Mediagazer: Fired Columnist Sues Kansas City Star (Joe Harris/Courthouse News Service)

1:40 PM ET, July 5, 2012

Top News:

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

WikiLeaks Removes Associated Press From List of Media ‘Collaborators’ On Syria Docs — NEW YORK — When WikiLeaks began publishing some 2.4 million Syrian files on Thursday, a trove that it said includes emails from “political figures, ministries and associated companies,” …

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

WikiLeaks starts publishing 2.4m #SyriaFiles and outlines its ‘search interface’ — WikiLeaks announces the start of its publication of ‘more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies’ from 680 domains — WikiLeaks has today started publishing …

Discussion: VentureBeat, FishbowlNY, Guardian, ZDNet, TechCrunch, Forbes Real Time, CNET and newsfeed.time.com

Marc Chacksfield / TechRadar: Wikileaks unveils The Syria Files - its biggest data leak yet

AAP: Ecuador finds sex claims against Assange ‘hilarious’ as WikiLeaks announces Syrian leak

Nikki Finke / Deadline.com:

HBO Now Targeting Fox News' Roger Ailes With TV Movie Produced By MSNBC Rivals — EXCLUSIVE: HBO appears obsessed by GOP Conservatives. There have been movies about the 2000 Bush vs Gore election standoff and Sarah Palin and most recently a TV series featuring George W Bush's severed head.

Discussion: Capital New York, Mediaite, TVNewser, mediabistro.com, TVWeek.com, Los Angeles Times, Inside Cable News and The Huffington Post

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:

Visual.ly: New infographics tool to launch ‘later this year’ — Stew Langille, CEO of Visual.ly, a platform for creating, exploring and sharing infographics, discusses plans to roll out additional data visualisation creation options later this year — Copyright: Visual.ly infographic on ‘big data’

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

NY Daily News:

Inner Tube: NBC denies report that David Gregory could be on the way out at ‘Meet the Press’ — Network responds quickly to online report and also calls CBS Sunday ratings misleading; Sheryl Lee Ralph plans NYC appearances — NBC gave ‘Meet the Press’ host David Gregory its backing after a report claimed his job was in jeopardy.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Mediaite and Chickaboomer

Associated Press:

Al-Jazeera show's Twitter account hacked — LONDON (AP) — The Twitter account of Al-Jazeera's English-language social media show has been hacked by supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Hackers hijacked the Twitter account of “The Stream,” a program aimed at tapping into online audiences.

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Europe sues to continue taxing digital content higher than physical — When is a book not a book? When it comes to European tax law. Continental lawmakers may punish France and Luxembourg for reducing VAT on e-books to match their physical equivalents. — In many countries …

Discussion: EU Press Room and ZDNet

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone hacking: 26-year-old arrested is News International employee — Publisher's chief executive tells staff that suspect arrested on Thursday morning is not a journalist — The 26-year-old man arrested on Thursday morning in connection with Scotland Yard's phone-hacking inquiry is a News International employee.

Discussion: Press Gazette, Guardian and The Huffington Post

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Operation Elveden: former Mirror journalist among three arrested

Discussion: Press Gazette, @rupertmurdochpr, Guardian and Guy Fawkes' blog

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Murdoch's former adviser gets BSkyB job

Discussion: London Evening Standard

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Reuters Hires Caveman to Write Headlines — What can we say? The new hire at Reuters — a caveman from the Paleolithic Era — was a risky move, but he is doing fantastic work so far. — A tipster told us he still spends a lot of time yelling at the water fountain and he tried to eat a desk last week …

Discussion: Reuters and AppNewser

Joe Harris / Courthouse News Service:

Fired Columnist Sues Kansas City Star — KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CN) - A former columnist claims in court that the Kansas City Star defamed him after firing him for using what he says almost all reporters use - press releases. — Steve Penn worked for the Star from 1980 to July 2011.

Discussion: Poynter

Betsy Rothstein / FishbowlDC:

Ex-Politico WH Correspondent Joe Williams Pleaded Guilty to Assaulting Ex-Wife — It turns out there's another side to Joe Williams, the White House Correspondent and former college football player who recently parted ways with Politico. On May 24 of this year, he pled guilty …

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Ryan Thornburg / MediaShift Idea Lab:

When News Organizations Geocode, How Accurate Are They? — In my intro news writing class at UNC-Chapel Hill we ding students 50 points for allowing a fact error to creep into a story. If the fire happened at 123 W. Main St. and it really happened at 123 E. Main St., it's an instant F …

Jim Romenesko:

Jake Barnes surfaces again — From MARK POTTS: There's a very weird link between the Journatic fake byline scandal and one of the most notorious newspaper fakery scandals: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the fake byline Jeremy Schnitker used to submit 32 articles was Jake Barnes.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and GigaOM