Mediagazer: After Pando probe, WNET says it will return $3.5M grant for pension series from John Arnold (David Sirota/PandoDaily)

10:25 PM ET, February 14, 2014

Top News:

Elizabeth Jensen / New York Times:

WNET to Return $3.5 Million Grant for Pension Series — WNET, the New York City public television broadcaster, said Friday that it will return a $3.5 million grant it received to sponsor an ambitious project on public pensions amid charges that it solicited inappropriate underwriting for the series.

David Sirota / PandoDaily:

After Pando probe, WNET says it will return $3.5M grant for pension series from John Arnold — BREAKING: PBS to return John Arnold's $3.5 million, following Pando exposé — Following Pando's exclusive report on a secret financing deal between public broadcasting officials …

Discussion: @davidsirota, @brianstelter and Talking Biz News

Liz Hoffman / Wall Street Journal:

Charter's Nominees to Time Warner Cable Board to Get $75,000 Each — Charter Communications Inc. 's effort to overturn the board of Time Warner Cable Inc. will cost Charter nearly $1 million, even as its moves to take over its rival have been thwarted by another suitor.

Discussion: @lizrhoffman, MoneyBeat and Digits

DealBook:
For Comcast, Daring Deals to Expand Its Reach Across Industries

Discussion: Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, @peterfhart, Slate, Fortune and Variety

David Ingram / Reuters: Comcast again turns to Davis Polk for Time Warner antitrust case

Jeanine Poggi / AdAge:
What Comcast-Time Warner Cable Means for Advertising

Discussion: Variety, The New Yorker Blog, Capital New York, Business Insider, NY Daily News and Poynter

Alex Weprin / Capital New York:
Comcast deal could put NY1 in FiOS homes

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Policy Blog, Home Media Magazine, Variety, Gigaom, PandoDaily, @jkealing, @joshrobin, Bloomberg and Latest News & Headlines

Amy Schatz / Re/code:
Peering could replace net neutrality as one of the key issues in Comcast-Time Warner review

Discussion: Deadline.com and @waltmossberg

Edward Wyatt / DealBook:
Industry Shifts May Aid Comcast in Takeover Bid

Discussion: DealBook, The New Yorker Blog, The Lead with Jake Tapper, @dankennedy_nu, Los Angeles Times, BGR, Mashable, @ericklinenberg, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, Broadcasting & Cable, cnbc.com, Republic Report, Guardian and Bloomberg

Bloomberg:

Twitter confirms some Venezuelan internet providers are blocking images amid protest — Twitter Says Venezuela Blocks Its Images Amid Protest Crackdown — Twitter Inc. (TWTR) said Venezuela's government is blocking images on its website, the latest sign of a crackdown after violent protests …

Discussion: @marianaatencio, @liberationtech, @alcabello, @alekboyd, @puzkas and Engadget

Associated Press:

Users say Twitter image blocking in Venezuela ended by Friday — LIMA, Peru (AP) — Twitter says Venezuela has blocked images on its service and it offered a workaround for users who want to get tweets via text message on their cellphones. — Company spokesman Nu Wexler said Friday via email that …

Philip Bump / The Wire:

The @barackobama Twitter account is not run by the White House, confusing even media outlets — Basically, @BarackObama Is a Parody Twitter Account — You know those terrible parody Twitter accounts for Bill Murray or Will Smith that tweet dumb jokes or odd requests as though they're from the celebrities themselves?

Discussion: @vluck, @teecycletim and Twitchy

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Piers Morgan was questioned by Scotland Yard's hacking squad — Former Daily Mirror editor confirms he was interviewed by officers from Operation Weeting in December — Piers Morgan, the CNN presenter who used to edit the Daily Mirror, has been interviewed under caution by Scotland Yard detectives investigating phone-hacking.

Peter Travers / Rolling Stone:

De La Soul to Make Entire Catalog Available for Free — Pioneering hip-hop group also releasing flood of new music — In honor of next month's 25th anniversary of their debut album 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul are making their entire catalog available for free download for 25 hours on the group's website.

Discussion: The Wrap, BetaNews, Los Angeles Times, Gothamist, Wired, The New Yorker Blog, @mathowie, CBS San Francisco, hypebot, WebProNews, ArtsBeat, Electronista, Mashable, Pocket-lint, Gawker, The Next Web, The Verge, Gigaom, Jezebel, Gizmodo, NME, All and Engadget

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

The Guardian's Unusual Take on Native Ads — The Guardian is jumping on the native ad trend—but, in character for the British newspaper, it's doing so in its own way. Today it announced the first client, Unilever, of Guardian Labs, its in-house branded content unit.

Discussion: GNM press office, Flashes & Flames, InPublishing, MediaPost, @noahchestnut, @niemanlab, thedrum.com, The Dish, The Dish and Press Gazette

Angela Washeck / 10,000 Words:

NPR Partners With Quora to Cover Sochi 2014 — Sochi 2014 is well underway now, and news surrounding the event, whether journalist complaints about hotel conditions on social media or traditional Olympics coverage, is pretty easy to find. — But to add another layer of context and value …

Discussion: The Quora Blog

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

David Leonhardt adds staff to Times data venture — David Leonhardt has announced a handful of new appointments to the data-driven politics and policy website he's cooking up for The New York Times in the wake of star statistician Nate Silver's departure last fall for ESPN.

Discussion: @gregamarx and @brendannyhan

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Wall Street Journal promotes new China leadership team — The Wall Street Journal has named a new senior leadership team at its Chinese-language edition, including Li Yuan, a 10-year Journal veteran who has been promoted to editor-in-chief of the China title after serving as managing editor of CWSJ.com for the past eight years.

Discussion: Dow Jones

Matt Sheehan / The Huffington Post: The Chinese Press Battles For Hearts And Minds Abroad

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Welcome Words: Why The Times Bucked the Government on a Drone Strike Story — The United States is considering a drone strike to kill an American with alleged terrorist ties. That's a pretty big deal - shocking to those of us who haven't become completely inured to such news.

Discussion: Taking Note, @rethink_media, The Huffington Post, @fstonenyt and @gregorydjohnsen

Angela Mills Wade / EurActiv:

Current ‘Libor’ regulation is a threat to financial journalism — Financial reporting could fall under the scope of the proposed Libor regulation on financial benchmarks, undermining the role played by journalists. EU regulators must recognise this and exempt the media from the regulation, writes Angela Mills Wade.

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

With launch team in place, FiveThirtyEight shapes up — Just as The New York Times is staffing up the David Leonhardt-helmed politics and policy website it developed after Nate Silver took FiveThirtyEight to ESPN last year, Silver himself has ended his initial phase of hiring.

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight

Ellen Barry / New York Times:

Indian Publisher Withdraws Book, Stoking Fears of Nationalist Pressure — NEW DELHI — In a fight with a major company, a frail 84-year-old retired headmaster would seem to be the David to India's publishing Goliath, Penguin Books. — But this week the headmaster, Dinanath Batra …

Discussion: New Yorker, Voice of America, Books News & Features, The Hindu, Forbes, @lkrauss1, India Ink, India Real Time, Associated Press, Bookseller news and Guardian

The Stream:

Venezuelan journalists say: ‘No paper, no newspaper’ — Dozens of Venezuelan newspapers have shut down after a nationwide paper shortage, causing some 600 members of the media to take to Caracas' streets in protest. Owners of these newspapers allege President Nicolas Maduro's government …

Maggie Brown / Guardian:

Ofcom boss: ‘BBC licence fee should be shared with other broadcasters’ — Outgoing chair Colette Bowe says making funding ‘contestable’ would promote competition, dynamism and innovation — The BBC licence fee should be shared with other broadcasters to promote “competition …

Henry Taylor / TheMediaBriefing:

ABC combined circulation: Is it really a ‘new dawn’ for magazine measurement? — Advertising, Consumer Media, Digital Media, Mobile — In what has already been called a “new dawn” for the magazine industry, the ABC has started combining print and digital sales figures into one audited figure …

Discussion: Talking New Media