.com, msnbc.com and Forbes

Cotton Delo / AdAge:

Twitter to Roll Out More Brand Pages for Advertisers Who've Committed $25K — New Pages Next Week Restricted to Those Buying Promoted Tweets, Trends — Twitter will start rolling out more brand pages next week for some brands and partners who have already committed to spending at least $25,000 …

Discussion: The Verge, Business Insider, VatorNews, The Next Web and WebProNews, more at Techmeme »

David Skok / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Aggregation is deep in journalism's DNA — Below are a few quotes. Can you guess when each was written, and to what they refer? … Sounds a bit like an online aggregator, doesn't it, pulling a few salient points from much longer work? One more:

Discussion: mediabistro.com and Time, Thanks:@dskok

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.

Discussion: Guardian and blogs.telegraph.co.uk

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: VentureBeat

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