Mediagazer: Twitter Faces Criminal Complaint Over Hate Speech Hashtags in France (Rhonda Richford/Hollywood Reporter)

12:00 PM ET, March 22, 2013

Top News:

Ranking the Slowest-Loading News Sites and How They Can Speed Up — I present your winner (or loser?) for slowest loading feature article, the Chicago Tribune, at 16.68 seconds, almost 6 megabytes of data, and with more than 300 requests for resources to display the page in question.

Discussion: Poynter and eMedia Vitals

Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic Online:

American News Consumers Have Gained the World but Lost Their Backyards — The Internet affords cheap, easy access to priceless information. But local news coverage is a casualty of its rise. — Is the American news media in better shape than ever before?

Discussion: Street Fight and Fortune

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Filing Says Glenn Beck's Network TheBlaze Is Raising $40M — TheBlaze, a set of online ventures run by conservative pundit Glenn Beck, is raising $40 million in new funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. — The filing states that the company has raised $1.5 million so far.

Reuters:

HBO CEO mulls teaming with broadband partners for HBO GO — (Reuters) - HBO could widen access to its HBO GO online streaming service by teaming up with broadband Internet providers for customers who do not subscribe to a cable TV service, according to HBO's Chief Executive Richard Plepler.

Economist:

Binding the press: A rotten deal — THE regulation of the British press is an area where this newspaper usually treads lightly. It is not just that The Economist has an interest in opposing irksome rules—albeit a less obvious one than the tabloids, many though not all of them owned by Rupert Murdoch …

Discussion: Guardian, New Statesman, lustigletter.blogspot.co.uk and Spectator

Wall Street Journal:

Web Fan Base Tips Scale To Fallon — Jimmy Fallon's recent two-minute skit “Evolution of Mom Dancing,” featuring the late-night TV comic and Michelle Obama performing a series of funny dance moves, racked up more than 15 million views on YouTube. That is about five times the average nightly audience …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, @dfsaavedra, Bloomberg and Corporate Intelligence

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:

Vevo boss says intelligent, data-centric services could revive music industry — International senior vice-president Nic Jones says music service users want opportunity to be curated by more than algorithms — Intelligent, data-centric services could herald the rebirth of the music industry …

Rhonda Richford / Hollywood Reporter:

Twitter Faces Criminal Complaint Over Hate Speech Hashtags in France — Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is named in a $50 million suit claiming the microblogging service has made no effort to hand over user data as ordered by French courts. — PARIS - Twitter has been hit with a $50 million …

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski steps down — Julius Genachowski, who has served as FCC Chairman since 2009, is stepping down. The FCC has announced on its website that Genachowski will be leaving his position “in the coming weeks;” an official meeting will be held later this morning.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Variety, New York Times, Politico, Los Angeles Times and Engadget

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Travel Site TripAdvisor Buys Tiny Post To Fill Out Its Mobile And Social Ambitions — TripAdvisor, the travel site built around destination guides and user reviews, today made another acquisition: it has bought Tiny Post, an iOS app that lets users take pictures, write captions over them …

Discussion: PR Newswire, App Advice, Associated Press and The Next Web

Reuters:

Analysis: Big Tech tests the waters of the music stream — (Reuters) - Technology giants Apple, Google and Amazon are furiously maneuvering for position in the online music business and looking at ways to make streaming profitable, despite the fact that pioneer Pandora has never made a profit.

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Columbia chose an eminent outsider over a popular internal choice to lead its journalism school — When Columbia University President Lee Bollinger appointed Steve Coll dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism earlier this week, he brought in one of the world's most eminent journalists …