Mediagazer: TMZ official: No comment on whether we paid for Sterling audio (Erik Wemple/Washington Post)

8:20 PM ET, April 29, 2014

Top News:

Sandra Oshiro / Poynter:

TMZ, NBC News got it wrong: NBA bans Sterling, will force sale of Clippers — TMZ.com — NBA banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life from any connection with the league and will force a sale of the team after determining it is his voice on recordings making racist remarks to his girlfriend.

Discussion: Forbes, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Mediaite, New Yorker, AdAge, ESPN and TMZ.com

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

TMZ official: No comment on whether we paid for Sterling audio — Ever since TMZ posted on Friday night its story about the recorded racist remarks of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling to V. Stiviano, news outlets had taken to calling those comments “alleged.”

Discussion: Poynter, Forbes, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, Politico, @pat_garofalo, @andrwlvngstn and @btryn

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Twitter Beats In Q1 With $250M In Revenue And Picks Up 14M New Monthly Active Users — This afternoon Twitter released its first quarter financial performance, reporting revenue of $250 million in the period, and earnings per share of $0.00 on a non-GAAP basis.

Discussion: Forbes, AdAge, Business Insider, Gawker, Forbes, Gigaom, The Wrap, @papadimitriou, Computerworld, Pocket-lint, ZDNet, Marketing Land, @fmanjoo, The Next Web and Mashable

Mike Isaac / Re/code:
Twitter faces decelerating growth in active users and timeline views

Discussion: @thestalwart, Washington Post, @jennydeluxe and @tim

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

Vice journalist Tim Pool launches Taggly app on iOS for journalists to watermark images, video — Taggly app launches to watermark images and video — Tim Pool, renowned for his use of mobile technology in reporting, has launched the app for reporters and citizen journalists on iOS

Discussion: The Next Web, @jaredbkeller, @lukewearechange, @mickcote and @sarahmarshall

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney.com:

Media startup PolicyMic raises $10M in funding, Netscape co-founder Jim Clark invests — A $10 million boost for millennial media startup PolicyMic — PolicyMic, one member of a pack of BuzzFeed-like online startups, is taking on $10 million in funding from a number of investors, including Jim Clark, the co-founder of Netscape.

Discussion: @adamostrow, @andysherry, @alexmleo, @brianstelter, @bthewirz and The New York Observer

Tom Cheredar / VentureBeat:

Glam rebrands as ‘Mode Media,’ dives into streaming video business — Glam Media is giving itself a major makeover. — Today the company announced that it is changing its name to Mode Media to better reflect its extended focus on a wider variety of topic-based publications, including Foodie …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Folio, Forbes, New York Times, Capital New York, MediaWire Daily, Variety, AdAge and VBProfiles

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

NYU will honor Matthew Power with literary reporting award — The spirit of Matthew Power's writing isn't easy to define, but his friend and editor Roger Hodge took a stab at it anyway: “strong, character-driven narratives with detailed scene writing, beautiful lyrical description,” …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, @joshuahersh and @poynter

Bloomberg:

Vevo Owners Said Close to Hiring Goldman to Explore Sale — Vevo LLC's four owners are close to hiring Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to explore sale options for the music video-hosting service, according to three people familiar with the matter. — The sale of a majority stake is being considered among …

Discussion: hypebot, VentureBeat, Billboard and @pkafka

Tom Wheeler / Official FCC Blog:

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler defends net neutrality approach, seeks path to avoid years in court — Finding the Best Path Forward to Protect the Open Internet — I am a strong believer in the importance of an Open Internet. As President Obama has explained, “Preserving an Open Internet …

Discussion: Business Insider, @ddayen, Engadget, The Verge, @rafat, @karlbode, @byersalex and @fcc

A.H. Belo Corporation:

Belo Q1: loss of 18 cents/share, $85.6M operating revenue, $0.9M loss from Wanderful — A. H. Belo Corporation Announces First Quarter 2014 Financial Results from Continuing Operations — A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE: AHC) today reported a first quarter net loss from continuing operations …

Discussion: MediaPost, WPRI-TV and Providence Journal

Lily Kuo / Quartz:

Why China is censoring ‘The Big Bang Theory’ but not ‘Game of Thrones’ — An alliance with CCTV could be good for the Lannisters. HBO — Chinese regulators recently ordered the country's major video streaming sites to take down four popular American television shows, including The Big Bang Theory …

Greg McNeal / Forbes:

FAA ‘Looking Into’ Arkansas Tornado Drone Journalism, Raising First Amendment Questions — Storm chaser and videographer Brian Emfinger used a drone to document the aftermath of a tornado that ripped through Arkansas. That video prompted speculation as to whether the FAA was going to investigate …

Discussion: @peterwsinger, Mashable, @gregorymcneal, @mattwaite, @gregorymcneal, @weathermankeith, @mattwaite and ArkansasOnline.com

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

NewsLynx wants to build tools to better measure the impact of journalism — A new research project over at Columbia's Tow Center wants to do a better job of determining the real impact news has on the world around us. — Former Knight-Mozilla OpenNews fellows and current Tow fellows Brian Abelson …

Discussion: Tow Center for Digital …

Michelle Dean / Gawker:

Allegedly Greedy Marxist Press Demands That Marxists Pay For Marx — A kerfuffle is haunting the Marxist internet—a kerfluffle about copyright. — The Marxist Internet Archive, a website that hosts a number of translations of the works of Marx and Engels online, free for the use of scholars …

Discussion: Salon, Ars Technica, @imjasondiamond, @casey_cac and Business Insider

Tony Biasotti / Columbia Journalism Review:

Federal judge: Delayed access to court records raises First Amendment concerns — Courthouse News editor sees “nationwide plague”—and he'll get a chance to make his case — It's been a routine for generations of legal beat reporters: Every weekday afternoon, at courthouses across the United States …

Kif Leswing / Gigaom:

Sprint will offer discount Spotify subscriptions to customers — Sprint plans to offer its customers Spotify trials and will give them the the ability to pay for the streaming music service via their phone bill, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said at an event in New York on Tuesday.

Discussion: Business Insider, TechCrunch, Re/code, ZDNet, AdAge, Pocket-lint, The Next Web and VentureBeat

Laura Parker / New York Times:

Telltale Games adapts movies, books and TV shows to games, working with HBO on Game of Thrones — A Gaming Company Devoted to Narrative Tackles ‘Thrones’ — SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — Behind closed doors and papered-over windows here, a half-dozen storytellers have been scrambling to conjure …

Discussion: @lauraannaparker, Digital Spy and Polygon

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Spotify's major redesign comes to Android — The all-new Spotify experience that launched on iPhone and desktop earlier this month is now arriving on Android. The app now looks essentially identical across both mobile platforms, sharing the same dark theme, new typeface, and subtle translucency effects.

Discussion: Engadget