Mediagazer: Can Gizmodo Win the iPhone Legal Battle? (Nick Bilton/Bits)

3:45 AM ET, April 28, 2010

Top News:

At Greater New York Fete, Murdoch Tells Sulzberger to ‘Get a Life’ — It was a few minutes after 7 p.m. Monday night on Broadway and 36th Street, and Rupert Murdoch was addressing a crowd of a few hundred pinstripe-suited machers. “With tonight's launch of Greater New York …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Hollywood Reporter, Romenesko, Ethical Martini, Runnin' Scared, Crain's New York Business, The Wire, Gawker, New York Magazine, Strupp and DailyFinance

Bloomberg:

Sumner Redstone Says Murdoch's Newspapers Will Fail — Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone, taking aim at media rival Rupert Murdoch, chastised the News Corp. chairman for investing in newspapers and said the “ink” industry will be out of business in two years.

Discussion: Gothamist, Romenesko, The Big Picture, New York Post, MediaFile and Slate

Eliot Van Buskirk / Epicenter:
Print War Between NYT and WSJ Is Really About Digital

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, mediabistro.com, The Wire and Journalism.co.uk

John Koblin / New York Observer:
Robert Thomson and Les Hinton Introduce ‘Greater New York’ at the Plaza

Discussion: The Big Lead, The Daily Beast, FishbowlNY, CJR and Media Decoder

Nick Bilton / Bits:

Can Gizmodo Win the iPhone Legal Battle? — As we move into the second week of the iPhone-left-in-the-bar saga, the plot is moving from a technology news story to a legal one — and entering a cul-de-sac of speculation. — As I reported today with my colleague Brian Stelter …

Discussion: DailyFinance, Electronic Frontier Foundation, On the News, Soup, Bay Area, Daring Fireball, New York Observer and Gizmodo

Mary Duan / bizjournals:

Apple asked for ‘lost’ iPhone criminal probe — The criminal investigation into the purported theft of an apparent iPhone prototype came at the request of Apple Inc., officials said Tuesday. — Investigators said they have identified and interviewed the person who took the phone …

Discussion: Threat Level, Fast Company, VentureBeat, Mashable!, Silicon Alley Insider, Digits, CNET News, MacRumors and Yahoo! News

Kevin Roderick / LA Observed:

LAT to add paid links to stories, blogs — The Los Angeles Times will begin selling e-commerce links in selected stories and blog posts — but not in news stories or columns — as “both a reader service and a revenue opportunity for the company,” editor Russ Stanton announced to the newsroom in a memo this morning.

Discussion: Editor and Publisher, Pop & Hiss, Romenesko, Media Decoder, Fitz & Jen and Kirk LaPointe's …

Emma Barnett / Telegraph:

Hulu ‘abandons UK plans’ after broadcaster talks collapse — Hulu, the US video aggregator, has been forced to abandon plans to launch a UK version of its web TV service after talks with the major British broadcasters have collapsed, The Telegraph can reveal.

Discussion: Gizmodo, NewTeeVee and Mashable!

GQ Magazine: GQ:

Cancel Publish: A Call For the End of Tumblr Book Deals — On April 6, the proprietor of the popular Tumblr blog Hipster Puppies—a repository for photos of dogs dressed in Ray Ban Wayfarers, fake mustaches and Keffiyehs—announced that he had secured a book deal.

Editor and Publisher:

Honolulu Joining Ranks of One-Paper City As ‘Star-Bulletin’ Get Antitrust OK to Buy ‘Advertiser’ — CHICAGO Nobody will buy the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, whose owner was given U.S. Justice Department approval to buy its rival Honolulu Advertiser from Gannett Co.

David Goetzl / MediaPost:

‘Variety,’ ‘Newsday’: Pay Walls Mean Fewer Page Views — As Hollywood trade publication Variety has joined the select few publications with an online pay wall, it has seen page views drop more than 40%, according to Nielsen figures. The number of unique visitors has fallen a lesser 18% …

Discussion: MarketingVOX, Center for Sustainable … and eMedia Vitals

Jim Barnett / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What advocacy nonprofits can learn from The Christian Science Monitor — When the nonprofit Christian Science Monitor announced in October 2008 that it would convert its daily printed report to a weekly edition and move its breaking news online, some people wondered whether the venerable newspaper would survive.

Discussion: Christian Science Monitor

Jim Milliot / Publishers Weekly:

McGraw-Hill Education Has Small First Quarter Gain — Revenue at McGraw-Hill Education rose 1.5%, to $317.2 million, for the first quarter ended March 31 and the operating loss was cut by 19.3%, to $61.8 million. The increase was led by the higher education/professional/international group …

Discussion: MediaPost, Broadcasting & Cable and rbr.com

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Reuters' Paying Subscribers Are ‘Demanding’ In-Depth Investigations (TRI) — It was only last year that Reuters started getting into long-form investigative journalism. — But the newswire's been garnering recognition because of it, and it plans to keep expanding the effort.

Discussion: Romenesko and The Huffington Post

Michael Wolff / Newser:

Creepy Steve Jobs May Not Want You to Read This (or Will Break Down Your Door) — Follow him on Twitter @MichaelWolffNYC — Speaking of Apple's weird and scary overreactions—yes, good idea, have the police storm the Gizmodo editor's house in the lost iPhone prototype caper—here's my story:

Discussion: Fortune, Silicon Alley Insider, Poynter Online and Daring Fireball

Nielsen Wire:

More than Nine Billion Video Streams Viewed in the U.S. in March — The Nielsen Company today reported overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for March 2010. The number of unique viewers of online video increased 1.3% year-over-year, from 130.1 million unique viewers …

Discussion: Media News International

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Updated: BBC, C4, Five Going After TV Streamers; Zattoo Removes Streams — The legality of services like Zattoo and TVCatchUp, which re-stream public-service TV channels via what they say is a provision in copyright law, has long been a hornet's nest waiting to be stirred.