Mediagazer: New Report Says How Much Advertising Is Going to Piracy Sites $227 million in 2013 (Lucia Moses/Adweek)

2:20 PM ET, February 20, 2014

Top News:

Rebekah Brooks acquitted of one charge of misconduct in phone hacking trial — Former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks has been formally found not guilty of one charge of misconduct in a public office but she remains on trial for four further counts.

BBC:

Brooks denies knowing of NoW hacker — Rebekah Brooks has said she never heard of a private investigator who has since been jailed for phone hacking while she was editor of the News of the World. — Mrs Brooks said that during her leadership of the paper, she never heard investigator Glenn Mulcaire's name mentioned.

Discussion: Press Association, Kirk LaPointe's … and @bbcbreaking

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Rebekah Brooks not on trial for having worked for Rupert Murdoch, court told

Discussion: New York Times and Deadline.com

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Rebekah Brooks: NoW spent up to $250,000 on Divine Brown story

Discussion: Press Association, @kamintone and ITV

Gregg Carlstrom / Foreign Policy:

Why Egypt Hates Al Jazeera — The network's Cairo-based staff, who stand accused of running a terror cell from a luxury hotel, find themselves caught in the middle of a regional power struggle. Cairo — Last summer, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy was one of thousands of protesters who took to Tahrir Square …

Discussion: @daliaezzat_

Maggie Michael / Associated Press:
Trial of Al Jazeera reporters begins in Egypt as Human Rights Watch group denounces charges

Discussion: @inigogilmore, Associated Press, Al Jazeera English, BBC, Agence France Presse, Agence France Presse, @leloveluck, allAfrica.com, Bloomberg, CNN, Los Angeles Times, @leloveluck and Guardian

Ahram Online:
Trial of Al Jazeera journalists adjourned until 5 March

Discussion: Poynter, Reuters, Al Jazeera Press Office and Al Jazeera America

ABC:
Peter Greste profile: Career of a foreign correspondent

Discussion: TheAustralian, Sydney Morning Herald, ABC Radio Australia, @perryalexj, @sarahskynews, HeraldSun, ABC, Brisbane Times, @ivorytowerjourn and NEWS.com.au

Om Malik / Gigaom:

Om Malik leaves day-to-day operations at GigaOm, becomes full partner at True Ventures, site raises $8M more — Now that Gigaom is all grown up, it's time for the next chapter — It's a new year (although it's well underway) and I'm excited to talk about the new phase at Gigaom.

Discussion: Om Malik, TechCrunch, @nitashatiku, @hblodget, @laurengoode, @carr2n, @satishd, @alexia, @rafat, @tomkrazit, @pkedrosky, @ashleymayer, @msquinn, @caseynewton, @thekenyeung, @mikeisaac, @tonysphere and @om

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

FCC wants to improve quality of closed captioning — FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wants to improve closed captioning. — “Five wins and a very light power reese know” sounds more like gibberish than a weather forecast. — But that was the closed captioning on a WeatherNation report last month.

Discussion: TVWeek.com

Julian Hattem / The Hill:
FCC: ‘No intention’ of muzzling press

Discussion: Hot Air and Mediaite

Baltimore Sun:

Baltimore Sun Media Group to buy City Paper — Staff reports — The Baltimore Sun Media Group said today it is buying the alternative weekly City Paper for an undisclosed price. The transaction is set to close in March, the company said. — The move brings together two of the Baltimore area's most well-known news organizations.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Poynter, @suitsandsoot, @alexkoppelman, @jfruh, @pinkgrammar, @carr2n and AAN

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

LinkedIn's competitive advantage over other publishers: $1.5B in annual revenues — LinkedIn has the one thing other publishing platforms would kill for — We've been writing a lot lately about the increasingly blurry lines between platform and publisher, a world in which new-media entities …

Discussion: Forbes, blog.linkedin.com, Nieman Journalism Lab, Re/code, @emilybell, Real Lawyers Have Blogs, Engadget and ZDNet

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Before Facebook Deal, WhatsApp Was Helping BuzzFeed and Shazam Go Viral With New Platform Tools — Unlike mobile messaging competitors like Line and WeChat, WhatsApp has taken a resolute stance against becoming a platform that distributes games and other apps.

Discussion: Facebook, Sequoia Capital, DealBook, Fortune, CNNMoney.com, Gawker, The New Yorker Blog, TechCrunch, The Verge, @mattbuchanan, Quartz, @buzzfeedben, The Verge, @antderosa and @ezraklein

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi joins Omidyar's First Look Media to cover financial and political corruption — Start-Up Site Hires Critic of Wall St. — Matt Taibbi, who made a name as a fierce critic of Wall Street at Rolling Stone magazine, has joined First Look Media …

Dylan Byers / Politico:

POLITICO taps Hotline EIC for Campaign Pro — POLITICO has hired National Journal Hotline editor-in-chief Steve Shepard to help launch the latest venture in its growing subscription-service empire: Campaign Pro, “a vertical aimed at political, PAC and campaign professionals.”

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Arif Durrani / MediaWeek:

Guardian Labs looks beyond ads to engaging content — Anna Watkins is on a mission at The Guardian. Full of purpose and radiating energy, she is out to prove just what her favourite news brand is capable of when it comes to creating long-term, engaging commercial partnerships.

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

New Report Says How Much Advertising Is Going to Piracy Sites $227 million in 2013 — In the longstanding fight to combat online piracy, there's been growing pressure on the advertisers whose ads appear on sites that steal copyrighted material. The Obama administration has called for private-sector actions to reduce piracy.

Discussion: PR Newswire, Techie News, WorldScreen.com, @lamyj, copyrightalliance.org …, @respectcreators and TorrentFreak

Alex Weprin / Capital New York:

M.L.B., N.B.A., N.H.L. and others to launch joint digital sports channel with Time Inc. — Three of the “big four” U.S. sports leagues are teaming up to launch a new digital video channel, in conjunction with Time Inc. The channel, called 120 Sports, will launch later this spring …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Variety, Adweek, PR Newswire, @kevinmdraper, @dylanbyers, @capitalnewyork and Tubefilter

Bloomberg:

Sochi Olympics a ‘Tremendous Success’ for NBC, CEO Says — NBCUniversal, overcoming smaller prime-time TV audiences, views its Winter Olympics coverage in Sochi as a “tremendous success,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Burke said. — “In 2011 we made a major commitment of over $4 billion …

Discussion: CBS News and Forbes

Andrew Lapin / Current.org:

ProPublica receives $1M grant from MacArthur Foundation — ProPublica will receive a $1 million Award for Creative and Effective Institutions from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the funder announced Thursday. The nonprofit is the only news organization among the seven recipients selected.

Discussion: ProPublica, Poynter, Politico and Minneapolis Star Tribune

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

Author James Patterson sets up $1M fund to help independent bookstores innovate — James Patterson Giving Cash to Bookstores — Independent bookstores, with their paper-thin profit margins and competition from Amazon, have found themselves a Daddy Warbucks.

Discussion: Publishers Weekly, Associated Press, Bookmarks and bookforum.com

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

How The Syrian Electronic Army Hacked Us: A Detailed Timeline — Early Thursday morning, a Forbes senior executive was woken up by a call from her assistant, saying that she'd be working from home due to a forecast predicting the snowiest day of the year. When she ended the call …

Discussion: @ejhilbert and Digiday

Karen Fratti / 10,000 Words:

National Journal Launches Document Library — Need some background research for a complicated energy policy story? Or a good idea for your niche publication to demonstrate its value for readers? — Take a tip from the National Journal, which launched a the Document Library this week …

Discussion: Lost Remote, NationalJournal.com and FishbowlDC