Mediagazer: Government backs off case against journalist who faced decades in prison for posting hyperlink (Adi Robertson/The Verge)

4:50 PM ET, March 5, 2014

Top News:

Laurie Segall / CNNMoney:

CNN sells Zite to Flipboard, teams up to launch custom magazines for CNN shows — CNN sells Zite to Flipboard — CNN has sold its news reader app, Zite, to Flipboard, a social magazine application. As part of the deal, Flipboard has also teamed up with CNN to launch custom magazines …

JP Mangalindan / Fortune:

CNN sells Zite to Flipboard in all-stock transaction worth more than the $20M CNN paid in 2011 — Flipboard buys Zite news app from CNN — The standalone iPad news app will eventually be shut down and integrated into Flipboard. Also: Zite's CEO tells Fortune why he left.

Discussion: ReadWrite, Tech Deals, ReadWrite, ZDNet, @edmundlee, @felixsalmon and @megan

Haitham Tabei / Agence France-Presse:

Torture claim in Egypt trial of Jazeera journalists — Cairo (AFP) - The trial of Al-Jazeera journalists accused of supporting deposed president Mohamed Morsi's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood resumed Wednesday, with defendants claiming torture and denial of medical treatment.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, english.ahram.org.eg, UK - The Huffington Post, Business Insider India, BBC, World Bulletin, Al Jazeera America and The Age

Patrick Kingsley / Guardian:

Al-Jazeera trial: prosecution presents contents of journalists' hotel rooms — Trial in Egypt descends into farce on day two as everything from journalists' hotel rooms is presented as evidence by prosecution — The second day of the trial of three al-Jazeera journalists in Egypt descended …

Discussion: Poynter, @jeromestarkey and The Newspaper Guild

Patrick Kingsley / Guardian:
Peter Greste and other al-Jazeera journalists return to court in Egypt

Discussion: Al Jazeera English, @ajamphoto, @bbcandrewh, Sky News Australia, @bbcos, @jessiehatcher, Voice of America, @kenroth and Committee to Protect …

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.

Discussion: @mattmcalister

Paul McNally / Press Gazette:
News UK chief Mike Darcey says Guardian ‘very brave’ to ‘bet’ the business on a free website

Discussion: Guardian

Jeanine Poggi / AdAge:

Al Jazeera America at Six Months: Some New Advertisers, Few Viewers — Serious Cable News Network Is on the Right Path, Buyers Say — Al Jazeera America is averaging less than half its predecessor's audience — Krux — Al Jazeera America is starting to earn the trust of some advertisers …

Discussion: Politico, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, @tomgara, @jayrosen_nyu, @brianstelter and FTVLive

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Government backs off case against journalist who faced decades in prison for posting hyperlink — The US government has filed a motion to dismiss several charges against journalist Barrett Brown, who was indicted in 2012 for posting a link to leaked documents among other alleged offenses.

Discussion: Guardian, Techdirt, Dallas Morning News, Salon, @ggreenwald, Ars Technica, Guardian, @freebarrett_, @edpilkington, @digiphile, @freedomofpress, @green_footballs, @freebarrett_, Daily Dot, @sparty_legal, dissenter.firedoglake.com, @jayrosen_nyu and Free Barrett Brown

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

EFF Statement on Dismissal of 11 Charges Against Barrett Brown — The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas today filed a motion to dismiss 11 charges against Barrett Brown in a criminal prosecution that would have had massive implications for journalism and the right of ordinary people to share links.

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Dish's deal with Disney may bring TV over the Web, but don't expect major changes to bundling — Disney Opens the Door for Web TV — As Long as It Looks Like Cable TV — Lots of people are quietly excited about the Web TV pact Disney and Dish announced yesterday — the one that gives Dish …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Los Angeles Times:
Disney-Dish Network pact may alter TV viewing habits

Discussion: Gigaom and Talking New Media

Amol Sharma / Wall Street Journal:
CBS's Moonves says Dish's deal with Disney over the Hopper doesn't go far enough $CBS

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

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Embrace the unbundling: The Boston Globe is betting it'll be stronger split up than unified — The model for the 20th-century American newspaper was to be all things to all people, in one amalgamated package. One daily bundle of newsprint could give you baseball box scores …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Guardian, @justinnxt, bizjournals and Media Nation

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: Guardian, Press Gazette, BreakingNews.ie and BBC

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Rupert Murdoch ‘asked Rebekah Brooks not to resign’ the day NoW shut

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Guardian, @lisaocarroll and Reuters

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

Marc Andreessen's news-business fairy tale — The news industry is not in for exponential growth — Marc Andreessen has some outlandish predictions about the future of the journalism business: … Sorry, but those numbers are crazy town, as Poynter's Rick Edmonds notes.

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

John Plunkett / Guardian:

BBC3 to be axed under director general's plans — Tony Hall expected to announce he will save BBC4 and make channel that first aired Gavin and Stacey online only — Poll: Has the BBC made the right decision to axe BBC3? — The closure of BBC3 is to be proposed by the BBC director general …

Discussion: Gigaom, Metro.co.uk, @susancalman, @mr_dave_haslam, The Next Web, @claire_phipps, Pocket-lint, 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, @digitalshields, @digiday, @tomgara, @sleepwhendead, @dkberman, @niemanlab and Business Insider

William Launder / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos puts more money into Business Insider — Business Insider raised an additional $12 million in funding from investors including Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, the online news site said.

Discussion: Business Insider, GeekWire, @ajs, @jillianiles, Re/code, Talking Biz News and cnbc.com

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 and FishbowlNY

Molly McHugh / Daily Dot:

Introducing the Daily Dot's Tech section — The last thing the Internet needs is another tech blog. — We don't need another site for software recommendations or new product-spec breakdowns. We certainly can't stomach another news source that functions as a mouthpiece for startups' PR …

Discussion: PR Newswire

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

TheStreet.com to pay contributors based on page views — TheStreet.com is expanding its contributor platform to deepen its coverage of markets as well as to expand the breadth of topics covered by the web site. — “While our principal focus is stocks and bonds, we're looking for commentary …