Mediagazer: Bloomberg, El Financiero Launch Business Channel in Mexico, Central America (Merrill Knox/TVNewser)

9:50 AM ET, February 27, 2014

Top News:

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Battle between New York attorney general and Trump casts shadow over The New York Observer — A New York Observer Article Brings a Spat in Trump's Orbit — Bill Gifford was managing an ice cream shop in Maplewood, N.J., last summer when a customer, Ken Kurson, the editor of The New York Observer, came in with an unorthodox request.

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:
Emails Show How Donald Trump's Enemy Became the Observer's Enemy

Discussion: @ggreeneva, @jimmyvielkind, @jbenton, @lhfang, @nickconfessore, @hunterw, @jaredbkeller, Capital New York and The New York Observer

Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch told Rebekah Brooks to make Sun more ‘fun’, court hears — Former editor tells phone-hacking trial that News Corp chief believed paper had become too bogged down in ‘pure politics’ — Rupert Murdoch made Rebekah Brooks editor of the Sun because he wanted her to make it more …

BBC:

Phone-hacking trial: Brooks ‘agreed payments to officials’ — Rebekah Brooks has told the phone-hacking trial she approved payments to public officials - but only when there was an “overwhelming public interest”. — She said she had agreed payments on a “handful of occasions” …

Discussion: Reuters and Guardian

Nick Davies / Guardian:

Rebekah Brooks ‘decided not to help phone-hacking inquiry in 2006’ — Former News of the World editor tells phone-hacking trial ‘complexities on the corporate level’ stopped her from being witness — Rebekah Brooks turned down a police request to help the original 2006 prosecution …

Katrin Bennhold / New York Times:
Tears and Tissues as Editor Testifies in Phone Hacking Case

Discussion: Guardian, Sky News, Financial Times, Daily Express, Mumbai, Mirror.co.uk, CNN, Guardian, Daily Mail and @karaswisher

Jill Lawless / Associated Press:
Rebekah Brooks says she offered convicted phone hacker a job to keep him from going public

Discussion: Guardian

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Secret ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Order Caused Google to Go Ballistic — The search giant had advance warning of what was coming and made an emergency motion slamming an appeals court for doing something it says was “stunning.” — A still from “The Innocence of Muslims”

Discussion: @evacide, @grimmelm, @blogdiva, @maira, New York Magazine and @flohmann

Corynne McSherry / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Bad Facts, Really Bad Law: Court Orders Google to Censor Controversial Video Based on Spurious Copyright Claim

Discussion: CNN, @alisternburg and @notjessewalker

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Google ordered to remove anti-Islamic film from YouTube

Fernando Alfonso III / Daily Dot:

Why Reddit mods are censoring Greenwald's latest bombshell — It's been called “Censorship Fiasco 2: Electric Boogaloo.” — News over the past 72 hours has been dominated by the implosion of Mt. Gox, once the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, and a report from Glenn Greenwald …

Discussion: @mathewi, @mattzeitlin, @intercept_this, Techdirt and Washington's Blog

Guardian:

Guardian Australia stands in solidarity with imprisoned journalists — On the global day of action in support of the al-Jazeera journalists detained in Egypt, Guardian Australia stands in solidarity with all persecuted and threatened journalists — Guardian Australia condemns the harassment …

Dominica Lim / Al Jazeera America:
Al Jazeera calls for global day of action on Feb. 27 to support detained journalists in Egypt

Discussion: Poynter, The Huffington Post, @jumurungi, @joepompeo, Index on Censorship, @ajam, CMG, Al Jazeera English, Reuters and Capital New York, Thanks:@jaredbkeller

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

ProPublica opens Data Store with free and ‘premium’ data — ProPublica is looking to data as a possible revenue stream as it launches an online Data Store as ‘a bit of an experiment’ to test demand — Credit: By gruenenrw on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Discussion: ProPublica and Gigaom

Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:

Tumblr Courts Hollywood With First Director of Media (Exclusive) — The Yahoo-owned blogging platform follows Twitter and Facebook in its effort to forge deeper ties with the entertainment industry. — Tumblr is making a big push in Hollywood. — The Yahoo-owned blogging platform …

Discussion: The Wrap, Tubefilter, Variety and MediaPost

Jessica Davies / The Drum:

‘Mobile-first’ has become a meaningless term, says FT's CTO John O'Donovan while unveiling ‘universal publishing’ strategy — The term mobile-first has become “meaningless” in this multiplatform landscape where it has become crucial not to “obsess” over specific platforms but focus on the wider picture …

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

The UK TV licence fee should cover iPlayer on-demand too, says BBC Director-General — At the 13th annual Oxford Media Convention in England today, BBC Director-General Tony Hall outlined his case for publicly funded broadcasting and, more specifically, the UK TV licence fee.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Daily Mail, BBC, mirror, Gloucester and Guardian

John Plunkett / Guardian:
BBC could axe frontline channel or service as it seeks extra £100m in cuts

Discussion: @ade_jacobs, @mid_wifecrisis and Reuters Institute …

Corey Hutchins / Columbia Journalism Review:

Why did the FCC want to interview journalists in the first place? — Context for the agency's Critical Information Needs study—and for the backlash it sparked — CHARLESTON, SC — The Federal Communications Commission publicly backed off part of a controversial research study last week …

Discussion: @coreyhutchins and Techdirt

John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:
Clyburn Defends FCC's Critical Needs Study

Discussion: @eggerton, @eggerton, @jbflint, Los Angeles Times, Watchdog.org and TheHill

Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:

America's copyright threat letters turn one year old, but no one will say how they're doing — The Copyright Alert System — a “voluntary” system of disconnection threats sent to alleged file-sharers, created by entertainment companies and the large US ISPs — has just celebrated its first birthday …

Discussion: RT, Advanced Television, BGR and TorrentFreak

Costas Pitas / Reuters:

ITV says open to acquisitions after earnings rise — (Reuters) - ITV, Britain's largest free-to-air broadcaster, said on Wednesday it was on the hunt for acquisitions as it posted an increase in revenue that will help fund another special dividend for shareholders.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Guardian and Guardian

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Apple urges U.S. appeals court to void ‘radical’ e-books ruling — (Reuters) - Apple Inc urged a U.S. appeals court to throw out a judge's “radical” finding that it violated antitrust law by manipulating electronic book prices, and blamed publishers for running a conspiracy it claimed to know nothing about.

Discussion: MediaPost, PC World, PC Magazine, AppleInsider, MyNorthwest.com and Fortune

Merrill Knox / TVNewser:

Bloomberg, El Financiero Launch Business Channel in Mexico, Central America — Bloomberg and Mexican newspaper El Financiero are teaming up to launch a multiplatform Spanish-language business news service, including a television network that will serve as Mexico and Central America's only Spanish-language business news channel.

Discussion: Radio & Television …

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Micro sports news site Rookie uses quotes as atomic units in human curated news stories — Can the quote be a new atomic unit of news? Rookie (no, not that one) tries a new twist on sports — L.C. Angell says he builds websites with himself as the target reader.

Discussion: @eyeseast and @niemanlab

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Google Becomes A “Second Screen,” Teams Up With FOX To Offer Online Voting Tools For “American Idol” — Blippar Introduces Image Recognition And AR Advertising On Google Glass — So much for Twitter as the “second screen” and all its TV partnerships - Google announced this morning …