Mediagazer: Plans for American Al Jazeera Channel Shifting Focus to U.S. News (Brian Stelter/New York Times)

2:55 PM ET, May 27, 2013

Top News:

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Plans for American Al Jazeera Channel Shifting Focus to U.S. News — While it has a foreign name, the forthcoming Al Jazeera cable channel in the United States wants to be American through and through. — When Al Jazeera's owners in Qatar acquired Al Gore's Current TV in January …

Discussion: @howardmortman

Amy Chozick / New York Times:

News Corp. Says It Was Not Told of Subpoena for Reporter's Phone Records — News Corporation said on Sunday that it had no record of being notified by the Justice Department nearly three years ago of a subpoena for the telephone records of a reporter at its Fox News cable channel.

Discussion: The Verge

Devlin Barrett / Wall Street Journal:

DOJ Notified News Corp. About Phone-Record Seizure — The Justice Department notified the parent company of Fox News more than two years ago about its seizure of phone records belonging to one of its reporters, a Fox official said Saturday. — The parent company, News Corp . …

Discussion: CNN and The Next Web

New York Times:
Sweeping Leak Inquiries Reveal How Wide a Net U.S. Has Cast

Discussion: New York Times, Forbes, @mlcalderone, Kirk LaPointe's …, @mlcalderone, Dallas Morning News, Mother Jones, Mediaite, Boing Boing and Free Press

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Yahoo's Bid for Hulu in $600M to $800M Range — Even as It Preps Other Big Deals in Mobile and Communications — According to numerous sources close to the situation, Yahoo has bid from $600 million to $800 million for the premium video site Hulu. — The reason for the wide range is due …

Brian Morrissey / Digiday:

Behind Twitter's Savvy Embrace of TV — Internet companies for the past decade plus have looked at TV with a mix of envy and disdain. The envy springs from the $120 billion the TV industry rakes in annually, a number that reliably climbs even as Internet execs scream hysterically with their Mary Meeker time-spent slides in hand.

Discussion: @chloes

Katharine Viner / Guardian:

Welcome to Guardian Australia — Thank you for joining us on the day we launch our new digital edition. We hope you will take part in its success — Today we launch Guardian Australia, the Guardian's third international digital edition, focusing our unique style of journalism on this vast and fascinating country.

Discussion: Guardian, mUmBRELLA, Crikey and @marklittlenews

Erika Solomon / Reuters:

Sniper kills Syrian journalist from pro-government TV — (Reuters) - Sniper fire killed a well-known Syrian journalist working for a pro-government television channel near the Lebanese-Syrian border on Monday, the state news agency said. — Yara Abbas, a reporter for the al-Ikhbariya news channel …

Discussion: Associated Press, GlobalPost, presstv.ir, In Serbia News and Al Jazeera English

Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:

US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits, spyware, ransomware and trojans to attack pirates! — The hilariously named “Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property” has finally released its report, an 84-page tome that's pretty bonkers.

Discussion: The Next Web, BGR and TorrentFreak

Ben Popper / The Verge:

Syrian Electronic Army: pro-government propaganda, or just trolling for lulz? — Hacker group is efficient, but it may not be effective — On May 4th, a series of odd tweets went out to the 5 million or so followers of the E! News Twitter account. “Exclusive! Justin Bieber to E!online: I'm a gay,” read the first one.

Discussion: The Verge, The Desk, National Updates, The Next Web, Gizmodo, Softpedia News, The Desk and Media News

Katy Bachman / Adweek:

The Big Items on the FCC's To-Do List — Did anyone really think that Julius Genachowski wouldn't leave the media ownership rules for the next guy? Or the always-in-court, nearly impossible to legally defend broadcast indecency rules? Even with 11th-hour pushes to take on both …

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of value exchange and Google Surveys — What happens when a reader hits the paywall? — Only a small percentage slap their foreheads, say “Why didn't I subscribe earlier?” and pay up. Most go away; some will come back next month when the meter resets.

Discussion: Street Fight

Kevin Davis / NetNewsCheck Latest:

INN Starts Backing Nonprofit News Startups — After a 19-month wait to secure its own 501(c)3 status, the Investigative News Network has started to sponsor nonprofit news projects. “Fiscal sponsorship allows these early-stage nonprofits to accept donations from philanthropists and foundations …