Mediagazer: The battle of New Orleans (Ryan Chittum/Columbia Journalism Review)

1:00 PM ET, March 1, 2013

Top News:

Lex Google: Germany Waters Down Search Engine Legislation — A new law regulating the indexing of media articles by search engines like Google and Bing is likely to pass on Friday. The watered-down legislation won't force the kind of payments to publishers the Internet giant had feared.

Discussion: Financial Times, German Pulse and @anked

Mathias Schindler / Search Engine Land:

New German Law Will Allow Free “Snippets” By Search Engines, But Uncertainty Remains — The good news for search engines like Google is a proposed German copyright law won't require them to pay to show short summaries of news content. However, uncertainty remains about how much might be “too much” and require a license.

Discussion: Bloomberg, VentureBeat, Fast Company, paidContent, VentureVillage and eMedia Vitals

Associated Press:
German Parliament OKs Watered-Down Copyright Law

Discussion: ITworld.com and ZDNet

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

The battle of New Orleans — In May, as the New Orleans Times-Picayune put to bed an epic, eight-part investigation into Louisiana's prison system, its editors began to disappear. First, Mark Lorando, the features editor, was nowhere to be found. Then the chairs of the online editor …

Discussion: Poynter

Wall Street Journal:

Imagining Pay-TV if Bundles Unravel — What happens when the “bundle” begins to unravel? — The question is taking on intense importance for the cable-TV business, which for decades has forced customers to subscribe to groups, or bundles, of channels—whether they wanted them or not.

Discussion: Corporate Intelligence

Rosie Gray / BuzzFeed:

Covert Malaysian Campaign Touched A Wide Range Of American Media — Outlets from Huffington Post to National Review carried pieces financed by the Malaysian government. An international campaign against Anwar Ibrahim. — Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak (R) talks …

Discussion: @jstrevino

Dylan Byers / Politico:

ABC News to hire CBS's Byron Pitts — ABC News is finalizing a deal to hire Byron Pitts, a contributor to “60 Minutes” and chief national correspondent for the CBS Evening News, POLITICO has learned. — Pitts will serve as both chief national correspondent and anchor at ABC News, and will appear across the network's programming.

Charlotte Higgins / Guardian:

BBC's new director general warns against reckless risk-taking — Tony Hall, who takes over in April, also emphasises need to ‘give people confidence to be bold and run with what they want to do’ — • Read the full interview in Saturday's Guardian — A reckless approach …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Nieman Journalism Lab:

Clay Christensen and David Skok: A not-quite-live blog of a conversation about disruption — Editor's note: Last night, the Nieman Foundation held an event with Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen and former Nieman Fellow David Skok to talk about disruptive innovation in journalism.

Discussion: paidContent

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

WSJ names social media editor — Liz Heron, the director of social media and engagement at The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following email announcement on Thursday afternoon:

Sue Zeidler / Reuters:

Hollywood targets “rogue” mobile apps in war on pirated content — (Reuters) - Hollywood studios, which for years have waged a war against online piracy, are now going after so-called “rogue” mobile apps that use images from movies and television shows without their permission.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Fast Company and CNET

Kylie Davis / INMA:

Content marketing is our next big revenue threat — unless we embrace it now — Rather than view content marketing as a threat, news media companies need to see an exciting opportunity worth exploring right now. Otherwise, we'll be edged out by the new competition — our own advertising clients.

Charles Arthur / Guardian:

The Kernel faces high court order over unpaid wages — Tech blog's Milo Yiannopoulos also being investigated by watchdog for failing to register under Data Protection Act — London startup blog The Kernel could face closure from enforcement of a high court order for £16,853 …

Erik Wemple:

Bradley Manning raises a question: How do you tip off the New York Times? — Last year, a big fight in journo-critic world addressed whether the New York Times should have a correspondent front and center for the trial of Bradley Manning, the famous WikiLeaker.

Discussion: paidContent, Softpedia News, Rolling Stone and The Huffington Post

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
Former New York Times Public Editor Doesn't Recall Bradley Manning's Call

Discussion: New Republic, New York Times, Pressing Issues, Firedoglake, Wired, Gawker, @jeffjarvis, Guardian, Poynter and Capital New York

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

A BusinessWeek cover crosses a line — Minorities as greedy grotesqueries fueling a new housing bubble — Bloomberg BusinessWeek is a lot edgier than its predecessor, at least where design is concerned. Sometimes it's too edgy, like when it takes two minutes to read some headline intentionally designed to be barely legible.