Mediagazer: Attorney General Signs New Rules to Limit Access to Journalists' Records (Charlie Savage/New York Times)

3:06 AM ET, February 22, 2014

Top News:

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Attorney General Signs New Rules to Limit Access to Journalists' Records — WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who drew fire last spring over the Justice Department's aggressive tactics for secretly obtaining reporters' phone logs and emails as part of leak investigations …

Discussion: USA Today, @emptywheel, emptywheel, Associated Press, @drudge and @kgosztola

CNN:

Venezuela says CNN can stay, a day after saying ‘get out’ — (CNN) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro told a CNN reporting team Friday that it could continue reporting in the South American country, a day after the government revoked or denied press credentials for CNN journalists.

Discussion: CNN, @romustgo, MiamiHerald.com, US Department of State, @jorgeramosnews, Global Voices, @tv6tnt, @statedept and Business Insider

Natalie Kitroeff / The Lede:

Venezuela Battles Media, Social and Otherwise, to Restrict Protest Coverage — Tensions escalated further in Venezuela on Friday as street protests that began 10 days ago continued and the government persisted in clamping down on coverage of the unrest in the broadcast media and online.

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, The Verge, Feministing and Mashable

Frank Bajak / Associated Press:
Activists say Venezuela is blocking walkie-talkie app Zello and websites Pastebin and NTN24

Discussion: Politico, @wexler, @nancypelosi and BBC

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Netflix packets being dropped every day because Verizon wants more money — Verizon wants to be paid by consumers and Cogent, but Cogent refuses to pay. — The battle over who should pay to carry Netflix traffic is heating up again, and one of the main players blames Verizon's greed …

Discussion: @caseyliss and CNNMoney.com

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Direct connection between Comcast and Netflix networks suggests peering agreement reached — Breaking: Netflix and Comcast have reached a peering agreement — Consumers' troubles with online video may be subsiding — at least for Comcast customers. Comcast and Netflix appear to have resolved …

Discussion: The Verge, Engadget and BGR

Jim Romenesko:

Report: Baltimore City Paper staffers will lose their jobs, but could be rehired by the Sun — Fern Shen reports Baltimore City Paper staffers met Thursday afternoon with their new boss at the Sun and were told that everyone loses their jobs, but could be rehired.

Discussion: bizjournals, Baltimore Brew, @camilledodero, @maura, @carr2n and The Huffington Post

Tom Scocca / Gawker:
Baltimore Is One Step Closer to Being a Zero-Newspaper Town

Discussion: @objectguerilla, @johnmcquaid, @tomscocca, @crash_landers, @jackshafer, @max_read, Digital Media Wire, Baltimore Sun and City Paper Blogs

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Is There Any Escape From ‘Recommended for You’? — Based on what The New York Times thinks I'm interested in reading, I am not a fun person. — “Recommended for You,” which tracks readers' habits and predicts their interests, finds me especially interested in the troubles of Gov. Chris Christie …

Discussion: @justinbrookman, @mathewi, @sulliview, @dangillmor and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Associated Press:

White House bars media from Dalai Lama meeting — WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House defended its decision Friday to bar reporters and photojournalists from a meeting between President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, while acknowledging the news media's legitimate interest in covering the two leaders' encounter.

Discussion: Poynter, White House News …, NPPA, @fieldproducer, Politico and The Huffington Post

Gautham Nagesh / Wall Street Journal:

Comcast Sees Time Warner Cable Deal Boosting Broadband Competition — Executive Says Deal Wouldn't Harm Home Users or Content Companies — A Comcast executive said Friday the company's planned $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable would create new competition in the commercial market …

Eric Lipton / New York Times:
Comcast's Web of Lobbying and Philanthropy

Discussion: @nickjrusso, @nickconfessore, @amychozick, @tackettdc and @brianstelter

Bloomberg:

Roku Said to Be Weighing Initial Public Offering in U.S. in 2014 — Roku Inc., the maker of set-top boxes that connect TVs to the Internet, is weighing an initial public offering in the U.S. this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. — A decision to move ahead hasn't been made …

Discussion: Gigaom, @zseward, VentureBeat and @pkafka

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

FCC's new closed captioning rules had long journey — FCC rules aimed at stopping inaccurate closed captioning took ten years to become a reality. New FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler made it a priority of his regime. — Thomas “Tom” Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission …

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
Proposed FCC study of news organizations sparks outcry

Discussion: Media Channel, Fox News, The Switch, The Daily Caller, Hit & Run, Hot Air, Los Angeles Times, Broadcasting & Cable, Poynter, Politico, Mediaite, Erik Wemple, Mother Jones, @jondelano, The Verge, The Newspaper Guild and The Hill

James Ball / Guardian:

Why are all the House of Cards journalists so bad at journalism? — Zoe and the gang can't report, lack ethics and have the common sense of a hacker's guinea pig. Somebody should fire them … Journalists have a guilty pleasure. In fact, we have several.

Discussion: @wesleylowery, @jaredbkeller and @moorehn

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Dish's Charlie Ergen: I'm Nervous About Comcast-TWC, Surprised Our Business Hasn't Been Worse — Optimism is supposedly one of the qualities people look for in politicians and business leaders. Apparently no one told Charlie Ergen, who seemed less concerned with soothing investors …

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Southern Living Puts its Name on Branded Communities — Diehard fans of Time Inc.'s Southern Living can live in a Southern Living-branded house filled with Southern Living-branded décor, thanks to the brand's formidable stable of brand extensions. There are home goods (furniture …

Discussion: @steve_katz

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

TV antenna maker Mohu targets cord cutters with new Channels device — Mohu, best known for its Mohu Leaf TV antenna, is introducing a new device that combines over-the-air TV with online video services. The company will launch a Kickstarter campaign for its new Mohu Channels product early next week …

David Bauder / Associated Press:

Jimmy Kimmel's Sochi wolf video hoax attracts criticism from media executives, others — KIMMEL'S WOLF HOAX: ABC NEWS KNEW AHEAD OF TIME — ABC News received advance warning of Jimmy Kimmel's prank about a wolf supposedly prowling the athletes' village in Sochi but didn't steer …

Discussion: Mediaite, @seangentille and Re/code

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:

Garrick Utley, Former NBC Anchor and Foreign Correspondent, Dies at 74 — Garrick Utley, a former anchor for NBC News who for many years was one of a rare breed in television news reporting, a full-time foreign correspondent, died on Thursday night at his home in Manhattan. He was 74.

Discussion: Robert Feder, Capital New York, CNN, @danielalpert, Gawker, @fitzbeat, @glennthrush, @marysolcastro, @donwildman and @louiseslaughter

Leo Mirani / Quartz:

Turns out Twitter is even more politically polarized than you thought — This is what Twitter looks like when two groups with different political views talk about the same thing: — As part of a new study on Twitter's network structures, the Pew Research Center and the Social Media Research …

Discussion: @gregdklein, SocialTimes and AppNewser

Pew Internet:
Mapping Twitter Topic Networks: From Polarized Crowds to Community Clusters

Discussion: PBS, Des Moines Register, Business Insider, Al Jazeera America, @accenturesocial, CNET, Washington Post, @jesseholcomb and The Technology Chronicles

Guardian:

Phone-hacking trial told of ‘bin man’ who sold documents to newspapers — Rebekah Brooks explains reference to ‘binology’ on invoice sent to the News of the World in 2001 while she was editor — A man who used to go through the bins of lawyers and other high profile people would sell material …