Mediagazer: Nook spin-off nears as Barnes & Noble buys back Pearson stake for $27.7M (Harrison Weber/VentureBeat)

11:55 AM ET, December 23, 2014

Top News:

Jason Koebler / Motherboard:

Sony Threatens to Sue Twitter Unless It Removes Tweets Containing Hacked Emails — Sony's battle on people disseminating its hacked and leaked emails has extended from news outlets to random Twitter users to, now, Twitter itself. Sony's lawyer has threatened Twitter with legal action …

Maryann Yin / GalleyCat:

PEN American Center Posts Letter Advocating For Free Speech to Sony Pictures CEO — The hackers behind The Interview incident have elicited both anger and fear throughout the country. The PEN American Center has sent a letter addressed to the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Michael Lynton …

Discussion: PEN American Center, FishbowlDC, AdAge, Inside Movies and Variety

Bryan Bishop / The Verge:
Art house theaters petition Sony to let them show The Interview

Discussion: The Wrap, Politico, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, @verge, New York Times and Hit & Run

Matt Wilstein / Mediaite:

Fox Affiliate Edits Protest Chant to Sound Like ‘Kill a Cop’ — Three times over the last 24 hours, Baltimore Fox affiliate WBFF has played a misleadingly edited clip from last week's National “Justice for All” March in Washington, D.C. to make it sound like protesters were calling on people to “kill a cop.”

Discussion: Gawker, Variety, @drewunga, @becketadams, TVSpy, Talking Points Memo, FTVLive and WBALTV

David Zurawik / Baltimore Sun:

WBFF apologizes for misleading edit on videotape of protest chant — WBFF (Fox45) apologized Monday night online and on-air for misleadingly editing and airing a video Sunday of a protest march in Washington to make it seem as if protesters were chanting “kill a cop.”

Discussion: Media Nation and @ggreeneva

Raju Narisetti / Nieman Lab:

Proposal: create Journalist Rescue Fund to place journalists in danger in safe academic posts — Could a Journalist Rescue Fund take threatened reporters out of harm's way? — Over the past 22 years, 1,059 journalists have been killed. Worldwide, some 430 journalists are in exile from their home countries.

Discussion: @pamelacolloff and @lheron

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

60 Journalists Killed In 2014 As Targeting Of International Press Rises, Study Finds — NEW YORK — The horrific deaths of James Foley and Steven Sotloff in Syria brought worldwide attention to the dangers journalists face in war zones. The beheadings reflected an alarming trend in 2014 …

Discussion: Committee to Protect …

Ira Teinowitz / The Wrap:

Dish to FCC: Comcast Deal Would Cause Competitors ‘Irreparable Harm’ — Dish Network is insisting on its opposition to Comcast's deal to buy Time Warner Cable, telling the FCC the deal would cause “irreparable harm” to the entertainment industry and consumers while providing “no discernible benefits.”

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Media & Entertainment, Variety and Business Wire

Amy Schatz / Re/code:
FCC Delays Comcast-Time Warner Cable Review Again as New Documents Found

Discussion: Gigaom, @gigibsohnfcc, Hollywood Reporter and Bloomberg

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Google Adds Song Lyrics To Top Of Search Results, Points Searchers To Google Play — Google is now displaying music lyrics at the top of its search results pages when you search for “song name” plus “lyrics” on Google - a move that may reduce the number of visits to music lyrics sites …

Discussion: Forbes, InvestCorrectly.com, The Verge, @rolfewinkler, @joshconstine, @caseynewton, 9to5Google, Wall Street Journal, The Next Web, Search Engine Land, Business Insider and Search Engine Roundtable

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google still surfaces news in search results in Spain after shutting down the News site

Discussion: 9to5Google

Diana Mehta / Canadian Press:

Imprisoned Al Jazeera journalist warned network of potential trouble with Egyptian government — Fahmy warned Al Jazeera that tactics could come back to ‘bite’ them — An Egyptian-Canadian journalist who has spent the last year in a Cairo prison sounded the alarm about his network's approach …

Discussion: TVNewser

Sarah El Deeb / Associated Press:
Al-Jazeera shuts down its Egypt channel

Discussion: Al Bawaba and Daily News Egypt

Harrison Weber / VentureBeat:

Nook spin-off nears as Barnes & Noble buys back Pearson stake for $27.7M — Barnes & Noble today announced it's reached a deal with Pearson to repurchase the company's stake in Nook Media for $27.7 million. The agreement closely follows a simiar deal with Microsoft, and will enable Barnes & Noble …

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, Publishers Weekly and New York Times

Mark Joyella / TVNewser:

Fox News Viewers Wage War on Dish: Thousands Call to Complain, Disconnect — Dish customers lost Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network Saturday night, as talks between the network and satellite provider collapsed. — Since late Saturday night, talks have stopped.

Discussion: Raw Story, @insidecablenews, Inside Cable News, @tvnewser, TVSpy, FishbowlNY and Lost Remote

Brian Merchant / Motherboard:

Behind the Daily Paywall: The Site that Pays You to Read Pirated Articles — The Daily Paywall is a new website that's loaded with tens of thousands of pirated articles from some of the world's top paywalled newspapers, and its proprietor will pay you to read them.