Mediagazer: NBC Universal, FX Chiefs Call for Increased Anti-Piracy Measures (Andrew Wallenstein/Variety)

12:30 PM ET, February 19, 2014

Top News:

Martin Evans / Telegraph:

Tony Blair offered to be unofficial adviser to Brooks and Murdoch over phone hacking scandal, court hears — In an hour-long phone conversation with Mrs Brooks the day after the News of the World was closed in July 2011, the former Prime Minister advised her to “tough up” telling her “it will pass”

Discussion: Guardian, @felixsalmon, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, Reuters, @emilybell, @dansabbagh, @emilybell, @callingengland, @davidfolkenflik, @theredrag and @aaronbastani

John Rentoul / The Independent:

Blair responds to Brooks email — Statement by a spokesperson for Tony Blair: — “This was Mr Blair simply giving informal advice over the phone. He made it absolutely clear to Ms Brooks that, though he knew nothing personally about the facts of the case, in a situation as serious …

Discussion: @johnrentoul and @dangillmor

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone hacking jury is told of Rebekah Brooks' plan to stay with News Corp prior to resignation — Rebekah Brooks discussed plan to ‘ring fence’ her from phone-hacking scandal — Old Bailey hears of email sent a week before she resigned outlining plan for review by lawyers and promotion of Will Lewis

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

Net Neutrality Rules Are Out: New Twist on Old Proposal — Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is launching a new effort to craft net neutrality rules, agency officials said Wednesday, basically proposing a do-over under a different part of the law.

Discussion: Business Insider

Gautham Nagesh / Law Blog:
FCC Plans to Issue New Net Neutrality Rules

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Gigaom, The Wrap, CNBC, BGR, NationalJournal.com and AllAccess.com

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What to do when your video is winning social media, but it's a copy that's getting the clicks? — What should a news organization do when an unauthorized copy of video they produced is going viral on YouTube? — That's the question Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA faced when a commentary …

Discussion: @standupkid, The Texas Tribune Fellowships and Upworthy

Costas Pitas / Reuters:

British court quashes legal challenge by partner of Snowden leaks reporter — (Reuters) - Britain's High Court has quashed a legal challenge against the detention under anti-terrorism laws of the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who brought leaks from former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to world attention.

Discussion: Guardian, The Intercept, Guardian, @fleetstreetfox, BBC, Softpedia News, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, The Verge, @article19org, @davidleigh3, @paultowen, Associated Press and @colvinius

Glenn Greenwald / The Intercept:
On the UK's Equating of Journalism With Terrorism

Discussion: @freedomofpress, Firedoglake, @trevortimm, thedrum.com, @laughingstoic and @attackerman

Marisa Guthrie / Hollywood Reporter:

HLN's Surprising New Slate: Game Shows, Viral Videos and a #FOMO App (Exclusive) — From left: Fred Seibert, Rob Barnett and Tom Lynch — The cable news network that is home to Nancy Grace undertakes a major rebrand. — A version of this story first appeared in the Feb. 28 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Discussion: Mediaite, TVNewser, The Huffington Post and The Awl

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

LinkedIn Opens Its Publishing Platform To All Members — To date, LinkedIn has allowed a small, editorially selected group of “Influencers” like Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Barack Obama to publish their thoughts and advice to its network as long-form blog posts.

Discussion: blog.linkedin.com, NYT Bits, Gigaom, @sap_jarret, @danroth, Mashable, The Next Web and mUmBRELLA

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Journalists seeking accreditation for Brit Awards asked to agree coverage of sponsor Mastercard — The organisers of tonight's Brit Awards for pop music appear to be asking journalists to guarantee coverage of sponsor MasterCard as the price of attending. — Before providing journalists …

Discussion: The Independent, Guardian, @kevinmitchell50, @arunsudhaman, @pressgazette, @davidefraser and The Drum

Sara Morrison / Poynter:

Media is ‘failing women’ — sports journalism particularly so — The Women's Media Center released its third annual Status of Women in the U.S. Media report today, and if you've been paying any attention to gender imbalances across print, broadcast and online platforms, it's more of the same.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Huffington Post, @martinrickman and @politicohen_

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Whisper publicizes and claims it vetted a new Gwyneth Paltrow affair rumor shared by a user — Whisper, The Sequoia-Backed Secret Sharing App, Makes A Move Into TMZ Territory — Whisper, the popular anonymous social sharing startup that's raised $24 million from venture capital giants …

Discussion: @neetzan, @whisperapp, @neetzan, @ryanlawler, @neetzan, @fmanjoo, Brian Solis, Business Insider, Betabeat, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and Gawker

Graydon Carter / Vanity Fair:
Graydon Carter explains why Vanity Fair didn't run with Gwyneth Paltrow piece

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Digital Spy, WebProNews, The New York Observer, @jayrosen_nyu, Guardian and @vfhollywood

Tim Peterson / AdAge:

Vice Goes Into Food Business With ‘American Idol’ Producer FremantleMedia — Site to Debut in Early April and Air Videos Online, on TV — In early April Vice will debut a yet-unnamed food vertical with “American Idol” producer FremantleMedia. The brash digital-media company also has a food-related ad network on its menu.

Discussion: The Wrap, Digital Spy, @adamclarkestes, broadcastnow.co.uk, thedrum.com, Digiday and Variety

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Warner in Deal to Sign Acts Found on Shazam — In the good old days of digital music — say, five or six years ago — high-tech talent scouting by record labels meant trawling MySpace for hot new bands. Labels still hunt for acts online, but the pools of data they consult have become much more vast …

Discussion: hypebot, @sisario, Music Week, @wiesenthal, AllAccess.com, Mobile Entertainment Feed, BroadwayWorld.com and The Next Web

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

AP brings Olympics coverage to local news outlets with customizable, white-label microsites — If you've seen an Winter Olympics medal count on your local newspapers' homepage, there's a good chance it was built by the Associated Press Digital News Experience program team.

Discussion: @ap_corpcomm

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Some people want a lot more Winter Olympics; some people want no Winter Olympics at all

Discussion: Latest News & Headlines, Forbes and The Whip

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

NBC Universal, FX Chiefs Call for Increased Anti-Piracy Measures — John Landgraf: Voluntary self-policing better route than legal battles — Internet gatekeepers like Google may have made strides to combat content piracy, but there's room for improvement.

Discussion: Plagiarism Today

Peter Lauria / BuzzFeed:

Scripps looking to sell CityEats after partnerships with cable channels fail to catch on — Exclusive: OpenTable Competitor CityEats Is For Sale — No appetite for the service among consumers. — Via cityeats.com — CityEats, the online reservation service launched in 2011 …

Patrick Frater / Variety:

Fuji TV to Stream Shows Online — TOKYO — Fuji TV will become the first Japanese network to offer its shows on the Internet simultaneously with its regular broadcast 24 hours a day. — On March 14 Fuji will launch Fuji TV NEXT Smart, a service that streams programs from the Fuji TV NEXT …

Jim Romenesko:

U.S. News deletes archived web content published before 2007 — A Romenesko reader recently noticed that U.S. News wiped out a good chunk of its archives. He writes: “The way that I stumbled upon this is that I am constantly going back into archives of various publications while doing research.

Discussion: Real Lawyers Have Blogs, @mtdukes, @dancow, @beschizza, @clare_oc, @notjessewalker and @felixsalmon

International Forum for Responsible Media:

Hacked Off: How the Telegraph, Mail and Times have helped reduce press freedom in the UK - Evan Harris — The organisation Reporters Without Borders produces an annual World Press Freedom Index ranking pretty much every country in the world for the degree of freedom enjoyed by its press.

Discussion: Slate

Motherboard:

Ukraine's Newest Media Company Is Ensuring the Revolution Will Be Televised — Just behind the wall of flame, a teenager raised a smartphone to the air. Beside him, a man hurled a leg of a chair into the blaze. Hundreds of people ducked in and around, covering their heads, yelling, feeding the fire.

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Ustream launches nonprofit program to support citizen journalism in Ukraine and beyond — As demonstrations in Kiev descended into chaos Tuesday, some of the most striking pictures came from citizen journalists. Part of that is dedication — live streamers like Ukrstream.tv and Spilno.tv …

Discussion: BroadwayWorld.com, Streaming Media and GlobalPost

Marton Dunai / Reuters:

How Hungary's government shaped public media to its mould — BUDAPEST (Reuters) - On June 21, 2011 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made a first appearance in what would become a regular slot on MR1 radio's news show. — The appearance in itself was nothing extraordinary …

New York Times:

El País Ousts Editor; 3rd Spanish Paper to Do So Amid Financial Woes — MADRID — El País, Spain's leading daily newspaper, ousted its top editor on Tuesday in a new sign of economic turmoil in an industry in which the leaders of two other top Spanish papers …

Discussion: In English Section and Bloomberg