Mediagazer: Rupert Murdoch to sell Sky News for takeover approval (BBC)

11:05 PM ET, March 2, 2011

Top News:

The New York Times Company Updates its Outlook Ahead of Morgan Stanley Conference Presentation — The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) today will discuss its business and strategy at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. — “The improvement in print advertising trends …

Discussion: Reuters, The Wrap, Poynter, Runnin' Scared, Yahoo! News and The Wall Blog

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why Did It Take So Long for Newspapers to Copy Groupon? — Word leaked out today about a new service the New York Times is planning to launch soon called TimesLimited, which is expected to provide readers with special offers on travel and other lifestyle items via email.

Discussion: digiday:DAILY, Thanks:jeremiahkastner

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
NY Times chairman determined to charge for online access

Discussion: digiday:DAILY, Media Week and Bloggasm

BBC:

Rupert Murdoch to sell Sky News for takeover approval — Mr Murdoch hopes that his offer to sell Sky News will be enough to get the nod from Mr Hunt — Rupert Murdoch has agreed to sell off the loss-making Sky News. — The move is likely to be enough to win government approval …

Discussion: New York Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Adweek, Media Week and TVNewser

Neal Ungerleider / Fast Company:

Al Jazeera in Talks With Comcast, Time Warner — Al Jazeera English may be coming to American television screens. The Qatar-based network is currently in talks with cable giants Comcast and Time Warner, creating a groundswell of enthusiasm among American news junkies and a collective groan from right-leaning conservative activists.

Gus Lubin / The Wire:
Hillary Clinton Says Al Jazeera Is Putting American Media To Shame

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Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Takeaways for journalists from today's Apple announcement: Better reporting tools and an ebook boom — Apple's Steve Jobs just left the stage after a surprise appearance to announce the new iPad 2. Check Engadget's liveblog if you want to relive the whole event, but I noticed a few takeaways …

Discussion: Engadget, Gadget Lab, Mashable!, Speakeasy, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, paidContent:UK, paidContent, CrunchGear, TUAW, Geekosystem, CNET News, The Evolving Newsroom, The Daily Beast and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

David Cohen / mediabistro.com:

Debut Time for Aol News Real-Time — Aol News is looking to enforce the concept that news is real-time with its launch of Aol News Real-Time, which adds real-time badges to its 100 most active articles, as well as highlighting the top six stories being read at that moment, complete with reading counts.

Discussion: Echo

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

How Charlie Sheen Got His Twitter Account Verified So Fast — Ad.ly Helped Take Handle From Squatter — Only 24 hours after Charlie Sheen got started on Twitter with @CharlieSheen, he had amassed more than 900,000 followers, easily one of the fastest follower roll-ups the service has seen.

Discussion: de.tech.ting, Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, The Big Picture, TVNewser, Best of the Wire, digiday:DAILY and Gawker, more at Techmeme »

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

Texas Tribune databases drive majority of site's traffic, help citizens make sense of government data — When The Texas Tribune launched, Matt Stiles said the site was the .10 version of what it would be six months out. Sixteen months later, the site's traffic and audience have grown tremendously …

Discussion: @romenesko

Chris Ariens / mediabistro.com:

Fox News announces temporary suspension of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as Contributors — Fox News' Bret Baier just announced that the network has put a 60-day suspension on the paid contributor deals with both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum — who are both considering a run for president in 2012.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, The Politico, Mediaite, New York Times, Poynter, The Wire, Adweek, Swampland, The Wrap, TVNewser, On Media's Blog and Gawker

Joy Mayer / RJI:

Being an authentic person: Talking engagement with NPR's Bob Boilen — Yesterday, I wrote about NPR's listener community and wisdom from Andy Carvin. This is part 2 of my NPR chats. — National Public Radio's Bob Boilen has been talking directly to his listeners since the late '80s …

Jeremy Adam Smith / Knight Garage:

How We're Financing Meaningful Journalism — Very few of us become journalists so that we can write product reviews, celebrity gossip, or forty-seven tips for driving your man crazy in bed—even if that's how we pay the bills. — Yet as media have converged online, opportunities …

Amy Dunkin / CUNY Graduate School of Journalism:

Tom Robbins Named CUNY J-School's First Investigative Journalist in Residence — Tom Robbins, one of New York City's premier investigative reporters who recently left the Village Voice, will be joining the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism as its first Investigative Journalist in Residence.

Discussion: Poynter and FishbowlNY

Farhad Manjoo / Slate:

The tedious, annoying complaints of public radio listeners. — On Valentine's Day, NPR's All Things Considered ran a two-and-a-half-minute segment about Justin Bieber fans gone wild. When the teen star lost at the Grammys to Esperanza Spalding, a few of Bieber's aggrieved minions defaced …

David Pogue / New York Times:

Memo From Comcast: Embrace the Web in All Forms — Destroy this top-secret strategy document after reading. It could be devastating to our business interests if it fell into the wrong hands — like The New York Times or something. — Fellow Comcastians, this is a difficult time for the cable TV business.

Mark S. Luckie / 10,000 Words:

MSNBC: Pushing the envelope of design — Most news websites are pretty much designed in the same style: lots of links arranged into columns with smaller visual elements sprinkled throughout the page. MSNBC, however, frequently breaks out of that mold with webpages and web tools that defy traditional design.

Discussion: UnBeige, TVNewser, mediabistro.com and eBookNewser

MediaShift:

Facebook Pushes Comments Upgrade, But Will Publishers Bite? — Bit by bit, feature by feature, Facebook is making inroads into sites that live outside of Facebook.com. Major publishers now sprinkle their sites with Facebook plug-ins, from fan page widgets to friend recommendations to the ubiquitous “Like” thumbs-up.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Cision Blog, Inside Facebook and Malcolm Coles

Foster Kamer / Esquire:

The Real Fake Rahm Emanuel — With one Twitter account, Dan Sinker changed the entire political satire game. And now, he's talking. — It's a mystery that 41,147 people and counting have been dying to know: Who is Mayor Emanuel? Not Rahm, but rather, the fake Twitter account …

Discussion: Poynter, TBD All News, Jim DeRogatis, Robert Feder and Change of Subject

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

John Gruber on Apple's 30% cut: To the victor goes the pricing power — John Gruber at Daring Fireball has an extended take on the justice or injustice of Apple's 30-percent cut of all iPhone/iPad subscriptions. (He comes down on the side of justice. Or at least a kind of it's-fair-because-we-can justice.)

Discussion: Talking Biz News and Daring Fireball

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Dirty Percent — It's not hard to make the case that Apple's …

Discussion: CrunchGear

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

New York Times Launching Groupon-Like Daily Deals Service — The online division of The New York Times is in the process of launching TimesLimited, a Groupon-like daily deals service offered through e-mail. — Subscribers will receive offers on high-end goods and services from The Times's advertising partners.