Mediagazer: Amazon, Up in Flames (David Streitfeld/Bits)

4:25 AM ET, February 12, 2012

Top News:

Senior Sun journalists arrested in police payments probe — Rupert Murdoch is flying to London after five of tabloid's most senior staff are arrested inongoing inquiry into alleged bribery — The Sun has been plunged into crisis following the arrest of five of its most senior journalists …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, The Huffington Post, mUmBRELLA, Reuters, Guardian, New York Magazine, @dangillmor, Associated Press, Jon Slattery, The Independent, Press Gazette and Future of Journalism

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

8 Arrested in Inquiry Into Murdoch's Tabloids — LONDON — British authorities arrested eight people on Saturday, including five employees of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid The Sun, as part of an investigation into bribery of public officials by journalists, according to Scotland Yard and the newspaper's parent company.

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

The Washington Post, Recast for a Digital Future — ON a Sunday in early December, Marcus Brauchli, the executive editor of The Washington Post, summoned some of the newspaper's most celebrated journalists to a lunch at his home, a red brick arts-and-crafts style in the suburb of Bethesda, Md.

Discussion: Gannett Blog, Politico, @romenesko and ShortFormBlog

Wall Street Journal:

Journal Columnist Jeffrey Zaslow Is Killed in Crash — Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow, who wrote some of the paper's most memorable front-page features and became a best-selling author, died in a car crash Friday morning at age 53. — Mr. Zaslow was killed in an automobile accident in northern Michigan.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, LA Observed, Chicago Tribune, MyFox Detroit and GalleyCat

Patricia Montemurri / Tucson Citizen: ‘Last Lecture’ author Jeffrey Zaslow Dies

Ian Burrell / The Independent:

BBC to issue global apology for documentaries that broke rules — The BBC will today apologise to an estimated 74 million people around the world for a news fixing scandal, exposed by The Independent, in which it broadcast documentaries made by a London TV company that was earning millions …

Bill Keller:

Piracy Twits — If I didn't value the First Amendment so dearly, I'd be tempted to propose a law keeping irony out of the hands of the clueless. — The other day I wrote a column suggesting a reasoned approach to protecting writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, journalists, etc. against online piracy.

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @mathewi, TeleRead, Phlog, Boing Boing, The Atlantic Wire and Gawker

David Streitfeld / Bits:

Amazon, Up in Flames — “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever,” George Orwell wrote in “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” In “Animal Farm,” he concluded that revolutions are inevitably betrayed by their leaders. His novel “Burmese Days” …

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What Charlie Sheen taught Salon about being original — There's a reason why The Onion's recent HuffPo-tweaking satire — ‘Huffington Post’ Employee Sucked Into Aggregation Turbine / Horrified Workers Watch As Colleague Torn Apart By Powerful Content-Gathering Engine — resonated with so many reporters.

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:

Amazon hiring creative execs for original programming — Add Amazon to the list of online video providers that could soon release some new original programming. The company is looking to hire creative executives to develop and produce original comedies and kids shows for online and traditional distribution.

Discussion: AllThingsD, WebProNews and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Dan Kennedy / Media Nation:

Birth control and the Church: The missing context — Even a card-carrying secular humanist like me couldn't help but be troubled that the Obama administration was ordering the Catholic Church to provide birth-control coverage to its employees despite Catholic doctrine prohibiting the practice.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Gawker, New York Times, Forbes, The Lede, Online NewsHour and NPR

Alex Fitzpatrick / Mashable!:

Europeans Plan Widespread Protests Against Internet Censorship — Protests against Internet censorship will blanket Europe this weekend, while Germany and Latvia announced Friday they would put the brakes on signing a copyright treaty that has sparked controversy across the continent.

Discussion: Reuters, BBC, BBC, TorrentFreak, The Stream, Electronista, Techdirt, WatchingTV Online and The Raw Story, more at Techmeme »

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Gov. Rendell wanted NY Mayor Bloomberg to buy Philly papers — When Ed Rendell was governor of Pennsylvania in 2008, he spent some time traveling around the country with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. At the time, Rendell pitched Bloomberg on buying Philadelphia's daily newspapers …

Discussion: Poynter and Poynter

Adam Martin / The Atlantic Wire:

Patch Would Like its Journalists to Let it Speak For Them — Patch's request to its hundreds of local editors not to comment on Jim Romenesko's reporting on Patch is just the latest example of a big media company trying, and failing, to control its people's participation in Internet conversation.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and Online Journalism Review