Mediagazer: Twitter launches advertising services in Middle East (Matt Smith/Reuters)

2:40 PM ET, January 27, 2013

Top News:

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

Truth, Money, Right, Wrong — Yesterday I wrote about the ongoing CNET editorial independence issue. I said that the editors and journalists at CNET were part of the problem, and suggested that they either publish their (assumed) dissent, or resign, or both.

Discussion: @arrington, @brianstelter and @tcarmody

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

“We Are Supposed To Be Truth Tellers” — A couple of weeks ago CNET was put into an absurd situation - they could not favorably cover a technology product because the company behind that product was in litigation with CNET's parent company, CBS. — I wasn't all that interested in the story at the time.

Discussion: Forbes, Talking Biz News, The Verge, parislemon, @joshuatopolsky, Beyond Search, The Uptake, @jbrodkin, @bendreyfuss, Techi.com and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Tim Carmody / The Verge:
CNET forbidden from reviewing Aereo following CBS-Dish controversy

Discussion: Deadline.com, 9to5Mac, TechCrunch, Techdirt, The Atlantic Wire, Boing Boing, plus.google.com, Talking Biz News, CNET, The Consumerist, @sdkstl, Poynter, CNET, Daring Fireball, @learmonth and @pkafka

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Obama: ‘One of the biggest factors is going to be how the media shapes debates’ — In an interview with The New Republic's Franklin Foer and Chris Hughes, President Obama “asked us in granular detail about the health of the media business.” Specifically, he “wanted to know if The New Yorker …

Discussion: Politico, New Republic, Mediaite, @yappelbaum and The Huffington Post

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Lessons from The New York Times' app graveyard: When an app has an expiration date — The election is over. Even the inauguration is over. So it makes sense, perhaps, that The New York Times this week discontinued its Elections 2012 mobile app. — The Times launched the app some 13 months ago …

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Rupert Murdoch endorses Piers Morgan … Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, pro-Piers Morgan. — News Corp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch has issued an endorsement of Piers Morgan, the CNN host who has spent the last six weeks advocating for increased gun control, a cause Murdoch supports.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @piersmorgan, Mediaite and @rupertmurdoch

Matt Smith / Reuters:

Twitter launches advertising services in Middle East — Twitter Inc launched advertising services in the Middle East and North Africa on Sunday as the social media firm seeks to exploit a tripling of its regional subscriber base following its widespread use during the Arab Spring protests.

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

Why It's Hard for Trump — or Anyone — to Buy the N.Y. Times — Ridicule of Donald Trump has become an almost daily occurrence. This week, the mockery came after he was revealed to be the latest billionaire interested in owning the New York Times. Again, and again, and again.

Thanks:@jaredbkeller

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
New York Times Buyout Situation Still Unclear

Discussion: Talking Biz News and Poynter

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Fox Says Its 3-Year Relationship With Palin Is Over — “Sarah, where are you?” one of Sarah Palin's 3.4 million Facebook fans wrote on her wall last week. “Has your contract with Fox ended?” another fan asked the day before. — Fox News has indeed parted ways with Ms. Palin …

Discussion: BREITBART.COM, The Week, The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed, New York Magazine, Chickaboomer, The Huffington Post, Mediaite, New York Post, ABCNEWS, Adweek, Real Clear Politics, Pressing Issues, TVNewser, Change of Subject and The Raw Story

Scott Sayare / New York Times:

Amid Algeria Siege, 2 Mauritanian News Agencies Get Scoops — PARIS — There were no reporters on hand when Islamist militants emerged from the sands of eastern Algeria last week to storm a gas facility full of international workers, and Algerian security forces cordoned off the site during …

Discussion: @mlcalderone

Kathy E. Gill / MediaShift:

Who Really Owns Your Photos in Social Media? (Updated 2013 Edition) — A recent U.S. court decision clarified that media organizations cannot assume that photos shared via Twitter are rights-free, to be used as though they were in the public domain. In the case of Agence France-Presse …

Steve Davis / Think Like an Editor:

The new newsroom — We have a media lab of the future right here in Syracuse, where the Syracuse Post-Standard is evolving into a “new newsroom,” where staffers have no desks or workspaces of their own and carry their own mini-newsroom on their backs. It's a story worth following …

Discussion: @ksablan

Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:

Twitter suspends account of Somali Islamist militants linked to Al-Qaeda — Two days after a group of Somali islamist militants vowed to execute Kenyan hostages, and tweeted a video of a captive pleading for the Kenyan government to help free them, the Al-Shabaab Twitter account @HSMPress was suspended.

Discussion: Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Reuters