Mediagazer: ProPublica receives $1M grant from MacArthur Foundation (Andrew Lapin/Current.org)

9:45 AM 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.

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Rebekah Brooks: NoW spent up to £250,000 on Divine Brown story — Phone-hacking trial hears of measures paper took to stop rivals securing Hugh Grant scoop when Brooks was features editor — The News of the World spent up to £250,000 flying Divine Brown and her family to the middle …

Discussion: ITV

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

Discussion: Deadline.com and New York Times

Ahram Online:

Trial of Al Jazeera journalists adjourned until 5 March — Journalists are standing trial for joining a terrorist group and airing false news - charges labeled ‘absurd, baseless and false’ by the Qatari channel — The trial of 20 journalists working for Al Jazeera, including four foreigners, has been adjourned until 5 March.

Discussion: Reuters

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

Discussion: @inigogilmore, The Huffington Post, Agence France Presse, Agence France Presse, Foreign Policy, CNN, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, @leloveluck, @leloveluck, allAfrica.com, Al Jazeera English, BBC and Guardian

ABC:
Peter Greste profile: Career of a foreign correspondent

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

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

Ted Johnson / Variety:

Utah Federal Judge Halts Aereo in Salt Lake City and Denver — A federal judge in Utah has imposed a preliminary injunction on Aereo's operations, a win for broadcasters as they seek to halt the startup streaming service in Salt Lake City and Denver. — “Based on the plain language …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, CNET, Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, MediaPost, Reuters, Salt Lake Tribune, Engadget, The Verge, Consumerist, Bloomberg, multichannel.com/rss, Adweek, The Wrap, @xpangler and Deadline.com

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

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

Washington Post:

Alison Coliagnese to become reader representative — Announcement from Marty Baron, Executive Editor, and Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page Editor: — We're delighted to announce that Alison Coliagnese will become the Post's Reader Representative, succeeding Doug Feaver.

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:

China's Tencent signs deal for access to exclusive Business Insider content — Business Insider Just Launched An Awesome New China Partnership With Tencent — Here's The Google-Translate Version — Business Insider just launched a cool new content partnership with China Internet behemoth Tencent.

Discussion: @hblodget and Tech in Asia

Michelle Arrouas / TIME:

Veteran Canadian Journalist Missing In Cambodia — Dave Walker was working on a film about Khmer Rouge war criminals at the time — Cambodian police are searching for a veteran Canadian journalist who has been missing since late last week, Canadian officials say.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, The Phnom Penh Post, Toronto Star, CBC News, Bangkok Post, Canada's network for news …, GlobalPost, Edmonton Journal, ctvnews.ca and Globe and Mail

Bloomberg:

Slim Said to Plan Bigger New York Times Stake by Year-End — Billionaire Carlos Slim plans to exercise warrants by the end of the year that will more than double his stake in the New York Times Co. to as much as 19 percent, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Discussion: Crain's New York Business, Reuters, @tobinharshaw and FishbowlNY

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

Nic Christensen / mUmBRELLA:

The Guardian to launch Melbourne office and ramp up staff to more than 50 — The Guardian is to open a Melbourne office and launch a new hiring spree, with its overall Australian staff to grow to more than 50 in the coming weeks, Mumbrella can reveal. — The opening of the Melbourne office …

Discussion: GNM press office

Jake Mitchell / Sydney Morning Herald:

Fairfax posts jump in profit — Fairfax Media has reported 48.5 per cent growth in underlying profit to $86.4 million for the half year ended December 31, with the print, digital and radio businesses focusing on cutting costs and targeting new revenue streams.

Discussion: Stuff.co.nz, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Business Insider, AdNews, B&T, HeraldSun, TheAustralian, mUmBRELLA and Crikey

Jonathan Marino / The Deal Pipeline:

Fosun closes in on deal for Forbes; price short of $250M — When money management magazine and website Forbes Media LLC is sold, likely to Fosun International Ltd., the Chinese conglomerate that has taken the front-runner position in the company's auction, sources said …

Discussion: @joshsternberg, @hofrench and @jackshafer, Thanks:@jonmarino

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Are quizzes the new lists? What BuzzFeed's latest viral success means for publishing — Lately, it seems like the hardest content format to avoid on the social web is the BuzzFeed quiz. — What city should I actually live in? Paris. How will I die? Eaten by piranhas. Should I learn to code?

Discussion: @sebchan and @heiditworek

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

Murdoch's hard-paywall success — I've criticized Rupert Murdoch for his hard-paywall strategy at The Times of London, arguing that a metered model a la the Financial Times or New York Times would be the much better option. — I still think The Times should move to a meter …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

Gautham Nagesh / Wall Street Journal:

FCC plans to issue new net neutrality rules. — The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday that it will craft new rules to prevent Internet service providers from charging companies like Netflix or Google a toll to reach consumers at the highest speeds.

Discussion: FCC.gov, Variety, Home Media Magazine, New York Times, The Week, Ars Technica, @reedfrich, @pkafka, @theharryshearer, The Switch, The Breakdown, PandoDaily, Free Press Blog, BGR, TIME, Mother Jones, @digitalsista and AllAccess.com

Amy Schatz / Re/code:
Net Neutrality Rules Are Out: New Twist on Old Proposal

Discussion: The Verge, Policy Blog, @karaswisher, @mikeisaac, Techdirt, Electronista, GeekWire and @amy_schatz

Kathleen Bartzen Culver / Mediashift:

Taking Action: EdShift Launches to Move Journalism Education Forward — When I do multimedia trainings for college educators with Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute, we get to a particular point in the arc of the sessions and see a specific response. We stand before these teachers …

Discussion: Poynter and @knightfdn