Mediagazer: The novel legal issues in Tarantino's copyright suit vs Gawker (Alison Frankel/Reuters)

8:25 AM ET, January 29, 2014

Top News:

Sarah Wheaton / New York Times:

Rep. Michael Grimm Threatens an NY1 Reporter — The Staten Island lawmaker can be heard telling Michael Scotto, a reporter for NY1, “I'll break you in half” in footage broadcast by the network.

Katerina Eva Matsa / Pew Research Center:

Local TV audiences bounce back — Bucking a long-range trend of declining viewership, the audience for local TV news grew in all three major time slots in 2013. Viewership climbed 6% in the morning (5 to 7 a.m.) and 3% in the early evening (5 to 7 p.m.) newscasts, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

Discussion: @danharland, @halliejackson, Erik Wemple, Advancing the Story, Poynter, The Huffington Post and TVSpy

Tara Conlan / Guardian:

Former BBC technology chief to take legal action over DMI dismissal — Ex-employee accuses corporation of allowing ‘inaccurate statements’ to be made to MPs over failure of digital initiative — The BBC chief technology officer dismissed over the failure of the Digital Media Initiative …

Discussion: Reuters

Guardian: Mark Thompson to face MPs again over failed £99m Digital Media Initiative

Tara Conlan / Guardian:
BBC whistleblower claims staff ‘falsified’ benefits of DMI project

Discussion: bbc.co.uk, Computerworld UK Public Sector, broadcastnow.co.uk, TechRadar.com, TechWeekEurope UK, Daily Mail, The Independent and Financial Times

John Biggs / TechCrunch:

Lance Ulanoff Out As Editor Of Mashable — Lance Ulanoff, former editor-in-chief of PCMag.com, has been moved to an editor-at-large and chief correspondent position at Mashable, effectively removing him from the EIC position at that title. — A source close to the move said Jim Roberts …

Discussion: @jimhanas, Capital New York and Talking Biz News

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:
Mashable expands into climate reporting

Discussion: @mashable

Jenny Gross / Wall Street Journal:

Witness Says Andy Coulson Heard Message Retrieved From Daniel Craig's Phone — LONDON—A former British-tabloid reporter, in his second day of testimony in the long-running phone-hacking trial, said Tuesday that he played a recording of a voice mail he illegally intercepted from actor Daniel Craig's phone …

Discussion: TIME

BBC:
Andy Coulson called Sienna Miller tape ‘brilliant’, phone-hacking trial hears

Discussion: The Independent, Press Association, TheAustralian, Guardian and The Huffington Post

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

Medium, Evan Williams's Post-Twitter Media Startup, Raises $25 Million Round — Medium is about to become large. — The collaborative publishing startup has just closed a $25 million round of financing, the company confirmed, marking its first major funding raise since it launched a little more than a year ago.

Discussion: @al0nd0n, @thinkup, @brendanbaker, VatorNews, Medium, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, The Verge, @af, @_bsiddiqui, Mashable, @nbj914, @jason, @johnolilly, @goldman, @rsarver and @mg

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Is Shutting Down IntoNow, Nearly Three Years After Acquisition — IntoNow — the second-screen app that Yahoo bought in the spring of 2011, just 12 weeks after its launch — is being shut down by its parent company. As of last week, IntoNow was taken off the Apple App Store and Google Play …

Discussion: Variety

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

ITV to launch pay-TV drama channel on Sky — Broadcaster continues its strategy of reducing its reliance on free-to-air advertising by announcing rollout of ITV Encore — ITV is to launch a pay-TV channel on Sky showcasing the “best of British drama”, its first major return to pay-TV since …

Discussion: Deadline.com, Reuters, The Independent, Digital Spy, Brand Republic and Pocket-lint

Adam L. Penenberg / PandoDaily:

No second chance for Stephen Glass: The long, strange downfall of a journalistic wunderkind — The California Supreme Court has denied disgraced former journalist Stephen Glass a license to practice law. — Pointing out in its ruling that “Glass's journalistic dishonesty was not a single lapse …

Discussion: Ars Technica

Quentin Hardy / NYT Bits:

Jason Calacanis Shoots for Human Moments in News Feeds — This must be the fastest-moving month in the history of new media. The latest entrant features yet one more familiar face. — On Tuesday, Jason Calacanis, who was involved in Web publishing early in its dot-com days, started Inside.com …

Discussion: @journalism2ls, @qhardy, Mashable, @gabrielsnyder, @moorehn and WebProNews

Staci D. Kramer / Nieman Journalism Lab:
“I see this as the next CNN”: Jason Calacanis' Inside.com aims to solve news on mobile devices

Discussion: @jessicalessin, @jenny8lee, Business Insider, @niemanlab, @jbenton, The Next Web and Re/code

Ivan Moreno / Associated Press:

Colorado Lawmakers Reject Journalist Protection Proposal — DENVER (AP) — Lawmakers on Monday rejected a proposal to increase legal protections for reporters and their sources in Colorado, an idea that was prompted by the case of a New York reporter who was pressured to divulge sources in the 2012 suburban Denver theater shootings.

Discussion: Poynter and Fox News

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Mail Online to switch to .com domain name — Publisher thought to have paid potentially as much as £1m-plus in bid to boost international traffic, particularly in the US — Mail Online is switching from a .co.uk to .com homepage address, following protracted negotiations with the US paper …

Discussion: mUmBRELLA

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Q4 2013 Earnings Slide 6% To $1.27B On EPS Of $0.46, Display Ads Down 6% — Yahoo today reported its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2013, where it reported GAAP revenues of $1.27 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.46. Excluding traffic acquisition costs, revenues were $1.2 billion.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, ZDNet, Business Wire, @yahooinc, @jguynn, App Advice, @dkberman, @samgustin, AdExchanger, Globe and Mail, AdAge, Re/code, Forbes, CNET, VentureBeat, CNET, Reuters, Re/code, Digits and Business Insider

Alison Frankel / Reuters:

The novel legal issues in Tarantino's copyright suit vs Gawker — I don't usually cover the same cases as TMZ and Entertainment Weekly, but Quentin Tarantino's copyright complaint against Gawker, filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, could well turn out to be one of those extremely …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times and PandoDaily

Simon Thomsen / Business Insider:

Former News Corp Australia CEO Kim Williams Wins $95,000 From Fairfax In Defamation Case — It was a very juicy, very Sydney story, involving the Opera House, a posh restaurant, the former CEO of News Corp Australia and raised tempers - the sort of scuttlebutt the city thrives on.

Discussion: mUmBRELLA, TheAustralian and Crikey

Robin Wauters / Tech.eu:

The Kernel acquired by The Daily Dot publisher; founder and editor Milo Yiannopoulos to move on — UK publication The Kernel, the self-described “Internet tabloid” founded by journalist and entrepreneur Milo Yiannopoulos in 2011, has been acquired by Daily Dot Media, publisher of online newspaper The Daily Dot.