Mediagazer: Verizon CEO Eyes Netflix Streaming Deal, Online TV Talks With Hollywood (Georg Szalai/Hollywood Reporter)

1:40 PM ET, March 5, 2014

Top News:

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

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

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

Laurie Segall / CNNMoney:

CNN sells Zite to Flipboard, teams up to launch custom magazines for CNN shows, in deal valued as high as $60M — 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 …

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion: Gigaom

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 and @jayrosen_nyu

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

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Guardian, @lisaocarroll and Reuters

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

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, Dallas Morning News, @edpilkington, dissenter.firedoglake.com, @sparty_legal and @jayrosen_nyu

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: The Next Web, Metro.co.uk, @susancalman, @mr_dave_haslam, @claire_phipps, thedrum.com, broadcastnow.co.uk and Pocket-lint

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

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, @sleepwhendead, @niemanlab and Business Insider

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: FishbowlNY and @poynter

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Verizon CEO Eyes Netflix Streaming Deal, Online TV Talks With Hollywood — “We would love to partner with content companies” to bring mobile content to users of Verizon's FiOS pay TV service and launch a wireless Internet TV service. — Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said Tuesday that he expects …

Discussion: Deadline.com, multichannel.com/rss, FierceCable, Ubergizmo and The Verge

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: VentureBeat, PlayStation.Blog, Electronista, Polygon, The Next Web and TechCrunch

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, @ajs, Re/code, cnbc.com and Talking Biz News

John Reynolds / Guardian:

'Three-fifths of Twitter's UK users follow a newspaper or journalist' — Guardian and Times top list as research finds those following press accounts are twice as likely to tweet as those who don't — Nearly three-fifths of Twitter's 15 million UK users follow at least one national newspaper brand …

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 …

Timothy Hay / Wall Street Journal:

Beats Music Acquires Topspin Media to Boost Musicians' Sales and Marketing — Beats Music, the on-demand music service launched by high-profile headphones company Beats Electronics LLC, will now add a new offering geared toward musicians: a way to communicate with fans and sell merchandise and albums.