Some media stories of note for Thursday, May 16, 2013:

It may seem incongruent, but as the White House deals with criticism of the Department of Justice's seizure of phone records for reporters at The Associated Press, it is reviving its efforts to create legislation that would shield reporters' sources and communications from disclosure. The New York Times reports that the President's Senate liaison called Wednesday to ask a Democratic Senator to reintroduce a version of a 2009 bill that didn't make it through Congress.

The New Republic explores the context of the DOJ/AP phone-seizure issue by looking at the chilling effect official surveillance might have on national security reporting. It interviews journalists who believe their phones were tapped and activities tracked. Sources are less willing to part with sensitive information in this climate, the story concludes.

Ken Doctor, writing on "newsonomics" for the Nieman Journalism Lab, examines what went wrong with NewsRight, the effort by the AP and others to deal with illegal or unfair use of their content online. NewsRight was wound up this week. Doctor chronicles the questionable and vague strategy, the evolution of the news licensing field with such players as NewsCred and Flipboard, and some of the decisions made along the way. "Thumbs down to content consortia," he writes. "Thumbs up to letting the freer market of entrepreneurs make sense of the content landscape, with publishers getting paid something for what the companies still know how to do: produce highly valued content." 

Media notes for Friday, April 26, 2013:

South Africa pushed through contentious legislation Thursday that restricts access to information and imposes fines and penalties including jail time for journalists who publish what the government considers secrets. The Guardian notes there is widespread agreement that the bill's onerous measures have been reduced in the five-year debate since it was proposed, but critics believe there remains discretion for the government to curtail press freedom. Some see it as the first erosion of democracy since apartheid was eliminated in the country nearly two decades ago.

The English-language Egypt Independent closed abruptly Thursday. The New York TImes reports that the site, one of the most aggressive in chronicling political change in the country, was experiencing financial difficulties that investors said could not be surmounted. But it also notes that its staff believes there was a political motive in the closure because of the site's criticism of the president and the Muslim Brotherhood. That observation is shared in a commentary on Tahrir Squared.

A new law in England and Wales makes it tougher to sue. The New York Times reports that the bill passed Thursday does not switch the burden of proof from the defendant, but it offers some provisions to strengthen their position. They can, for instance, claim the information was published in good faith and that it was in the public interest. The bill also is aimed at reducing "libel tourism," in which people chose England as a litigation venue even when publicity of the information was minor there.

John Markoff of The New York Times asks of the Internet: "Can privacy be preserved while bringing a semblance of safety and security to a world that seems increasingly lawless?"

His story Sunday identifies efforts under way in the United States and elsewhere to deliver a form of ultra-net, a way of communicating electronically with sufficient visibility to secure trust.

The efforts flow from controversial concerns that anonymity somehow confers a recklessness. In this particular case, though, it also involves technological concerns that insufficient trust among the Internet's engineers lead to breaches in security that undermine the faith in the system necessary for it to operate.

The big question is whether we're moving toward the equivalent of a driver-licence mentality for the Internet in which only those deemed capable are permitted to play in certain quarters. It's true that the efforts have a walled garden effect, even if that isn't the full intent.