Mediagazer: How Digiday's experiment in buying fraudulent traffic returned a 30% profit in 10 days (Jack Marshall/Digiday)

9:39 AM ET, March 5, 2014

Top News:

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

Guardian CEO: The paywall ‘horse has bolted’ for us — Andrew Miller, chief executive of Guardian Media Group tells Digital Media Strategies the time has passed for the news outlet to launch a paywall, but indicated that ‘membership’ could be a way of ‘adding value’ — Credit: Image by michael clarke stuff on Flickr.

Paul McNally / Press Gazette:

News UK chief Mike Darcey says Guardian ‘very brave’ to ‘bet’ the business on a free website — The chief executive of News UK has said he is “optimistic” that the Times and Sunday Times are on course to become profitable - and has described the papers' previous strategy of free online content as a …

Discussion: Guardian

Amol Sharma / Wall Street Journal:

CBS's Moonves says Dish's deal with Disney over the Hopper doesn't go far enough $CBS — Moonves Said Terms of Disney Deal Wouldn't Be Enough to Satisfy CBS — CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves said Tuesday the agreement Dish Network Corp. reached with Walt Disney Co. this week …

Discussion: Adweek, Hollywood Reporter, Hollywood Reporter, @wsjbusiness, Bloomberg, CNET, Forbes, New York Times and CNNMoney.com

Los Angeles Times:

Disney-Dish Network pact may alter TV viewing habits — The new distribution agreement, expected to become a blueprint on how the television industry treats digital programming rights, allows for a new wireless TV service. — In its new distribution deal with Disney …

Discussion: Gigaom

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Dish's deal with Disney may bring TV over the Web, but don't expect major changes to bundling

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Reuters:

Brooks accused of knowing about UK phone-hacking cover-up — (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's former British newspaper boss Rebekah was accused by prosecutors on Wednesday of knowing for years that phone-hacking was far wider than her company had acknowledged and had engaged in a cover-up.

Discussion: Press Gazette, Guardian, BBC and BreakingNews.ie

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch ‘asked Rebekah Brooks not to resign’ the day NoW shut — Phone-hacking trial hears of News Corp mogul's intervention after it was revealed Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked — Rupert Murdoch asked Rebekah Brooks “not to resign” the day the News of the World closed, the phone-hacking trial has heard.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Guardian, @lisaocarroll and Reuters

John Plunkett / Guardian:

BBC3 to be axed under director general's plans — Tony Hall expected to announce he will save BBC4 and close channel that first aired Gavin and Stacey — The closure of BBC3 is to be proposed by the broadcaster's director general, the Guardian understands, bringing the curtain down on the youth-oriented TV channel after 11 years.

Discussion: Metro.co.uk, @claire_phipps, thedrum.com and broadcastnow.co.uk

Jack Marshall / Digiday:

How Digiday's experiment in buying fraudulent traffic returned a 30% profit in 10 days — Fraudulent traffic: adventures in ad farming — Web advertising has a serious fraud problem, largely because it's easy for publishers to purchase suspicious traffic and to sell it to advertisers through networks and exchanges.

Discussion: @bmorrissey, @digiday, @niemanlab and Business Insider

Rachel Bartlett / Journalism.co.uk:

NYT plans lower pricing to reach non-subscribers and premium products for devoted readers — New York Times to add ‘series of new products’ for digital subscribers — Research by the New York Times has identified opportunities to target both non-subscribers and 'devoted Times readers …

Discussion: Telegraph, @matthewkeyslive, mUmBRELLA and FishbowlNY

Todd Spangler / Variety:

HBO Go Launches on PlayStation 3 — HBO's Internet video service, HBO Go, is now available on Sony Computer Entertainment America's PlayStation 3 consoles — but it still isn't available for the newer PS4. — According to Sony, about 25 million PlayStation 3 consoles are in use in the U.S. Netflix …

Discussion: PlayStation.Blog, Electronista, Polygon and The Next Web

Robert Feder:

Amid more layoffs, Sun-Times rehires four photographers — Four of the photographers who were fired when the Chicago Sun-Times eliminated its photography department last spring are rejoining the newspaper this week. — Rich Chapman, Brian Jackson, Al Podgorski and a fourth photographer whose name …

Discussion: Poynter, @donaldrwinslow, @georgemunro_cam, @dhinkel, @robertfeder, The Huffington Post and The Newspaper Guild

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

Slate appends corrections to errors on social media using replies, ensuring visiblity in stream — Slate's good strategy for correcting errors on Twitter, elsewhere — On Saturday night, Slate made a very funny, embarrassing error on Twitter: … Javier Bardem and Vladimir Putin aren't exactly lookalikes.

Discussion: @poynter, @elanazak, @bydanielvictor, @vivian and @antderosa

Erik Wemple:

AP removes misleading Trail Life USA photo from its archives — John Stemberger is chairman of the board of Trail Life USA, a scouting organization that doesn't allow participation from openly gay boys. The Associated Press's (AP) Nomaan Merchant recently completed an in-depth story …

Discussion: @poynter

Patrick Kingsley / Guardian:

Peter Greste and other al-Jazeera journalists return to court in Egypt — Second day of trial gets under way as a senior Egyptian minister admits that jailing the group of reporters was a mistake — A group of mainly al-Jazeera journalists return to court in Egypt on Wednesday for the second …

Discussion: Voice of America, BBC, @bbcandrewh, @bbcos, Al Jazeera English, NDTV News, Sky News Australia, Sydney Morning Herald and Committee to Protect …

Reuters:

Vietnam sentences dissident blogger Truong Duy Nhat to two years in prison — Vietnam jails ex-journalist over anti-government blog — (Reuters) - A court in Vietnam sentenced a former journalist to two years in prison on Tuesday for speaking out against the country's communist rulers …

Discussion: Associated Press, Voice of America, Voice of America and Committee to Protect …

Matt McGee / Marketing Land:

Twitter shares first “impressions” metrics for Oscars: 3.3B tweets viewed worldwide in 12 hours — Twitter Moves Beyond The Tweet, Shares First “Impressions” Metrics For Oscars — As the race for second screen dominance continues, Twitter is changing how it reports its own TV-related reach.

Discussion: The Twitter Blog, Forbes, AllTwitter, @kirstinestewart, Mediaite, Digital Trends and Mashable

Spencer Ackerman / Guardian:

NSA chief criticises media and suggests UK was right to detain David Miranda — Keith Alexander says revelations have caused ‘grave damage’ and claims officials are making ‘headway’ on ‘media leaks’ — The outgoing director of the National Security Agency lashed out at media organizations reporting …

Discussion: New York Times, Techdirt, @ggreenwald, @ioerror, bizjournals, @jayrosen_nyu and Firedoglake

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Newsquest's ‘little house of subbing horrors’ prompts NUJ protest — The National Union of Journalists has renewed its call on Newsquest/Gannett to change its mind about the subbing hub it has created in south Wales. — It follows a damning indictment of the hub's output by the former regional editor, Steve Dyson.

Discussion: HoldTheFrontPage, National Union of Journalists and HoldTheFrontPage

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

Undaunted By DirecTV Fracas, Weather Channel To Launch More Primetime Originals — Sam Champion, digital video get emphasis in early presentation geared toward coming upfronts — The Weather Company said it would continue to invest in documentary series for primetime …

Discussion: Capital New York

Bloomberg:

How Turkey's Erdogan held on to a newspaper and TV station despite Murdoch and Time Warner interest — Erdogan's Media Grab Stymies Expansion by Murdoch, Time Warner — In March 2012, Rupert Murdoch flew to Ankara and spent an hour chatting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about investing in Turkey.

Discussion: @osmancoskunoglu

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Boston Globe drops paywall, adds meter instead — A memo from Editor Brian McGrory lays out a number of big changes to the Globe's digital businesses. The catchiest: “We've replaced the paywall with a meter that allows readers ten free stories in a 30-day period.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Guardian, Media Nation, bizjournals, Talking New Media, Politico, @mathewi, @globemoskowitz, @abeaujon and @dankennedy_nu

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

BuzzFeed plans expansion to Mumbai, Berlin, Tokyo, Mexico City — In a memo to BuzzFeed staffers, CEO Jonah Peretti says the publication plans to expand to more cities: … A BuzzFeed spokesperson said there was no set date for offices in those other cities to come online but that it's definitely happening.

Discussion: Medium, bizjournals, FishbowlNY and @poynter