Mediagazer: Inquirer: Rendell relinquishes lead in Philly papers purchase, as his group gets exclusive consideration (Julie Moos/Poynter)

2:40 PM ET, March 8, 2012

Top News:

U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers — Justice Department Threatens Lawsuits, Alleging Collusion Over E-Book Pricing — The Justice Department has warned Apple Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter.

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Apple Downplays Role Of “Kindle Threat” In Alleged e-Book Conspiracy — A court filing provides new insight into Apple's version of events concerning an incident in which Steve Jobs told a reporter that “unhappy” publishers might withhold e-books from Amazon.

Jeff Roberts / paidContent: The U.S. Threat To Sue Apple And Publishers: What It Means

Financial Times:

Challenge to Murdoch grip on BSkyB — Rupert Murdoch is facing a fresh challenge to his UK media business as it emerged that Britain's communications regulator has escalated its probe into whether British Sky Broadcasting is a “fit and proper” owner of a broadcasting licence.

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

PCC to close in wake of hacking scandal — Media watchdog will be replaced by transitional body until replacement is set up after Leveson inquiry — The Press Complaints Commission is to be shut down after 21 years, closing one of the most controversial chapters in the history of self regulation of the UK newspaper industry.

Discussion: Deadline.com, @wikileaks, Poynter and The Independent

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian: Trinity Mirror journalists warned as hacking victims

Josh Halliday / Guardian: Sun and NoW publisher had ‘enthusiastic involvement’ with police

Paul Sawers / The Next Web: WikiLeaks claims it submitted a 100-page dossier to UK Leveson Inquiry on media corruption

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Inquirer: Rendell relinquishes lead in Philly papers purchase, as his group gets exclusive consideration — The group of local leaders interested in buying the Philadelphia papers is now being led by H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, who was asked to take over by former governor Ed Rendell, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Discussion: Philly.com

Dave Davies / newsworks:

Would the Philadelphia Daily News show cartoonist Signe Wilkinson the door? — Could Philadelphia lose two Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists in a month? Uh, yeah. The Inquirer's Tony Auth has already taken the employee buyout offered by Philadelphia Media Network, which owns both Philly papers and Philly.com.

Jim Romenesko:
Why Tony Auth is leaving the Philadelphia Inquirer

Discussion: Washington Post and NewsWorks

Don Kaplan / New York Post:

Simmons' $5M salary, ‘antics’ led to WNBC ditching her: sources — There were 5 million reasons to oust Sue Simmons — and they were all in her paycheck. — WNBC/Channel 4 refused to renew the nightly news anchor's contract because she makes a whopping $5 million annual salary …

Discussion: New York Times, NY Daily News, Chickaboomer, Poynter, Gothamist and New York Post

Foster Kamer / The New York Observer:
Save Sue Simmons: The Internet Campaign Begins

Discussion: PopWatch, The Awl and The Huffington Post

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Time Names Editor-At-Large — Time has named Bobby Ghosh an Editor-at-Large. Ghosh has been with Time since 1997, and most recently served as Deputy International Editor. Prior to that Ghosh was Time's Baghdad Bureau Chief for five years. — As an Editor-at-Large Ghosh will be a …

Discussion: GalleyCat, @amywicks01 and @amywicks01

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

PRX hires Silicon Valley journopreneur Corey Ford to run the Public Media Accelerator — Corey Ford, a former Frontline documentarian who left public media to reinvent it in Silicon Valley, has been named director of the Public Media Accelerator, a $2.5 million incubator launched by PRX and funded by the Knight Foundation.

Discussion: TechCrunch

Vivienne Walt / Time:

Out of Syria's Carnage: A Survivor's Testimony of Bab Amr's Last Stand — Late on Feb. 21 a message arrived at TIME's Photo department in New York. It was from French photographer William Daniels, saying he had smuggled himself into the epicenter of Syria's yearlong revolt — the besieged neighborhood of Bab Amr, in the city of Homs.

Discussion: Poynter

Heather Murphy / Slate:

In Defense of Instagram: Why News Photography Goes Well With Vintage-Filtered Cat Pics — The left half of this photo has been placed through an Instagram filter. The right half has not. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. — If its critics are to be believed, Instagram is one of the best deals in the world.

Discussion: Poynter

Julie Moos / Poynter:

BreakingNews adds verticals on Twitter, website — BreakingNews is expanding this week with a new Twitter vertical on politics, while BreakingNews.com is also adding topical navigation. @Breakingpol joins @breakingstorm (started during Hurricane Irene) and a UK feed to become …

Discussion: Inside

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

BBC Plans iTunes Competitor With Download Fees For New And Old Shows — The BBC is developing a radical scheme under which UK viewers would pay to download new and old BBC TV shows from a service it hopes will compete with iTunes. — paidContent has learned the BBC executive wants …

Jim Romenesko:

Journalism Jobs founder: 'It's been a great ride' — “Surprisingly you can still find a great job with a newspaper,” he says in a phone interview. “Most of the jobs on our site are for newspaper jobs. We don't get a ton of TV jobs, just because TV stations are notoriously cheap.

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

Copy Cats: The Secret Art Cabal Inside The New York Times — There's an early scene in CQ/CX—a new off-Broadway play about The New York Times that does not pretend any character's resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental—in which the guy based on Jayson Blair encounters …

Discussion: Poynter and The Newspaper Guild

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

UK broadcaster Channel 4 to launch a new catch-up channel based on what's being discussed online — Speaking at the Financial Times' Digital Media Conference today, David Abraham, CEO of UK broadcaster Channel 4, announced a brand new channel called 4Seven, which will be launching this year.

Discussion: Pocket-lint, Guardian and Journalism.co.uk

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Fox News Draws the Most ‘Super Tuesday’ Viewers — Fox News Channel easily out-rated its cable news rivals on Tuesday, the Super Tuesday night of primaries and caucuses in 10 states. The channel even topped the only broadcast network, NBC, that produced a prime-time special about the primaries.

Discussion: Company Town, Multichannel, MediaPost and Mediaite

Summer Harlow / JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS:

UNESCO launches Women Make the News 2012 initiative to highlight rural women's access to information — The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has endorsed UNESCO's Women Make the News 2012 initiative, to be celebrated Thursday, March 8, in connection with International Women's Day.

Discussion: 10,000 Words

Jean Kaplansky / Digital Book World:

The Shiny New iPad: What it Means for Publishers — Apple's announcement of the new iPad received a lot of attention today, but what does it mean for your business? — Advancements — Changes to the new iPad are primarily hardware-based. The new key features are a quad-core A5X processor …

Discussion: BGR, ReadWriteWeb, Bloomberg, The Onion, New York Times and BuzzFeed