Mediagazer: ‘I love newspapers,’ Warren Buffett tells Berkshire Hathaway shareholders (Jim Romenesko)

7:30 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: Columbia Journalism Review, Financial Times, @anked, paidContent, Kirk LaPointe's … and German Pulse

Mathias Schindler / Search Engine Land:
New German Law Will Allow Free “Snippets” By Search Engines, But Uncertainty Remains

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

Associated Press:
German Parliament OKs Watered-Down Copyright Law

Discussion: ITworld.com and ZDNet

Katharine Weymouth / Washington Post:

A reader representative for The Post — The world has changed, and we at The Post must change with it. We have been privileged to have had the service of many talented ombudsmen (and women) who have addressed readers' concerns, answered their questions and held The Post to the highest standards of journalism.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Tampabay.com and Poynter

Jim Romenesko:

‘I love newspapers,’ Warren Buffett tells Berkshire Hathaway shareholders — Warren Buffett's latest report to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders includes these observations about newspapers: … Here's the part of Buffett's report that's devoted to newspapers: — We Buy Some Newspapers . . . Newspapers?

Discussion: The Atlantic Online

Wall Street Journal:

Imagining Cable 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

Don Jeffrey / Bloomberg:
Dish Loses 3 of 4 Claims Against ESPN in Contract Dispute

Discussion: Bloomberg

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Is Now Officially Calling Itself A ‘Technology Company’, Ditching The ‘Digital Media’ Tagline — Yahoo today issued its annual 10-K report to the Securities And Exchange Commission. These kinds of forms have a lot of boilerplate language that is reused again and again — often …

Discussion: Forbes

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

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

Variety:

Variety.com Redesign Launches … The evolution of Variety continues with today's live launch of the redesigned Variety.com. And, to the relief of readers and staffers, the paywall has come down. — The new website addresses years of requests from readers, with a site that's easy to navigate …

Discussion: FishbowlLA

Victoria Bryan / Reuters:

German book retailers team up against Amazon with new eReader — (Reuters) - German book retailers have teamed up with Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) to produce their own eReader to challenge the dominance of Amazon.com (AMZN.O) in the growing market for digital books.

Discussion: Telecompaper, GigaOM and Good E-Reader

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:

Discussion: FishbowlNY

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: NetNewsCheck Latest and paidContent

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: Gawker, CNN and @jstrevino