Mediagazer: FT Digital Subscriptions Surpass Print In U.S. As Sign-Ups Slow (Robert Andrews/paidContent)

4:55 PM ET, February 27, 2012

Top News:

Vikram Dodd / Guardian:

Brooks and Coulson ‘warned in 2006’ — • Police source ‘told then Sun editor of around 100 victims’ — • Records ‘suggested NI had paid Glenn Mulcaire over £1m’ — • Email submitted to Leveson inquiry reveals Coulson briefing — Both Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson …

Discussion: Deadline.com, Guardian and Media Law Prof Blog

David Leigh / Guardian:
Sun had ‘culture of illegal payments to sources’

Discussion: Guardian, Press Association, The Huffington Post, Journalism.co.uk, Press Gazette, Sky News, Reuters, @arusbridger, The Wrap and The Independent

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:
Leveson: inquiry remains ‘committed to free press’

Discussion: Guardian

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Charlotte Church settles NoW phone-hacking claim for £600,000

Discussion: Reuters, Guardian, Journalism.co.uk, Associated Press, Telegraph, Press Gazette and TVWeek.com

Quinn Norton / Wired:

Wikileaks Pairs with Anonymous to Publish Intelligence Firm's Dirty Laundry — In an unprecedented collaboration between Anonymous and WikiLeaks, the secret spilling site began leaking Sunday night portions of a massive trove of e-mails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor …

Discussion: Foreign Policy, This Just In, Gawker, New York Magazine, TPM Idea Lab, Guardian, GigaOM, PC Magazine, WebProNews, Mashable!, The Corsair, ITProPortal, New York Times, Softpedia News and Boing Boing

Steve Huff / Betabeat:
[UPDATED] Anonymous Teams With Wikileaks To Publish Confidential Stratfor Emails in ‘The Global Intelligence Files’

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, WikiLeaks, VentureBeat, Forbes, Guardian, The Yes Men Blog, The Firewall, The FJP, ZDNet, The New York Observer, Techland, Journalism.co.uk, ReadWriteWeb, CNET, The Huffington Post and Gizmodo

Anna Heim / The Next Web:
WikiLeaks starts publishing ‘The Global Intelligence Files’, with 25 media partners on board

Discussion: PR Newswire, Politico, Huffington Post Canada, thenation.com/blogs/180, Reuters, WebProNews, Reuters, WebProNews, @jeffjarvis, Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day, Business Insider, The Raw Story and Forbes

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

FT Digital Subscriptions Surpass Print In U.S. As Sign-Ups Slow — The Financial Times is still signing up new digital subscribers, but at the slowest rate since iPad lit up its business model in mid-2010. — {data_set="29"} — It attracted 17,000 new digital subscribers in the final three months …

Discussion: Folio, NewsCred Blog, NetNewsCheck Latest, Talking Biz News and Press Gazette

Inti Landauro / Wall Street Journal:

France Working on Plan to Evacuate Reporters in Syria — PARIS—French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that “the beginning of a solution” was in sight to evacuate injured reporters from the besieged city of Homs in Syria, though he declined to give details while the process is continuing.

Discussion: Washington Post

David Blair / Telegraph:
Syria: second bid to evacuate journalists fails

Discussion: Committee to Protect … and Sky News

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

Murdoch claims three million sale for Sun on Sunday launch — Sunday title launches with ‘decency’ vow to readers - as media commentators describe first edition as ‘bland’ — News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch has claimed a launch day circulation of more than three million for the first edition of the Sun on Sunday.

Discussion: Media Week, @rupertmurdoch, @rupertmurdoch, Press Gazette, The Independent, Sands Media Services, Poynter, Editor's Blog, Bloomberg, The Sun, Business Insider, FishbowlNY, Guardian, Guardian and Wall Street Journal

Felix Salmon:

Why journalists need to link — Jonathan Stray has a great essay up at Nieman Lab entitled “Why link out? Four journalistic purposes of the noble hyperlink”. I basically agree with all of it; links are wonderful things, and the more of them that we see in news stories …

Discussion: The Buttry Diary, Mother Jones, Guardian, One Man & His Blog and GigaOM

Sonya Hubbard / footnoted.com:

Details about the Gray Lady's $25,000-per-hour consultant... When the New York Times' (NYT) and its president and former chief executive, Janet L. Robinson, announced a few months ago that Robinson would step down at the end of the year - even though no successor had been identified - the news caught many off guard.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and Business Insider

David Carr / New York Times:

White House Uses Espionage Act to Pursue Leak Cases — Last Wednesday in the White House briefing room, the administration's press secretary, Jay Carney, opened on a somber note, citing the deaths of Marie Colvin and Anthony Shadid, two reporters who had died “in order to bring truth” while reporting in Syria.

Discussion: Prof Chris Daly's Blog and Media Nation

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

With Book, Buchanan Set His Fate — As the conservative polemicist Pat Buchanan prepared last fall for the release of his book “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?,” some friends who worked with him at MSNBC were worried. The book, they told him, would provoke controversy and threaten his professional well-being.

Discussion: TVNewser, Politico and Inside Cable News

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Washington Post steps into paid content with iPad app for politics news — The new WP Politics iPad app, which launches Monday, marks The Washington Post's most significant attempt yet to charge readers for digital content. — The Post's website and most everything else it does digitally is free (ad-supported).

Discussion: FishbowlDC, MediaPost, Washington Post, Daily Download and Mashable!

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Pearson Sees Digital Income Beating Print Publishing In 2012 — Pearson's digital revenue grew 18 percent to £2 ($3.17) billion (a third of the total) through 2011, as its book publisher Penguin's e-book sales rose 106 percent and the group reached 43 million students through digital learning services.

Discussion: Media Week and Pearson

BuzzFeed:

Michael Hastings Joins BuzzFeed To Cover Obama Campaign — Social news leader BuzzFeed has hired Michael Hastings to cover President Barack Obama's re-election campaign. Hastings, a bestselling author and writer whose coverage of the war in Afghanistan has shaken the political and military establishment …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Politico, FishbowlNY, @antderosa and Capital New York

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

PolitiFact walks back second ruling in a month, this time on Rubio claim — PolitiFact has revised its piece from Feb. 14, which found U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio's contention that “the majority of Americans are conservatives” to be “Mostly True.” It's now “Half True.”

Discussion: The Huffington Post and @jayrosen_nyu