Mediagazer: Battle between New York attorney general and Trump casts shadow over The New York Observer (Ravi Somaiya/New York Times)

10:15 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’

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, Guardian, Daily Mail and @karaswisher

Guardian:
Rebekah Brooks tells court she didn't read NoW interview with phone hacker

Discussion: CNN and canada.com

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

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

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 and New York Magazine

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

Agence France-Presse:

Al-Jazeera stages solidarity day with Egypt-held staff — Doha — Al-Jazeera television on Thursday organised a “global day of action” in solidarity with its four journalists detained in Egypt over accusations of supporting the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, GlobalPost, Al Jazeera English, Index on Censorship and Al Jazeera America

Guardian:
Guardian Australia stands in solidarity with imprisoned journalists

Discussion: Poynter

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 …

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

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

John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:

Clyburn Defends FCC's Critical Needs Study — Calls it effort to better understand industries and environments; says she would never chill speech — FCC commissioner and former acting chairwoman Mignon Clyburn defended the FCC's Critical Information Needs study Feb. 26 in a speech …

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

Corey Hutchins / Columbia Journalism Review:
Why did the FCC want to interview journalists in the first place?

Discussion: @coreyhutchins and Techdirt

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 …

Mike Shields / Wall Street Journal:

Warner Bros. Considers Investment in Machinima — Warner Bros. is mulling an investment in Web video network Machinima. — The film studio is said to be considering putting $10 million to $15 million into Machinima, a gaming-centric company that has built a big following on YouTube, according to people familiar with the situation.

Discussion: Music Ally, @benfritz, VentureBeat and @pkafka

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

Alex Weprin / Capital New York:

Niche networks get a shot, thanks to Comcast deal — El Rey Network, which launched quietly in December, wouldn't exist if Comcast hadn't acquired NBCUniversal. — Case in point: How John Fogelman, a former William Morris Endeavor agent who became C.E.O. of Hollywood media incubator FactoryMade Ventures …

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 …