Mediagazer: Brooks 'sought James Murdoch's approval for Sun's backing of Tories' (Nick Davies/Guardian)

4:40 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: @garonsen and @amy_stein

Nick Davies / Guardian:

Brooks 'sought James Murdoch's approval for Sun's backing of Tories' — Laptops contained four News International documents and football and racing apps, the Old Bailey told — Rebekah Brooks sought the personal approval of James Murdoch for the Sun editorial comment which marked …

Discussion: Hacked Off, @courtnewsuk and mUmBRELLA

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

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Rebekah Brooks ‘asked Times editor for sourcing of Milly Dowler story’

Discussion: @lisaocarroll

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Slate's Matt Yglesias Joining Ezra Klein Venture — Matt Yglesias, a prominent blogger and Slate's “Moneybox” columnist, is leaving the site at the end of February to join Ezra Klein's new venture, according to a staff memo. — Slate editor-in-chief David Plotz described Yglesias's departure as …

Discussion: The New York Observer, @mattyglesias and The New Yorker Blog

John McDermott / Digiday:
Publishers to Ezra Klein: Good Luck! You'll Need it!

Discussion: @digiday and @jayrosen_nyu

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

Discussion: @jaimemaggio, @thedailybeast and @mcmoynihan

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

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 …, @poynter, kyivpost.com, The Lede and UPI

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

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

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, Business Wire, Tech City News, PandoDaily, @adamostrow and TechCrunch

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, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @justinhorwath, @frankluntz, The Week, The Huffington Post, @drudge_report, @froomkin, @annecronin, @jaredbkeller and TheBlaze.com

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

Alice Speri / Al Jazeera America:

Intimidated journalists in Russia hesitate to criticize Sochi Games … Last April, Russian journalist Mikhail Beketov, who had exposed corruption in the construction of a highway linking Moscow to St. Petersburg, died of injuries sustained in a brutal beating he had received years earlier.

Discussion: @plew108

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.

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

Associated Press:

Carriers for San Diego paper awarded nearly $5M … SAN DIEGO (AP) — A judge awarded $10 million to newspaper carriers and their lawyers in a lawsuit against the former owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune. — Superior Court Judge John S. Meyer ruled last month that about 1,200 carriers …

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

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.

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

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