Mediagazer: Traffic Jam — We'll never agree about online audience size (Lucas Graves/CJR)

5:45 PM ET, September 7, 2010

Top News:

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

NY Times will not assist police investigation of tabloid — The phone-hacking scandal surrounding British tabloid News of the World, recounted at length in a recent New York Times Magazine cover story, continues gaining steam in the media. — News outlets, especially in the U.K. …

Discussion: Guardian, New York Observer and Liberal Conspiracy

Michael Wolff / Newser:

What Did Rupert Murdoch (and Son James) Know, and When Did They Know It? — Follow him on Twitter @MichaelWolffNYC — Don Van Natta Jr., the lead reporter on the New York Times' Sunday Magazine story about the phone hacking scandal that's engulfed some of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in London, is a Times enforcer.

Discussion: Guardian, CJR, Press Gazette, The Wire, The First Post and New York Times

Vikram Dodd / Guardian:
Phone-hacking investigation may be reopened

Discussion: The Staggers, BBC and New York Times

The Daily Beast:

Who Pushed ABC News' Chief? — David Westin may have had friction with Disney/ABC President Anne Sweeney, but things had been tense with Disney CEO Bob Iger for years. Peter Lauria and Lloyd Grove go inside his resignation. — David Westin's departure from the helm of ABC News after 13 years …

Discussion: Gawker, Tuned In, Company Town, TVNewser, The Daily Beast and Associated Press

Bill Carter / New York Times:

ABC News Chief Is Said to Be Resigning — David Westin, the longtime president of ABC News, is said to have told several top staff members that he will resign on Tuesday. — The decision, one of the staff members said on Monday night, relates to a long-running conflict between Mr. Westin …

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Westin Out At ABC News Just Months After Massive Job Cuts; The E-Mails

Discussion: Romenesko, DailyFinance and Broadcasting & Cable

Choire / The Awl:

Gawker Media Now Bigger Than All Newspapers Online — Except One — The latest traffic memo arrives from Gawker Media honcho Nick Denton: in it, Comscore shows that his network of sites is bigger than any newspaper online but the New York Times. That being said? “The newspapers are now the least of our competition.

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:

How readers consume their news online is changing journalism, but it's not just about the clicks — I can no longer file a story in our computer system without filling out a box, a small gray square that may well determine the future of serious journalism. — The box is supposed …

Discussion: Gawker, The Atlantic Wire, the Econsultancy blog, International Media, Romenesko and Web Analytics World

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Links: Not Just the Currency of the Web, but the Soul — Author Nicholas Carr wrote a controversial post recently about the use of hyperlinks in online content, in which he argued that links were a distraction for readers, and were likely to lead to less comprehension rather than more.

Discussion: Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard

/ Jay Rosen:

The Journalists Formerly Known as the Media: My Advice to the Next Generation — This is adapted and expanded from the Inaugural Lecture I gave to the incoming class of journalism students at Science Po in Paris, September 2, 2010: their first day. You can find reports on the speech in English here …

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's … and News Launch Diary

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

The Atlantic Will Follow Paid iPad Edition With New ‘Atlantic Premium’ — The Atlantic is the latest to mine for gold in the iPad App Store with single issues for sale at $4.99—but that's just one part of a grander digital scheme. In coming weeks, the magazine publisher plans …

Discussion: Poynter Online, Editors Weblog and WebNewser

The Atlantic Online:

When ‘Bite Me’ Is ‘Off the Record’ — A day after Rolling Stone Magazine published an explosive profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, featuring raw comments and salty language, a sort of self-generated audit of Washington's journalistic conventions took off inside the Beltway.

Discussion: The Awl

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

IPad Magazine Subscriptions, With a Catch: Zinio Launches Apps for Sporting News, National Geographic — Another day, another new iPad magazine app. But the latest entry, from Sporting News, is worth mentioning, at least for its subscription model. — That is: Unlike much bigger rival …

Discussion: Poynter Online, NetNewsCheck Latest, MediaPost and eMedia Vitals

Bloomberg:

Samsung Electronics May Use Google's Android Software in TVs — Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest television manufacturer, may make sets run by Google Inc.'s software to compete with Sony Corp. and Apple Inc. in the market for TVs that access movies, shows and games online.

Discussion: NewTeeVee, SocialTimes.com, CrunchGear, Gizmodo, Gadget Lab and DailyFinance, more at Techmeme »

Ian Shapira / Washington Post:

Washington Times struggles amid divisions of family, ideology, finances — Last fall in South Korea, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, presided over a mass wedding in the tens of thousands, blessing marriages he had personally arranged — all couples in white gowns, kimonos and black suits.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Romenesko and On Media's Blog

Lucas Graves / CJR:

Traffic Jam — We'll never agree about online audience size — Miami has deep ties to the Caribbean. So when a devastating earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, The Miami Herald mobilized for one of its biggest stories of the year. Reporters were on a flight to the Dominican Republic …

Elizabeth Olson / New York Times:

Marketing Fanciful Items in the Lands of Make Believe — INTRIGUED by the willingness of millions of consumers to pay real money for things that do not exist, some large companies are testing whether they can raise awareness of their brands — and sell more actual goods — by creating and offering their own pretend merchandise.

Discussion: ReveNews and broadstuff