Mediagazer: Massachusetts Considers Shield Law For Journalist Bloggers (Wendy Davis/MediaPost)

11:25 AM ET, March 6, 2012

Top News:

Two Murdoch reporters feared to be in suicide bids — Two senior journalists at News International have apparently attempted to commit suicide as pressure mounts inside the Murdoch media empire. The reporters appeared to try to take their own lives after the company turned over 300 million emails …

Discussion: Business Insider

Neville Thurlbeck / @nthurlbeck:

I'm afraid there was a very serious suicide attempt by an NoTW staffer before Christmas taking the number to 3, thanks to the MSC.

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:

News Corp dropped top US anti-bribery lawyer from its legal team — Amid possible US prosecution, leading expert on FCPA stopped advising Murdoch empire soon after he was hired this summer — News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's media empire that is under investigation by the FBI …

Discussion: Law Blog, Media Decoder and Company Town

David Leigh / Guardian:
Yard chief ate with ex-deputy NoW editor after bid to halt Guardian story

Discussion: Crikey, Press Gazette and Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal:

Limbaugh Syndicator Defends Host — More advertisers and at least one radio station defected from Rush Limbaugh's radio show on Monday, even as the syndication company behind the program defended the conservative political pundit. AOL Inc. was among the latest advertisers to pull out in response …

Discussion: Poynter, Raleigh News & Observer, Hollywood Reporter, Speakeasy and Bloomberg

Foster Kamer / The New York Observer:
Rush Limbaugh's Consolation Prize: Twitter Followers

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Mediaite, This Just In and CNN

James Crugnale / Mediaite:
Report: Second Radio Station Drops The Rush Limbaugh Show (Updated)

Discussion: The Hill, New England Public Radio News, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, VatorNews, The Raw Story, Business Insider, The Huffington Post and The Jane Dough

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Advertisers' Boycott Won't Dent Rush Limbaugh's Earnings

Discussion: FishbowlDC, The Huffington Post, CNN, Guardian, 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com, ABCNEWS, Gawker, Daily Kos, Broadcasting & Cable and Rolling Stone

The Huffington Post:
Rush Limbaugh, AOL Part Ways

Discussion: Forbes, msnbc.com, AlterNet.org, Wonkette, Daily Kos, Forbes, FishbowlNY, aflcio.org, Boing Boing, Gothamist, South Florida Daily Blog and The Newspaper Guild

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:
As Advertisers Recoil, Limbaugh Says, ‘So Be It’

Discussion: New York Magazine, TVNewser, The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:

Papers Put Faith in Paywalls — Digital Subscription Sales Are Slow, but Publishers Are Encouraged by Trends — As more newspapers close the door on free access to their websites, some publishers are still waiting for paying customers to pour in. — The numbers of readers signing …

Discussion: Noted and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Gloria Goodale / Christian Science Monitor:

Los Angeles Times joins the crowd, erects pay wall for the news online — The Los Angeles Times will even charge its print subscribers a monthly fee to read news online. But will pay walls save ailing print newspapers or just guarantee their ultimate demise? — LOS ANGELES

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

Marie Colvin funeral to be held in New York this weekend — Body of veteran Sunday Times reporter killed covering the Syria uprising en route back to the USA — Marie Colvin: ‘died doing something she was completely passionate about’ — The funeral of Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin …

Press TV: ‘Rebels killed Western journalists in Syria, not Assad army’

Wendy Davis / MediaPost:

Massachusetts Considers Shield Law For Journalist Bloggers — Lawmakers in Massachusetts are considering enacting a shield law that would allow at least some bloggers to protect the identity of their sources. The Free Flow of Information Act would prohibit judges from ordering members of the news media to divulge their sources.

Laura Snider / Daily Camera:

11-year-old publishes 200th issue of Boulder community newspaper — There's another Camera newspaper in town. Residents of one south Boulder neighborhood can get the Boardman Camera personally delivered once a week by the publisher (who is also the editor, reporter, illustrator, ads salesman …

Discussion: Poynter

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Alt weeklies eye an AP of their own with a content exchange — The Association of Alternative Newsmedia is building out a kind of wire service to allow alternative news sites to share content with each other — and maybe make some money. — The recently launched AltWeeklies Content Exchange lets papers …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Street Fight

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Newspapers: It's not a revenue problem, it's a culture problem — The Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Research Center has come out with a substantial new report on the efforts of newspapers both large and small to grow their digital businesses, and — not surprisingly, perhaps — the results are all over the map.

Discussion: Knight Digital Media Center …, FishbowlNY, BtoB Magazine, NetNewsCheck Latest, Fortune, Guardian, Gawker and Poynter

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

It's Time to Retire the FCC's Outdated Rules on Media Ownership — Like most industry trade groups, the Newspaper Association of America fights a lot of rearguard actions, such as trying to convince readers and advertisers that newsprint is still a vital medium even as the evidence that it's not anymore piles up left and right.

Discussion: Multichannel, Company Town, Broadcasting & Cable, Bloomberg and Newspaper Association …