Mediagazer: Spitzer, Slate win dismissal of ex-Marsh exec's libel lawsuit (Jonathan Stempel/Reuters)

4:50 PM ET, September 28, 2012

Top News:

Jessica Testa / BuzzFeed:

Car Chase Ends In Man Shooting Himself On Live TV — Shepard Smith's “get off it, get off it, get off it” came too late. WARNING: This post contains two versions: one that shows the suicide and one that does not. Proceed with caution.

Rebecca Shapiro / The Huffington Post:

Shep Smith Apologizes For Fox News Airing Live Suicide: ‘We Really Messed Up’ — A shaken Shep Smith apologized to Fox News viewers after the network failed to cut away from a car-jacker committing suicide on air. Throughout Smith's 3:00 p.m. show, the network cut to and from a live car chase near Phoenix, Arizona.

Discussion: Poynter, New York Magazine and Politico

Adam Gabbatt / Guardian:

Fox News carries live video of man shooting himself after car chase — Network was showing Arizona chase on tape-delay but failed to cut the feed before suspect shot himself in the head — Fox News was forced to apologise on Friday after showing a man shooting himself in the head on live television.

Discussion: Mediaite, The New York Observer and Telegraph

David Kravets / Wired:

Justice Department's Warrantless Spying Increased 600 Percent in Decade — The Justice Department use of warrantless internet and telephone surveillance methods known as pen register and trap-and-trace has exploded in the last decade, according to government documents the American Civil Liberties obtained via …

Discussion: Naked Security, Hot Air and Forbes

Pete Yost / Associated Press:
Feds' use of surveillance devices rises sharply

Discussion: ACLU and Business Insider

Kelly McBride / Poynter:

Journalism has an originality problem, not a plagiarism problem — Professional journalism isn't facing a plagiarism problem. It's facing an originality failure. — And you can't blame the Internet. Our originality breakdown results from many pressures — the overwhelming volume …

Discussion: @laureni, Canada's online magazine and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Obama administration's FOIA record worse than Bush's — Bloomberg News found that 19 of 20 federal agencies did not comply within 20 days to a request for travel expenses made under the Freedom of Information Act. Jim Snyder and Danielle Ivory report:

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Public Editor's Journal and Hit & Run

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Music publisher blocked iPhone 5 music service, report says — Sony/ATV and Apple couldn't agree on licensing fees and that's why we didn't see a Pandora-like music service from Apple, according to a story in the New York Post. — Some people waited days in line for the iPhone 5.

Discussion: New York Post, TechCrunch, BGR, iDownloadBlog.com and MacRumors

Edward Wyatt / New York Times:

F.C.C. Approves Auction Process for Spectrum — WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission gave preliminary approval on Thursday to a process to pay television broadcasters to voluntarily give up some of their public airwaves, which then would be auctioned to cellphone companies for wireless Internet service.

Discussion: Hillicon Valley, Broadcasting & Cable and The Next Web

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Google's Copyright Crackdown Punishes Author For Torrenting His Own Book — Over the years, we've pointed out repeatedly a massive Achilles Heel for Google: its often dreadful customer service. Trying to communicate with Google can often be like facing a giant white monolith, rather than any sort of human being.

Discussion: Forbes and Start Programming with Python

The Atlantic Wire:

Iran's News Agency Reruns ‘The Onion’ As Real News — Iran's state-run FARS News Agency just published a shocking new Gallup Poll that was actually “conducted” by the fake news titans at The Onion. This FARS post from today (datelined Tehran) is a word-for-word copy of this article that went …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Fars News Agency, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Media Decoder, The Lede, Gawker and @theonion

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Spitzer, Slate win dismissal of ex-Marsh exec's libel lawsuit — Sept 28 (Reuters) - Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and the online magazine Slate on Friday won dismissal of a $60 million libel lawsuit by a former Marsh & McLennan Cos executive over a column about an insurance bid-rigging scandal.

Tessa Stuart / LA Weekly:

GOOD Founder Ben Goldhirsh Talks About Launching a New Platform and Firing Editorial Staffers — When word hit the street back in June that GOOD Magazine would be transforming its website into a “platform” — oh, and it was firing the majority of its editorial staff — readers and media-watchers …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

The ‘Voice’ moves on, and so does Tony Ortega — It's only been a week since Tony Ortega's last day as editor-in-chief of The Village Voice, which is searching for a successor under a newly formed parent company in which the Voice will no longer share business with the controversial classified website Backpage.com.

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Can Boutique Publishing Be Big Business? NSFW Corp. Says Yes — Believe it or not, there was a time when 1 million people was a respectable audience. In the era of Facebook, Google and ad networks, a million people is a rounding error. Publishers who try to play the audience game …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Friday Q&A: Kevin Delaney on making Quartz an essential international brand — Before Quartz became a device-morphing business site and the buzz of online journalism circles, it was a blank canvas. That's an enviable position these days, particularly if you've got the backing of Atlantic Media …

Discussion: GigaOM, eMedia Vitals and Folio

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:

‘Innocence of Muslims’ Filmmaker Arrested by Feds — Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man whose film “The Innocence of Muslims” has sparked violent protests across the Muslim world, was taken into custody Thursday by federal authorities for allegedly violating his probation.

Discussion: New York Times, L.A. NOW, Poynter, New York Magazine, Forbes and Reuters

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Pandora Founder Takes to Own Airwaves in Royalty Battle — In an unlikely entry into the political campaign season, Pandora founder Tim Westergren is taking to his own airwaves to urge listeners to contact their congressional representatives about what Pandora calls “discrimination against internet radio.”

Peter Rawlings / Bloomberg:

NBCUniversal Media Planning $2 Billion of 10- and 30-Year Bonds — NBCUniversal Media LLC, the U.S. media and entertainment company, plans to sell $2 billion of debt in two parts in its first offering in more than a year. — NBCUniversal, which is 51 percent owned by Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) …

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Former Copyright Boss: New Technology Should Be Presumed Illegal Until Congress Says Otherwise — One of the reasons why we live in such an innovative society is that we've (for the most part) enabled a permissionless innovation society — one in which innovators no longer have to go through gatekeepers …

Discussion: Boing Boing and Hit & Run

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Universal Music Completes $1.9 Billion EMI Recorded Music Acquisition — “This is a next step towards ensuring the health of our industry,” says UMG chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge. — our editor recommends — Universal Music Gets U.S. Approval for EMI Acquisition

Discussion: Media Decoder and Music Ally