Mediagazer: BBC axes £98m technology project to avoid ‘throwing good money after bad’ (Tara Conlan/Guardian)

10:35 AM ET, May 24, 2013

Top News:

Crayton Harrison / Bloomberg:

News Corp. Publishing Unit Gets $500 Million Buyback Fund — News Corp. (NWSA) said its publishing division, which will become a separate company in June, will start out with a $500 million fund to repurchase stock. — The board authorized News Corp.'s split into two companies …

Discussion: Forbes and Wall Street Journal

BBC:

News Corp to split in two on 28 June — News Corp has announced it will officially split its publishing and entertainment businesses on 28 June. — Its board approved the separation into two firms, which will both be headed by the current chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch.

Gavriel Hollander / Press Gazette:

Sun and ITV defend ‘public interest’ in broadcasting Woolwich terror video which Sky News judged too ‘distressing’ — News organisations have defended their decisions to broadcast controversial video footage shot in the immediate aftermath of the Woolwich terror attack.

Discussion: Guardian, The Huffington Post and The Drum

David Banks / Guardian: Woolwich attack footage will stir debate over contempt laws

Leonard Downie Jr / Washington Post:

Leonard Downie: Obama's war on leaks undermines investigative journalism — Leonard Downie Jr. is a vice president at large of The Washington Post, where he served as executive editor from 1991 to 2008. He is the Weil family professor of journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism …

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
Obama: Leak Investigations Could ‘Chill Investigative Journalism’

Discussion: FishbowlNY, New York Times, Mediaite, Fox News, Talking Points Memo, Washington Times, Techdirt, @ryanlizza, @howardkurtz, Politico, @ggreenwald, @natives, Associated Press, @lheron, @intelligencer, @mirandacgreen, @digiphile and The New Yorker Blog

Tara Conlan / Guardian:

BBC axes £98m technology project to avoid ‘throwing good money after bad’ — Independent investigation launched after Digital Media Initiative, which aimed to digitise archive, results in catalogue of errors — The BBC has admitted that it has wasted almost £100m on a technology project …

Discussion: BBC, Guardian and PressGazette

Nate Raymond / Reuters:

Judge says leaning toward U.S. in Apple e-books case — (Reuters) - In an unusual move before a trial, a federal judge expressed a tentative view that the U.S. Justice Department will be able to show evidence that Apple Inc engaged in a conspiracy with publishers to increase e-book prices.

Discussion: Fortune, SlashGear, AppleInsider, The Mac Observer and CNET

James Legge / The Independent:

Twitter libel: Sally Bercow's tweet about Lord McAlpine ruled libellous — Sally Bercow says she is “surprised and disappointed” by the High Court ruling that her tweet about Tory peer Lord McAlpine was libellous. The tweet - which read: “Why is Lord McAlpine trending?

Discussion: Bloomberg, Agence France Presse and BBC

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

How Publishers Organize for Social Era — Publishers are seeing social as a big traffic driver across the board, but the question remains how to organize for this. — For some very socially savvy publishers like a Mashable, this can mean a team of five-strong and a detailed strategy …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Ronald Grover / Reuters:

Hulu video site auction attracts four bidders: sources — (Reuters) - Former News Corp president Peter Chernin and private equity fund Guggenheim Digital Media have placed bids for Hulu, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, triggering a tug-of-war for the online video service.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Electronista, CNET and The Verge

Greg Sandoval / The Verge:

With downloads dwindling, music publishers throw a roadblock into Apple's iRadio plans — Streaming services, such as Pandora and Spotify, aren't as profitable for music publishers. They want to change that. — For years, when it came to driving negotiations with internet music services over licensing …

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Telegraph cements place as only profitable mainstream ‘quality’ national with £58.4m surplus for 2012 — Telegraph Media Group has claimed a slight improvement in operating profit for 2012 despite a marginal fall in turnover. — The publisher of the Telegraph print titles …

Keach Hagey / Digits:

Twitter Cozies Up to Television With New Ad Products — Twitter rolled out two advertising products on Thursday aimed at showing it wants to be television's friend, not foe. — The social networking site, powered by its recent acquisition of social media data company Bluefin Labs …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Venture Capital Dispatch and AllThingsD