Mediagazer: Four Sun journalists accused of making corrupt payments face retrial (Lisa O'Carroll/Guardian)

9:40 AM ET, January 22, 2015

Top News:

Antoni Slodkowski / Reuters:

Japanese reporter's bid to save friend led to Islamic State abduction — (Reuters) - It is an unlikely friendship that ties the fates of war correspondent Kenji Goto and troubled loner Haruna Yukawa, the two Japanese hostages for which Islamic State militants demanded a $200 million ransom this week.

Discussion: TIME and The Independent

Martin Fackler / New York Times:

Japan Says Efforts to Contact Islamic State About Hostages Have Failed — TOKYO — Officials here said Thursday that they were trying every possible avenue to reach the Islamic State militants who have threatened to kill two Japanese hostages but had so far failed to make contact …

Discussion: NY Daily News, Telegraph, International Business Times, @nytimesworld, News24, NBC News, New York Times and NBC News

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Why White House used Medium for State of the Union: “We're trying to find audiences where they are” — Medium editor on SOTU coup: ‘People are already here’ — Newish publishing platform Medium scored a coup yesterday evening when the White House published President Obama's prepared State …

Discussion: Poynter, @andybechtel, @dangillmor, @kreissdaniel, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, @lisenstromberg, @ryan and @pfeiffer44

Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
State of the Union Drew Lowest TV Audience in 15 Years

Discussion: CNNMoney.com, Nielsen, TVNewser, Politico and Broadcasting & Cable

Nathaniel Lubin / White House Blog:
State of the Union online: over 1.2M views of White House live stream, 400K views of transcript on Medium

Discussion: @whitehouse, White House.gov Blog, @jtsthehill, Washington Post, USA Today and CNNMoney.com

Paul Rosania / The Twitter Blog:

Twitter rolls out “While you were away” feature to iOS users, coming soon to Android and web — While you were away... Today we're introducing something new to your home timeline: a recap of some of the top Tweets you might have missed from accounts you follow.

Discussion: SocialTimes, Wall Street Journal, Re/code, @jayrosen_nyu, New York Times, TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, App Advice, The Next Web, GeekWire, The Verge, VentureBeat, Mashable, MacStories, MacRumors, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, Engadget and iMore

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Super Bowl Ads: NBC Turns to Tumblr to Post Spots After They Air on TV — NBC Sports has launched a new Super Bowl page on Yahoo's Tumblr that the programmer will use to feature Super Bowl XLIX's TV ads immediately after they air on NBC on Sunday, Feb. 1. — The new NBC Sports Tumblr page …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, AdAge, Multichannel News, Wall Street Journal, Broadcasting & Cable, Forbes, WWD and AgencySpy

Tim Peterson / AdAge:
Facebook enabling advertisers to target people posting on Super Bowl topics in near real time

Discussion: AdExchanger, AdAge and Radio & Television …

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

Garrett Graff named editor of Politico Mag — Garrett Graff, the former editor-in-chief of the Washingtonian, will be editor of Politico Magazine, Politico editor Susan Glasser announced in a staff memo Thursday. — Graff, who succeeded Glasser as acting editor when she became editor …

Discussion: Capital New York

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Four Sun journalists accused of making corrupt payments face retrial — Jury discharged after failing to reach verdict on charges against Chris Pharo, Ben O'Driscoll, Jamie Pyatt and Graham Dudman — Four Sun journalists accused of making corrupt payments to public officials face a retrial …

Discussion: BBC, The Independent and @lisaocarroll

Camilla Turner / Telegraph:

The Sun brings back its topless Page 3 model under headline “Clarifications and corrections” — The Sun brings back page 3 - Telegraph — The Sun have printed a topless model on Page 3, ending days of speculation that the feature was dead. The newspaper has tweeted out a picture …

Discussion: @thesunnewspaper, @danbarker, @willmchoebag, @emilybell, @mediaguido, @profanityswan, @p_mcpartlin, @annacod, Hit & Run, @angelheartnight, Guido Fawkes, @nathangamester and @telegraphnews

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Amazon launches Kindle Textbook Creator to help schools turn PDFs into digital books — Amazon has unveiled a new program designed to help educational establishments and authors produce ebooks for studens. — With Kindle Textbook Creator, Amazon is essentially expanding its Kindle Direct Publishing …

Discussion: Amazon.com

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Bill Gates is guest-editing The Verge in February — Technology will build a better, safer, healthier world by 2030 — I'm very excited to announce that Bill Gates will be The Verge's first ever guest editor in February. This is a new type of collaboration for us, but there's no one better …

Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:

Icahn to Seek 2 Seats on Gannett's Board — Carl C. Icahn is not one to relax for long. — Fresh off signing a truce with eBay, the activist investor disclosed on Thursday that he planned to seek two seats on the board of Gannett, as well as to make proposals to prevent the media company …

Discussion: Business Wire

Ian Black / Guardian:

Planned flogging of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi postponed again — Medical assessment shows Badawi - who received 50 lashings on 9 January - unfit to face punishment — Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was due to be lashed 50 times on Friday. — Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger whose public flogging …

Discussion: Sky News and @iheu

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Vimeo Pacts with Web Publishers to Sell VOD Titles on Their Sites — Internet-video site inks deal with publishers CBS Interactive, The Atlantic and TEN: The Enthusiast Network — Call it “Vimeo everywhere”: The Internet-video company has opened up its paid video-on-demand catalog …

Discussion: The Wrap, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Hollywood Reporter, Wall Street Journal and VideoInk

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Viacom Beats Privacy Lawsuit Targeting Disclosures of Kids' Video Viewing History — The judge rejects the $5 million claim against Viacom and Google, finding the ways in which Nick.com supposedly identifies its users to third parties to be speculative. — According to a survey of 2000 adults …

Discussion: New Jersey Online, @eriqgardner, Reuters and The Seattle Times

Benhuh / Medium:

Facebook Hoaxsters and Satirists, Bring Your A-Game to Cheezburger — In defense of having fun at the expense of the ignorant. — On the surface, Facebook's anti-hoax campaign seems like a good thing. I can't remember the number of times I facepalmed at watching genuine outrage …

Discussion: @somecody, @randfish, @benhuh and NPR