Mediagazer: Newspaper payments for potentially illegal information revealed (Lucy Manning/ITV News)

9:50 PM ET, March 28, 2012

Top News:

News Corp. Said to Plan U.S. Sports Network to Rival ESPN — Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NWSA) is taking steps to start a national U.S. sports network on cable television aimed at challenging Walt Disney Co. (DIS)'s ESPN, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Discussion: Forbes, The Wrap, PBS, Deadline.com, AllThingsD, The Atlantic Wire, The Huffington Post, @pkafka, Business Insider, Politico, Guardian and msnbc.com

Matt Siegel / New York Times:

Murdoch's News Ltd. Rejects TV Piracy Claim in Australia — SYDNEY — Rupert Murdoch's embattled media empire found itself facing fresh controversy on Wednesday, after an Australian newspaper published an investigative report alleging that News Corporation had engaged a special unit …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Deadline.com, Reuters, The Independent and Australian Finance Review

Lucy Manning / ITV News:
Newspaper payments for potentially illegal information revealed

Discussion: Reuters, National Updates, @iburrell, Guardian and themediablog.typepad.com

Josh Halliday / Guardian: Australian minister wants News Corp inquiry

Press Gazette: Thurlbeck: Phone-hacking was rife across Fleet Street

Frontline:
Murdoch's Scandal — FRONTLINE goes inside the struggle …

Discussion: Guardian, PBS, MetaFilter and Vanity Fair

Michael Wolff / Guardian:

Mobile and the news media's imploding business model — Smartphones will soon be the primary news source for most Americans. That's if anyone can still make money by reporting — Pew research has a new survey showing that tablets and smart phones are now 27% of Americans' primary news source.

Discussion: Forbes and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Anthony Rieber / Newsday:

Jeremy Lin meets with ex-ESPN headline writer — Knicks star Jeremy Lin had lunch on Tuesday with the former ESPN employee who was fired last month for writing a headline about Lin that included a racially insensitive word. — Lin met with Anthony Federico, a 28-year-old Connecticut man, during a Knicks off-day.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Business Insider and Gothamist

Keach Hagey / Politico:

Ex-Rocky editor offered WashPost ME job — John Temple, editor of the Honolulu-based local news site Civil Beat and former editor of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, has been offered managing editor job at the Washington Post, POLITICO has learned. — The job has been open since Raju …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

The WaPo Ombudsman's Faulty Paywall Analysis — The NYT's meter is saving or adding more than $70 million in revenue a year already — Washington Post ombudsman Patrick B. Pexton has a flawed analysis on the logic of a possible paywall there and on the performance of the one that already exists at The New York Times.

Discussion: Poynter

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Syria, citizen journalism and the capital “T,” truth — As we have described a number of times at GigaOM, journalism has become something virtually anyone can practice now, thanks to social tools and digital media. This democratization of distribution has had a profound effect on the coverage …

Thanks:@acarvin

Elizabeth Flock / Washington Post:
Are Syrian citizen journalists embellishing the truth?

Discussion: MediaShift Idea Lab

Mike Armstrong / Philly.com:

Investor group's offer for PMN: $60 million — A group of local investors reportedly has offered to pay $60 million to acquire the parent company of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com. — Those investors, led by businessman Lewis Katz and insurance executive …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

University of Texas Student Paper Wins ‘Most Racist Trayvon Martin Cartoon’ Contest — Here's cartoonist Stephanie Eisner's latest political cartoon published in the Daily Texan, the student paper at the University of Texas- Austin. You can see “The Media” there, telling its lies again …

Discussion: Austinist, Business Insider, Daily Texan, Inside Higher Ed, The Daily Texan blogs, Human Events, The Huffington Post and Hair Balls

Dylan Byers / Politico:

NY Times Guild members win their 35 hours — The New York Times yesterday sent “a new, comprehensive proposal” to the Newspaper Guild of New York, in which it offered — among other things — to give Guild members a one-percent raise (plus a one-percent bonus in the second year) and to drop the proposal to end the Guild medical plan.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The FJP and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Kelly McBride / Poynter:

ESPN should find ways to cover the Trayvon Martin story rather than become part of it — ESPN.com's Jemele Hill did a very nice, tight column this week explaining how the lives of professional athletes are connected to the life and death of Trayvon Martin. — Contrast that to ESPN's bouncing …

Discussion: Techdirt, Guardian, @PSFK, The Newspaper Guild and ESPN

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Two independent journalists killed in Syria — Syrian security forces shot and killed two freelance British journalists of Algerian descent and wounded a third during an attack on Monday in the town of Darkoush near the Turkish border, according to news reports and a witness interviewed by CPJ.

Discussion: The Journalism Foundation and Guardian

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:
Two British freelance journalists killed in Syria, CPJ reports

Discussion: ArabSaga

Dashiell Bennett / The Atlantic Wire:

The New Republic Tears Down Its Pay Wall — Readers and pundits have been wondering how a new owner might change the venerable Washington political magazine, The New Republic, and they just got a early answer. A post on the magazine's blog announced early this morning that the website will drop its pay wall for recent articles.

Discussion: The New Republic, paidContent and Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check

Erik Wemple:

Why did New York Times call George Zimmerman ‘white Hispanic’? — Fox News contributor Bernard Goldberg is lashing out at the New York Times for its coverage of the Trayvon Martin case. His gripe? The paper's stylebook. Let Goldberg describe his concern:

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and Mediaite

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:

Orwell Prize 2012 Journalism and Blog longlists announced — Guardian journalist Paul Lewis is among those on the Journalism Prize longlist after submitting one day of tweets sent during the London riots — A total of 12 journalists and 18 bloggers have been named as contenders for this year's Orwell Prize.

Discussion: Jon Slattery