Mediagazer: Germany's Top-Selling Tabloid to Introduce Paywall (Associated Press)

4:35 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

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, @mlcalderone, Kirk LaPointe's …, 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 …

Steve Kupferman / Torontoist:

Gawker's Rob Ford Crackstarter Hits Its $200,000 Goal — Well, it happened: U.S. gossip website Gawker has managed to raise $200,000 in donations from members of the public for use in buying a video that supposedly shows Mayor Rob Ford smoking a crack pipe.

Discussion: National Post, @karenkho, @tianafeng, Huffington Post Canada, @kevinjn, @brockwarner, @simoncott, Global News, @tomscocca, @thefoyeeffect, The Raw Story, @stevekupf and Mediaite

Peter Sterne / The New York Observer:

Why Are Canadians Giving Gawker Money? — Last week, Gawker editor launched a crowd-funded project to purchase an alleged videotape of Toronto, Canada mayor Rob Ford smoking crack. They called it a “Crackstarter,” a play on Kickstarter, and aimed to raise $200,000 from viewers like you.

Discussion: Forbes, Torontoist, @chaubtu, @thedriver_, @ak209, @aaltsted, @attiakiro, @baznet, @colbycosh, @lakarune, @danamira and @cp24

Associated Press:

Germany's Top-Selling Tabloid to Introduce Paywall — BERLIN — Europe's top-selling newspaper said Monday it will introduce a paywall for part of its online offerings starting next month. — Main news stories will remain free of charge online, but a subscription will be required to view features …

Discussion: Reuters

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: GlobalPost, Associated Press, 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, TorrentFreak and BGR

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, Media News and The Desk

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 …