Mediagazer: Yahoo's Big Question - What Is It? (David Carr/New York Times)

10:45 AM ET, July 23, 2012

Top News:

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

NI staff ‘appeared to have data from stolen phones’ — The Scotland Yard investigation into alleged illegal payments by journalists to police and other public officials has been extended to Trinity Mirror and Richard Desmond's Express Newspapers, the Leveson inquiry has heard.

Discussion: Press Gazette

Sandra Laville / Guardian:

Police are using phone-hacking scandal to claw back control of information — Seminal research by Steve Chibnall more than 30 years ago on the relationship between the Metropolitan police and crime correspondents concluded that the balance of power was asymmetrically in favour of the police.

Nick Cohen / The Observer:

Persecuting the press diminishes us all — The police timed their “knock” with care. They hit the reporter's home at 6.30am. They humiliated their target by ordering him from his bed and arresting him in front of his partner and frightened children. They arrested him when he was half-asleep …

Dominic Ponsford / Editor's Blog: And then they came for me...the unprecedented wave of journalist arrests has become a threat to all of us

Shira Ovide / Wall Street Journal:

For the Olympics, Twitter and NBC Form Partnership — As athletes parade into London's Olympic Stadium this Friday, Twitter Inc.'s Olympic hopes will play out in a spartan office in Boulder, Colo. — There, a handful of people will spend 20 hours a day to help corral millions of Twitter messages …

Discussion: PC Magazine, Venture Capital Dispatch, NewscastStudio Blog, Deadline.com, The Wall Blog, CNET and eMedia Vitals

David Carr / New York Times:

Yahoo's Big Question - What Is It? — What is Yahoo? — That straightforward question has so far baffled the people who run the company. — I got a taste of the fuzziness when I visited Carol Bartz, then the chief executive, back in 2010. She was funny, profane and articulate, except on the question of what the company is.

Discussion: Media Decoder, AllThingsD, AdAge, AllThingsD, Los Angeles Times and ReveNews

David Carr / Media Decoder:

In Aurora, a Sadly Familiar Template Kicks In for the News Media — When a lone assassin sets off on a rampage, there is very little sense to be made of what takes place. But, still, the news media, responding to sincere and frightened public appetites, attempts to bring order out of the chaos.

Helen Lewis / New Statesman: How the media shouldn't cover a mass murder

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

National Journal Bars Quotations Tweaked by Sources — National Journal said it would ban the use of quotations that had been massaged or manipulated by its sources, joining a growing chorus of news organizations that are objecting to a practice that has become increasingly common in political journalism.

Discussion: Poynter, Chickaboomer, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, The Next Web and Guardian

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

NPR ombud: Editors ‘are right’ to give plagiarizing intern another chance — What we have here ... is a cultural gap," Edward Schumacher-Matos writes about Ahmad Shafi, an NPR intern who got busted for plagiarism. — Shafi worked as a “translator, occasional reporter and all-round ‘fixer’” …

Max Fisher / The Atlantic Online:

CNN's Effusive Coverage of Kazakhstan Is Quietly Sponsored by Its Subject — The Republic of Kazakhstan is not the sort of country that you hear about much in American media. Newspapers and TV networks have limited space, after all, and with so much happening in places like China and the Middle East …

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Aereo's founder has broadcast TV in a headlock—now what? (Q&A) — Chet Kanojia created a new way for consumers to access broadcast TV. A federal court says the networks can't do a thing about it — for now. Learn how the CEO plans to wield his new power. — Follow @sandoCNET

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Feds to eBook Settlement Critics: Haters Gonna Hate — The federal government is close to finalizing a settlement with three big e-book publishers it has accused of price-fixing. But first, a bit of civic stagecraft: The Department of Justice posted the settlement, invited public comment, and then ignored the public comment.

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

The NYT's & WSJ's Push To Online Video — Twice a week this month, Digiday will examine ways of “Improving Web Video.” We'll cover both challenges and opportunities in online video and highlight brands and publishers getting it right. The series is made possible through the sponsorship of Vizu.

Discussion: Talking Biz News