Mediagazer: DEAR AOL: So, Did Patch Boss Warren Webster Really Not Write That Comment, Or Were You Just Saying That? (Henry Blodget/Business Insider)

9:30 AM ET, February 28, 2012

Top News:

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:

News Corp faces threat of US legal action — Fresh allegations increase likelihood of News Corp being prosecuted under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, experts say — Fresh allegations of a “culture of illegal payments” at the Sun newspaper have significantly increased the likelihood …

Discussion: Street Fight, Crikey and Press Gazette

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone hacking: six News of the World staff instructed Mulcaire, papers allege — Court documents submitted on behalf of hacking victims allege ‘conspiracy’ between private investigator and senior executives — Six journalists at the News of the World were involved in instructing private …

Discussion: The Independent, Guardian and BBC

Tom Harper / This Is London:

Rebekah's gift horse from Met shows its close ties to Murdoch newspapers — Scotland Yard loaned Rebekah Brooks a police horse, the Standard can reveal. — The 43-year-old former News International chief executive rode the retired horse for a year at her farm in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire before it was put out to pasture.

Discussion: Press Association, Press Gazette, Journalism.co.uk, Guy Fawkes' blog, Guardian and Guardian

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

Discussion: Guardian, New York Times, Big News Network.com, Guardian and Guardian

TechCrunch:

Goodbye Erick, Hello Eric — TechCrunch has been through a lot lately, and we need to focus on what truly matters: covering startups and innovation. So, this post is going to be short. — But here is what's going on: Erick Schonfeld is leaving and Eric Eldon is replacing him as editor.

Discussion: New York Magazine, FishbowlNY, AllThingsD, AOL Corp, Betabeat, PandoDaily and Business Insider

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

AOL sees three more major talent departures — For some reason, tech/media company AOL usually experiences talent departures in waves. Today for instance, people in three major positions announced that the were leaving the company for one reason or another.

Discussion: AllThingsD, TechCrunch and Business Insider

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Interview: FT CEO Denies Sale And Braves Strike Ahead Of Social Launch — Financial Times CEO John Ridding rejects dinner-party chatter that the publisher may be sold to Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters. — Instead, he is pushing the group toward a digital subscription future that, he reveals, will soon incorporate social networks.

Discussion: Guardian and Talking Biz News

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Pearson Sees Digital Income Beating Print Publishing In 2012

Discussion: Pearson, Personanondata, Media Week, Folio and paidContent:UK

Guardian:

Syria: conflicting reports of journalists' rescue from Homs - live updates — • Journalist Paul Conroy reported safe in Lebanon — • Whereabouts of Edith Bouvier remain unclear — • Thousands of Syrian activists appear on regime ‘hit list’ — • Elite fourth division armoured sent to Homs

Discussion: Poynter, Reuters, Reuters, CNN, Mother Jones and New York Times

Stephen Farrell / At War:
Conflict Reporting in the Post-Embed Era

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, Freedom of the Prez and The Editor's Desk

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

New Magazine Aims for ‘Luxury Customers’ — Do you have a net worth of $5 million? A house worth more than $1.5 million? An average income of more than $250,000? And an affinity for bargain hunting? — If you answered yes, then, aside from being extremely lucky, you're just the reader for Du Jour …

Discussion: Adweek and FishbowlNY

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Does WikiLeaks still matter? — It has been some time since WikiLeaks stunned the world with classified video of U.S. military attacks on civilians in Iraq and thousands of secret diplomatic cables — revelations that triggered an all-out attack on founder Julian Assange by the U.S. government …

Discussion: Jack Shafer, The Atlantic Online, Charlie Beckett, Guardian, paidContent and WebProNews

Quinn Norton / Wired:
Wikileaks Pairs with Anonymous to Publish Intelligence Firm's Dirty Laundry

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Did Warren Buffett Just Bash the Washington Post's Strategy? — Warren Buffett is The Washington Post Co.'s biggest, most influential and most loyal outside shareholder. Don Graham, the Post Co.'s chairman and head of its controlling family, regards Buffett with something close to awe …

Discussion: Forbes and Poynter

Tim Carmody / Wired:

Oscar Night Turns Into a Winning Night for Netflix, Too — Promotional photo for Best Picture winner The Artist, courtesy Weinstein Company — Sunday night's telecast of the Oscars showed an industry unusually infatuated with itself and its own history, even by the standards of awards shows.

Discussion: New York Times, Engadget, Home Media Magazine and GigaOM

Steven Musil / CNET:

Yahoo picks patent fight with Facebook — The foundering Web pioneer reportedly wants the social-networking giant to license 10 to 20 patents related to advertising and Web page personalization. — Yahoo appears to be turning to patent licensing to boost its fortunes.

Discussion: DealBook, Forbes, PandoDaily, The Next Web, Business Insider, @mathewi, TechCrunch, SlashGear, ZDNet, The Wall Blog and parislemon

Mike Reynolds / Multichannel News:

National Cable Ad Sales Grew 7.8% to $22.1 Billion in 2011: CAB — Group Attributes Growth To Upfront, Scatter Gains, Proliferation of Original Programming — National cable ad sales surpassed the $22 billion plateau last year, according to Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau calculations.

Discussion: MediaPost, TVWeek.com and Broadcasting & Cable