Mediagazer: Cut loose by UC Berkeley, hyperlocal site Mission Local looks to spin off as a for-profit (Joseph Lichterman/Nieman Journalism Lab)

6:00 PM ET, February 27, 2014

Top News:

Alex Hern / Guardian:

Google fights court-ordered takedown of anti-muslim video — ‘Innocence of Muslims’ actor succeeds in copyright claim in San Francisco ninth circuit court — Google is fighting a US court's demand that it take down a trailer for an Islamophobic movie called Innocence of Muslims due to a copyright claim.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and Techdirt

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Secret ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Order Caused Google to Go Ballistic

Discussion: Technology & …, @grimmelm, @mrpolyatheist, @evacide, @blogdiva, @maira, @flohmann, Techdirt 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

Todd Spangler / Variety:

ABC will live-stream Oscars on web and mobile only to pay-TV subscribers in select markets — ABC Will Live-Stream Oscars to Web, Mobile Apps for First Time — But There's a Catch — Alphabet net to offer kudocast through Watch ABC apps and website, accessible only through certain pay-TV partners

Discussion: Capital New York, Broadcasting & Cable, The Wrap, Mediaite, @zseward, CNET, The Verge and Engadget

Todd Spangler / Variety:
ABC Signs On to Twitter's Advertising Program, Starting With #Oscars

Discussion: The Next Web

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 …

Nick Davies / Guardian:
Rebekah Brooks ‘decided not to help phone-hacking inquiry in 2006’

Discussion: New York Times

BBC:
Phone-hacking trial: Brooks ‘agreed payments to officials’

Discussion: Reuters, @franceshinde, Guardian and @patrickjbutler

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

Beyond tweeting: Demystifying the social media editor — While the popular perception of the social media editor is a fresh-out-of-college intern sitting on Twitter all day, the now-ubiquitous role is more complicated than that — and more important — “Twitter and Facebook have become far …

Discussion: @10000words, @antderosa, @hashtagchad, @joelcifer, @jaredbkeller, @ashleykmayo, @crackliffe, @bydanielvictor, @raju and Talking Biz News

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Amazon Talks to Music Labels About a Streaming Service — Amazon gives away movies and TV shows to people who join its Amazon Prime subscription service. When will it start giving away music, too? — Maybe this year. People have been predicting that Amazon would offer a Spotify …

Discussion: The Verge, 9to5Mac, Engadget, Pocket-lint, App Advice and The Next Web

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 …

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.

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Food & Wine Launches New Brand for Millennials — It's debatable whether millennials are special, but one thing is certain: Their relationship with food is. They want it to be authentic, they want to know how it was produced, and they want it to be a shared experience, preferably involving small plates eaten at communal tables.

Discussion: @qualityrye

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Spotify and Ministry of Sound settle music playlists copyright lawsuit — Playlists based on dance brand's compilations will be removed from streaming service's search engine — Dance brand Ministry of Sound and streaming service Spotify have reached an “amicable” out-of-court settlement in their legal battle over music playlists.

Discussion: Plagiarism Today, Music Week, hypebot and Digital Spy

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: Gigaom, Mashable, @antderosa, @mathewi, @michaelroston, Washington's Blog, @mathewi, @mattzeitlin, @intercept_this, Techdirt and Zero Hedge

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Inkshares wants to create a hybrid of traditional book publisher and crowdfunded digital platform — As with so many other media and publishing-related businesses, the book industry has been massively disrupted by the internet, to the point where an increasing number of authors have found success …

Doc Searls Weblog:

Sell the news, give away the olds — We decided this year to zero-base all our subscriptions to print publications. The reasoning: since most pubs give the best deals to new or slow-to-return readers, wait to see how far down they push the price, and in the meantime see if we actually miss them.

Discussion: @tcarmody, @kevinmarks, @jaykaydee, @leshinton, @dsearls, Medium, @ksablan and @jayrosen_nyu

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, SocialTimes, Tubefilter, Variety and MediaPost

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, 10,000 Words, Gigaom, @exaronews and @marceellison

Willard Foxton / Telegraph:

It's only the threat of piracy that keeps the online music and TV industries honest — Streaming is rapidly becoming the way most of us consume music, film and television. Much of the best stuff is only available there, as anyone emerging from a House of Cards binge will tell you.

Discussion: @willardfoxton

Dan Rayburn / StreamingMediaBlog.com:

Here's How The Comcast & Netflix Deal Is Structured, With Data & Numbers — There's been a lot of speculation involving the business and technical details surrounding the recent deal between Comcast and Netflix and plenty of wrong numbers and information being used.

Discussion: Daring Fireball

Clay Shirky / Politico Magazine:

What the decline of television means for politics—and why the medium is the new message. — In the annals of political lore, the transformative effect of the 1960 debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy has a way of getting overstated. Nixon's sweaty upper lip. Kennedy's youthful vigor.

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Cut loose by UC Berkeley, hyperlocal site Mission Local looks to spin off as a for-profit — Five years ago, in the worst days of the economic collapse, Len Downie and Michael Schudson wrote their benchmark report “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” attempting to chart a course forward for a news business in trouble.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab and Mission Loc@l

Bill Carter / New York Times:

‘Tonight’ Starts Well, on YouTube and on TV — The traditional television ratings have been impressive for the first week-plus of the new “Tonight” show hosted by Jimmy Fallon, but they do not include what amounts to a giant secondary audience that has gathered online to watch carefully crafted …

Discussion: @peterlattman

Brendan Gahan / Betabeat:

YouTube is Not a Sweatshop—It's Actually a Goldmine, and Here's Why — (Image via Tumblr user Eric Fleischauer) — Earlier this month, Betabeat writers were surprised to learn that popular YouTube blogger Olga Kay was regularly churning out 20 or more videos a week …

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: Guardian, TVNewser, Poynter, The Huffington Post, GlobalPost, @ajam, GlobalPost, Al Jazeera English, The Huffington Post, Kirk LaPointe's …, Index on Censorship and Al Jazeera America

Brent Kendall / Wall Street Journal:

First Known Video Captures High Court Chamber Protest Footage — Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital's comings and goings in a series of newsy, and sometimes even gossipy, items.

Discussion: Gawker, The Verge, @neetzan, @timjhanrahan and @pdacosta

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 …