Mediagazer: Reporting and surviving in a war with no rules (James Traub/Foreign Policy)

2:00 PM ET, January 23, 2014

Top News:

AP severs ties with photographer who altered work — NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press has severed ties with a freelance photographer who it says violated its ethical standards by altering a photo he took while covering the war in Syria in 2013. — The news service said Wednesday …

Adam Weinstein / Gawker:

Should the AP Really Have Fired This Pulitzer-Prize War Photographer? — The Associated Press announced Wednesday that it had parted ways with Narciso Contreras, a freelance photographer who shared in a Pulitzer for his work in Syria last year. The reason Contreras was let go, basically …

Discussion: @amy_stein and @garonsen

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Dozens of journalists injured in Kiev during protests, five people killed — This AP photo made its way across Twitter Wednesday, showing journalists covering protests in Kiev. One, as you can see, wears a colander to protect his head instead of a helmet. Helmets, you see, were banned by the government.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, kyivpost.com, @poynter, The Lede and UPI

Heather Murphy / The Lede:
Targeted text message sends chills to protesters and journalists in Ukraine

Discussion: @mattbuchanan, @crimethinc, TechCrunch, The Independent, Techdirt and Gawker

Dugald Baird / Guardian:

Stan Collymore returns to Twitter and hits out at the Sun — Former England footballer asks for ‘solutions to help Twitter police itself’ after suspending account following racist abuse — Stan Collymore has criticised the Sun as he returned to Twitter after suspending his account over racist abuse that he received on the site.

Discussion: Softpedia News and Press Gazette

Michael Moynihan / The Daily Beast:

Can a Tweet Put You in Prison? It Certainly Will in the UK — Tweeting racist or otherwise libelous bile can land you in jail in the UK, but the victim, as ever, is not the target of the tweet but free speech. — When Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman briefly melted …

Discussion: @thedailybeast and @mcmoynihan

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Rebekah Brooks ‘asked Times editor for sourcing of Milly Dowler story’ — Brooks described story as ‘proper Guardian/BBC/old Labour hit’ in email to James Harding, court hears — Rebekah Brooks wrote to the then editor of the Times asking him to find out who had given “the nod” …

Discussion: @lisaocarroll

James Doleman / The Drum: Police officer arrested for leaks to the Guardian, phone-hacking trial hears

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

CNN laid off more than 40 journalists at end of 2013 — CNN and HLN “laid off more than 40 senior journalists in its newsgathering operation” at the end of 2013, Matthew Garrahan reports in the Financial Times. — The cuts “coincide with changes to the network's programming,” Garrahan writes.

Discussion: TVNewser, @mlcalderone, Mediaite, Politico, New York Magazine, @brianstelter, Inside Cable News and Business Insider

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

NewsCred Raises $25 Million to Fill a Content-Marketing War Chest. (What's Content Marketing Again?) — Advertisers have spent the last few years toiling away in the social media fields, and now have long lists of followers on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to show for their efforts.

Discussion: Gigaom, @adamostrow, Business Wire, Tech City News, PandoDaily and TechCrunch

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

CNN.com tests new ideas on its Arabic-language channel — CNN has just launched the redesigned CNNArabic.com, the networkÂ's only Arabic-language outlet (and a small territory in its digital portfolio). But it's more important than that. The new features introduced …

Discussion: @niemanlab

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Setting Its Sights On Content Personalization, AOL To Acquire Gravity For $90.7M — AOL is announcing that it has reached a deal to acquire content personalization startup Gravity for an initial $83 million, with another $7.7 million paid out over the next two years.

Discussion: Forbes, Re/code, New York Times, CNET, Gigaom, ZDNet, Variety, Business Insider and Softpedia News

Bloomberg:

Gannett Seen Divorcing Print From TV After Belo: Real M&A — After doubling down on broadcast stations, Gannett Co. (GCI) could create even more value for shareholders by joining a long line of media companies splitting publishing from television in recent years.

Noreen Malone / The New Republic:

What Happens When You Give TV's Biggest Fanboy His Own TV Show? — The remarkable rise of Brian Stelter — On a recent episode of CNN's media show, “Reliable Sources,” there was a brief moment when the whole enterprise threatened to collapse in on itself.

Discussion: Poynter, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @jonathanchait, @mlcalderone and @hillarykelly

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Court OKs subpoena for Nola.com commenters' identities — The NOLA Media Group has 10 days to hand over the identities of two online commenters, Juliet Linderman reports. … Ellyn Angelotti, a lawyer and Poynter faculty, said that there aren't clear standards on First Amendment protections for online commentators.

Discussion: New Orleans Times-Picayune

PTI:

Huffington Post plans India edition; launch in May — Davos: US-based leading online newspaper Huffington Post is planning to launch an India edition by May this year and negotiations are currently underway to finalise a local partner for this venture. — “We are working very hard on our India edition.

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

As CNN mobile traffic hits 40%, editor calls web vs. apps debate ‘red herring’ — CNN announced last week that mobile page views accounted for 40 percent of its overall traffic, the result of equally emphasizing its mobile website and mobile apps even as some in the industry remain stuck in an either-or debate.

Discussion: INMA

John Seigenthaler / Al Jazeera America:

Jill Abramson talks to John Seigenthaler — Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden helped The New York Times “keep the public informed on what I consider to be very important matters,” says Jill Abramson, the woman who has the final say on what constitutes “all the news that's fit to print.”

Discussion: Politico, The Huffington Post, @drudge_report, @froomkin, @annecronin and @jaredbkeller

James Traub / Foreign Policy:

Reporting and surviving in a war with no rules — In the ancient southeastern Turkish city of Antakya,1 20 miles from the border with Syria, a plump Syrian merchant who calls himself Abu Nabil can be found most evenings drinking tea in the Bellur, a pleasant open-air cafe.

Jennifer M. Wood / Wired:

Kickstarter Has Changed Indie Moviemaking for Good — While Hollywood insiders talk about which big-budget studio movies made and lost the most money in 2013, there's a far more interesting number to consider: 3,000,000. That's how many people backed crowdfunding projects for a total …

Discussion: WebProNews

John McDermott / Digiday:

Publishers to Ezra Klein: Good Luck! You'll Need it! — Ezra Klein, the wunderkind behind the popular Washington Post policy blog Wonkblog, will be leaving the D.C. daily at the end of this week to pursue his own media venture. — Digital publishing executives have a message for him: Good luck: You're going to need it.

Discussion: @digiday, @jayrosen_nyu and Paul Krugman

John Cassidy / The New Yorker Blog:
Maybe Ezra Klein and Jeff Bezos Are Both Right

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Poynter, @murraymatt, Columbia Journalism Review, @gregorydjohnsen, @jtes, @joshuafoust, @tnyjohncassidy and Mediaite

William Wan / Poynter:

Covering China: for foreign and domestic press, self-censorship's the threat — It's not easy being a journalist in China these days. — Chinese reporters are facing new government restrictions, including forced training in Marxism and a new written “ideology” exam.

Discussion: @comradewong and The Huffington Post

Marina Walker Guevara / The Global Muckraker:

How a multinational journalism team investigated the offshore holdings of China's elite — How we did Offshore Leaks China — A multinational team of journalists spent months combing through secret tax haven records revealing offshore holdings of China's rich and powerful.

Discussion: New York Times, Poynter, Bloomberg, Media Channel, @icijorg and Guardian