Mediagazer: Under Fire, White House Pushes to Revive ‘Media Shield’ Bill (Charlie Savage/New York Times)

6:50 PM ET, May 15, 2013

Top News:

Mark Memmott / NPR:

Holder Isn't Sure How Often Reporters' Records Are Seized … As his Justice Department faces bipartisan outrage for searching phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, Attorney Gen. Eric Holder says he is not sure how many times such information has been seized by government investigators …

Discussion: New York Times, Free Press, Mediashift, The Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, Post Politics and Foreign Policy

Erik Wemple:

AP subpoena: Journo says he lost sources in 2001 case — In denouncing the secret subpoena of its phone records by the Justice Department, the Associated Press talked, in part, about its journalistic lifeblood: “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and Poynter

New York Times:

Holder Defends Justice Department in Journalists' Records Seizure — WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday defended the Justice Department's sweeping seizure of telephone records of Associated Press journalists, describing the article by The A.P. that prompted …

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Politico, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, Techdirt, emptywheel, FishbowlNY, Senator Wyden's Press Feed, The Volokh Conspiracy, The Daily Caller, msnbc.com, TVWeek.com, Daily Mail and The Huffington Post

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Leak Investigations Are an Assault on the Press, and on Democracy, Too — This was supposed to be the administration of unprecedented transparency. President Obama promised that when he took office, and the White House's Web site says so on this very day. It reads:

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Capital New York, Politico, New York Magazine, Guardian and Mother Jones

Timothy Lee / Washington Post:
In AP surveillance case, the real scandal is what's legal

Discussion: law.cornell.edu, Poynter, Media Matters Action Network, rcfp.org, The Daily Caller, emptywheel, @ggreenwald and New Yorker

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Under Fire, White House Pushes to Revive ‘Media Shield’ Bill — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration sought on Wednesday to revive legislation that would provide greater protections to reporters from penalties for refusing to identify confidential sources, and that would enable journalists …

Discussion: The Lead with Jake Tapper, Twitchy, The Huffington Post, CNN, The Week, @dankennedy_nu, The New Republic, Capital New York, The Caucus, Mother Jones, msnbc.com, @trevortimm, ThinkProgress and Michelle Malkin

Associated Press:

Senate Dem revives media shield law — WASHINGTON — A top Senate Democrat plans to revive legislation that would protect journalists and their employers from revealing their sources, days after it was revealed that the Justice Department secretly obtained Associated Press phone records.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire and Associated Press

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

The New Yorker Launches Strongbox, an Open-Source Anonymous Tip Tool Built by Aaron Swartz — Technology gives journalists unprecedented power to track down information. And technology gives lots of other people the ability to follow journalists' footprints. Just ask the Associated Press.

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, New Yorker, Forbes, Poynter, The New Yorker Blog, ZDNet, Engadget, Runnin' Scared, Folio, paidContent, The Verge, Foreign Policy and Kirk LaPointe's …

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Newsweek.com Redesign Aims to Be ‘Snow Fall’ on a Weekly Basis — Metered Pay Wall Planned for New Browser-Based Experience — A team comprised of Newsweek staffers and employees of the design firm Huge were two months into the redesign of Newsweek.com — which will roll out today in beta …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Capital New York and Nieman Journalism Lab

New York Times:

U.S. Now Paints Apple as ‘Ringmaster’ in Its Lawsuit on E-Book Price-Fixing — WASHINGTON — The e-mail, from Steve Jobs of Apple to James Murdoch of News Corporation, reads as if one old sport were trying to cajole another into joining a caper: “Throw in with Apple and see if we can all …

Discussion: Tech Trader Daily, Consumerist, Hillicon Valley, VentureBeat, AllThingsD, TUAW, Business Insider, NPR and Kindle Review

Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Apple tells U.S. of tough talks, not collusion, with publishers

Discussion: AllThingsD, paidContent, BGR, Bloomberg, Washington Post, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, iLounge, CNET and App Advice

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of where NewsRight went wrong — Quietly, very quietly, NewsRight — once touted as the American newspaper industry's bid to protect its content and make more money from it — has closed its doors. — Yesterday, it conducted a concluding board meeting, aimed at tying up loose ends.

Discussion: @niemanlab

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

E-Book Sales a Boon to Publishers in 2012 — E-book sales, especially in the thriving romance genre, gave the book business a lift in 2012, according to a survey of publishers released Wednesday. — In a year that was monopolized by the “Fifty Shades” erotic novels and their various knockoffs …

Discussion: Daily Download, TeleRead, Kindle Review, Nieman Journalism Lab and paidContent

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Don't Look Now But AOL Sold Off Its Industry News Sites — Ever since they joined forces two years ago, Tim Armstrong and Arianna Huffington have been under the microscope, their every move dissected and critiqued. So it's impressive, in a way, that they were able to unwind one of their misadventures without attracting any notice.

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

News Corp. hires Toni Cook Bush to oversee lobbying after split — News Corp. has hired D.C. insider Toni Cook Bush. (Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP) — News Corp. has hired a D.C. heavyweight to handle its lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill after it becomes primarily a newspaper publishing company.

Discussion: Business Wire

Tania Branigan / Guardian:

China tries to rein in microbloggers — Authorities show determination to control burgeoning culture of social media by closing accounts of writers and intellectuals — China has launched a new drive to tame its boisterous microblogging culture by closing influential accounts belonging …