Mediagazer: America's copyright threat letters turn one year old, but no one will say how they're doing (Cory Doctorow/Boing Boing)

9:30 AM ET, February 27, 2014

Top News:

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 — LONDON — The tabloids Rebekah Brooks once edited might have paid six figures or more for details like those she has been divulging about her personal life during her trial on phone hacking charges: the celebrity husband …

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

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

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 @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

Discussion: The Verge, Mercury News, Associated Press, US News, International Business Times, NY Daily News, BBC, LA Weekly, RT, MarketWatch, Business Standard, PC World, Los Angeles Times, Voice of America, GizmoCrave, TechEye, CNET and @fedcourtjunkie

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

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

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 …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 …

Discussion: Inside Search, Variety, Wall Street Journal, BetaNews, Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, Engadget, 9to5Mac, The Next Web and The Wrap

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Marketing Chief Kathy Savitt's Star Rises at Yahoo — A management shake-up at Yahoo Inc. has conferred more power on Kathy Savitt, a marketing executive who has quickly risen to become one of Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's most prominent and trusted lieutenants.

Discussion: @wsjd

Cory Bergman / Breaking News Blog:

How Breaking News users personalized their Olympics — Thousands of Breaking News users tracked the 2014 Olympics on their own terms, muting stories to avoid spoilers or personalizing push notifications to ping them with results of their favorite events. We published over 600 Olympics updates …

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

NetNewsCheck:

Radio Industry Digital Rev Up 15% In 2013 — Overall, radio sellers closed $426.3 million in local online advertising last year, with the average station generating $166,000 in digital ad revenue in 2013, according to a new report from Borrell Associates. The firm expectss the industry's digital revenue to grow 22% in 2014.

Discussion: Radio & Television …