Mediagazer: Detroit news outlets join forces in reporting from the grass roots (Madison Gray/Poynter)

10:45 AM ET, February 28, 2014

Top News:

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

Business Insider launching in UK this year, first outside US with no franchisee content licensing deals and its own staff — Business Insider prepares to take the UK — For Business Insider, the next move in its bid for global domination is to colonize the U.K.

Discussion: @hblodget

Darren Boyle / Press Gazette:

FT Group boosts profits to £55 million as business daily's digital subs rise to 415,000 — The FT Group made a profit of £55 million last year despite plunging print circulation figures for the FT according to results reported this morning. — Profit was said to be up 17 per cent year on year, on an underlying basis.

Discussion: Guardian

Kristen Schweizer / Bloomberg:
Pearson Plunges as Earnings Drop on Education in North America

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Life Style Extra, Reuters, Financial Times, RTTNews, @tcarmody, London News, City A.M. and Bookseller news

Jasmine Wang / Bloomberg:

Hong Kong Paper Raises Reward to Find Lau's Attackers — Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News tripled its cash reward to HK$3 million ($387,000) for catching the assailants who critically injured its former chief editor Kevin Lau, the newspaper said today. — Media Chinese International Ltd. …

Discussion: Reuters, The Irish Times, Here & Now, New York Times and Wall Street Journal

Agence France-Presse:
Hong Kong journalists vow not to be intimidated by savage attack on Kevin Lau

Discussion: Poynter and Wall Street Journal

Ben Thompson / stratechery:

Comcast deal is beneficial for Netflix but not for true net neutrality — e Netflix and Net Neutrality — This article is by definition very US-centric, but the general principles apply broadly — For anyone remotely connected to technology, the idea that net neutrality is an unabashed …

Discussion: @lorcand and Marco.org

Dan Rayburn / StreamingMediaBlog.com:
Here's How The Comcast & Netflix Deal Is Structured, With Data & Numbers

Discussion: @numonkeys, @patricknorton, @samschwartz, @pkafka and Daring Fireball

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

TheWeek.com Launches ‘Speed Reads’ Vertical — In the past couple of years, the “longread” has been one of the most popular buzzwords among online publications, with outlets from BuzzFeed to The Atlantic touting investments in more deep-dive, longform journalism.

Discussion: theweek.com

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:

Hollywood Rallies Support for Republicans After Piracy Defeat — Bruised by the defeat of an anti-piracy bill two years ago, Hollywood's chief lobbying organization is giving more money to outside political groups that support Republican lawmakers. — During the 2012 election cycle …

Discussion: @lucas_shaw, CREW and TheHill

David Sirota / PandoDaily:
MPAA response to Pando investigation confirms strength of visual-effects workers case against Big Hollywood

Discussion: Variety and @mcarney

John Plunkett / Guardian:

BBC and BSkyB reach agreement over retransmission payments — Corporation will no longer pay to have channels on satellite broadcaster's platform, saving £4.5m a year — The BBC and BSkyB have resolved their long-running row over retransmission fees with the corporation no longer having …

Discussion: bbc.co.uk and broadcastnow.co.uk

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Reddit is having the same problem as traditional media: Defining what the news is — I'm not sure if it qualifies as ironic or not, but just a day after I wrote a post about how Reddit's new “live reporting” feature could contribute to the opening up or crowdsourcing of journalism …

Fernando Alfonso III / Daily Dot:
Why Reddit mods are censoring Greenwald's latest bombshell

Discussion: @lightcoin, Mashable, Washington's Blog, @mathewi, @michaelroston, @intercept_this, @antderosa, @mathewi and @mattzeitlin

Margaret Simons / Guardian:

The Saturday Paper: who on earth would launch a newspaper today? — Meet publisher Morry Schwartz and his 25-year-old editor, Erik Jensen, who over Darjeeling tea dreamed up an audacious plan to buck the rampant trend towards digital — Print enthusiasts Schwartz and Jensen.

Discussion: @themurdochtimes

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

Someone Outranking You With Your Own Content? Use The New Google Scraper Report — One of the most frustrating experiences for any publisher is discovering that someone not only has copied your content but outranks you on Google for searches related to that content.

Discussion: Softpedia News

Michael Holden / Reuters:

Ex-Murdoch British CEO Brooks paid official for Saddam anthrax story — (Reuters) - Rebekah Brooks, the ex-chief executive of News Corp.'s British newspaper arm, told a London court on Friday she had paid a public official for a story about former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein planning to attack Britain with the poison anthrax.

Discussion: BBC, The Evening Telegraph, The Drum and New York Times

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Tribune and Time Inc. spinoffs face uncertain future as parents strip digital assets, add debt — The newsonomics of the print orphanage — Tribune's and Time Inc.'s — Talk about spin. Two of America's once-iconic publishers are about to be spun. Spun off, that is …

Discussion: @niemanlab, @saila, Mashable, @jbenton and Bloomberg

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Hulu is selling its Japanese service to Nippon TV — Hulu Japan is being acquired by the local broadcast giant Nippon TV. Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins announced the move in a blog post, which read in part: … Hopkins said that the service had grown to a size where a sale to a strategic buyer made sense.

Discussion: Hulu Blog, Softpedia News, Variety, The Next Web, Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, Broadcasting & Cable, Home Media Magazine, VentureBeat, CNET, TechCrunch and Engadget

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: USA Today, Digital Trends, Cult of Mac, Business Insider, Pocket-lint, The Verge, VatorNews, GeekWire, Good E-Reader, VentureBeat, Digital Spy, Electronista, AppleInsider, Mashable, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Engadget, App Advice and The Next Web

Erik Gruenwedel / Home Media Magazine:

Blockbuster brand licenced by Crash Entertainment in UK, retail, by-mail, VOD coming late 2014 — Blockbuster Lives On in the U.K. — The nine lives of Blockbuster Video continues. — Dish Network's three-year ownership of rental icon Blockbuster may have resulted in a cumulative net loss …

Discussion: MCV: Home Stream, Strategy Informer, VG247, VideoGamer.com and Pocket-lint

Madison Gray / Poynter:

Detroit news outlets join forces in reporting from the grass roots — A long worn-out joke about Detroit goes something like this: “The last one out of the city, please turn off the lights.” — It's a tired jab at a city that has taken more than its share of punches for its seemingly …

Discussion: @poynter

Todd Spangler / Variety:

ABC Signs On to Twitter's Advertising Program, Starting With #Oscars — ABC is the last of the major U.S. broadcast networks to get into the Twitter Amplify program, with the Alphabet net teed up to launch its first sponsored-tweet campaign Sunday with the Oscars.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Mashable, @twitterads and The Next Web