Mediagazer: World exclusive: Hugh Grant turns the tables on the phone-hackers (The Staggers)

5:10 PM ET, April 7, 2011

Top News:

USA Today Takes the Plunge: Paper to Pay Bonuses to Writers Based on Page Views — USA Today had a conference call last night and according to a source, the paper outlined a plan in which it will pay annual bonuses to writers based on page views. The goal, obviously, is to get writers thinking digital.

Discussion: Poynter, The Wire, The Awl, FishbowlNY and Gannett Blog

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:
USA Today: No decision on page view bonuses

Discussion: Future of Journalism and Gannett Blog

Carter Maness / The Awl:

I'm Permalance No More! “Thank You Very Much for Your Contributions to AOL” — I left the corporate world in 2008 to write about music and entertainment because I wanted to work from bed, only leaving to maybe smoke joints with Kid Cudi while asking him pretentious questions about string arrangements.

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Remaking AOL in Huffington's Image

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Noted

Anne Thompson / Thompson on Hollywood:
AOL's Huffington Overhauls Online Brands Moviefone and Cinematical: Moviefone's Chui Loses Job

Discussion: Mediaweek, The Atlantic Wire, FishbowlNY and BoomTown

Jeffrey Benzing / American Journalism Review: “Too Amazing To Turn Down” — Why high-profile journalists …

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

New York Times Paywall Cost: More Like $25 Million — Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. insists a $40 million estimate for building New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Co.'s pay scheme is “vastly wrong”. But that's where the NYTCo chairman stopped in a Q&A at Columbia University earlier this week.

Discussion: Digital Equilibrium, MediaPost, @on_the_media, bookforum.com, NYConvergence.com, Poynter and PC Magazine

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Google Saves The News! — By keeping users happy and Facebook at bay, could the search giant also fix the newspaper business? … In 2007, two years into the launch of the Huffington Post, cofounder Jonah Peretti coined a term for news sites that disguise how little investment actually goes …

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Chrystia Freeland to lead Reuters Digital — Chrystia Freeland, arguably Reuters' biggest star, just got a promotion. — Freeland, who joined the news service from The Financial Times last march as global editor-at-large, has been named editor of Thomson Reuters Digital.

Discussion: Reuters, @ronmwangaguhung and Poynter

New York Times:

Beck and Fox End Relationship Grown Cold — The negotiations that led Glenn Beck to announce his departure from the Fox News Channel on Wednesday ended with an expression of “let's part as friends,” according to several people with knowledge of the talks. But behind that moment was a torrent …

Glynnis MacNicol / The Wire:
Here's The Real Reason Glenn Beck And Fox News Are Parting Ways

Discussion: Colorlines, Speakeasy, Guardian, Mediaite, The Daily Beast and Media Decoder

Joe Flint / Company Town:

Time Warner Cable fires back at Viacom in dispute over streaming channels on iPad — Time Warner Cable has fired back at Viacom in a dispute the two are having over whether the cable operator has the rights to stream the programming giant's networks on an iPad.

Discussion: Time Warner Cable Untangled, Multichannel, Business Wire, Lost Remote, rbr.com, GigaOM and @yinkareuters, more at Techmeme »

The Staggers:

World exclusive: Hugh Grant turns the tables on the phone-hackers — The bugger, bugged. — In this week's New Statesman, the actor Hugh Grant secretly records the former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan discussing phone-hacking and David Cameron's relationship with the Murdochs and News International.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Jon Slattery, The 6th Floor, Mediaite, The First Post, On Media's Blog, Big News Network.com, Press Gazette and Guardian

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Why Is Facebook Investor Accel Investing In Hollywood? Because It's a Facebook Investor — Why is a big Facebook investor putting money into a Hollywood movie studio? Because Facebook is going to be very important for Hollywood movie studios. — That's the takeaway from Accel Partners …

Discussion: Forbes

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Accel Bets on Hollywood With $40 Million Legendary Pictures Deal

Discussion: The Wrap and VentureBeat

Andrew Damstedt / American Journalism Review:

Back Behind the Wheel — Why Detroit News auto critic Scott Burgess returned to the paper after resigning over changes to a review that had been challenged by an advertiser. Thurs., April 7, 2011 — Andrew Damstedt (adamstedt@ajr.umd.edu) is an AJR editorial assistant. — It was a tough call for Scott Burgess.

The Atlantic Online:

The Hackers Who Keep the Washington Post Running — Dan Drinkard and his fellow programmers are constantly juggling projects that add value to the paper's reporting on the web — Development of a tool that would allow WashingtonPost.com visitors to read tweets written in Russian came after an offhand comment from Cory Haik.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Cathie Black Out as NYC Schools Czar? You Don't Say. — When Michael Bloomberg appointed Hearst Magazines president Cathie Black chancellor of the New York City schools system despite her complete lack of experience in education, we were skeptical. Just about everyone was, in fact.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, GothamSchools, NY Daily News, The Atlantic Wire, Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker Blog

Steven Greenhouse / New York Times:

Labor Panel to Press Reuters Over Reaction to Twitter Post — In what would be the first government case against an employer involving Twitter, the National Labor Relations Board told Thomson Reuters on Wednesday that it planned to file a civil complaint accusing the company of illegally reprimanding …

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, Mediaite, The Atlantic Wire, Gawker and New York Observer

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Florida Quran burning, Afghanistan violence raise questions about the power of media blackouts — Last fall, pastor Terry Jones was all over the news with his threats to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11. Seven months later, he followed through, which you probably learned …

Discussion: Mixed Media and CJR, Thanks:myersnews

David Kaplan / paidContent:

@ AdAgeDigital: Twitter's Bain: Twitter Beats Facebook In Driving Purchases — Six months after Adam Bain was hired by Twitter from News Corp.'s Fox Audience Network, the microblog's president of revenue offered the audience Ad Age Digital conference a little bit of what's he's learned …

Discussion: SocialTimes.com, AdAge and Future of Journalism

Irina Slutsky / AdAge: Twitter to Offer Marketers More Tools to Target, Track Followers

David Kaplan / paidContent:

@ AdAgeDigital: 'The Daily's' Clayman: You Can Ask, But We're Not Talking Subs Numbers — AdAge's Nat Ives began his chat with The Daily's Greg Clayman by pressing him on recent questions about subscriber numbers. Clayman wouldn't budge, saying only that “we're happy” …

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

Inside the NYT Lincoln Deal: It's About Dollars, Traffic and Conversion — So, it looks like an intriguing deal. — Ford Motors' Lincoln is subsidizing 100,000 new NYT digital subscriptions. Well, it is an intriguing deal, but it's more nuanced than it seems, and in that nuance …

Discussion: New York Observer and FishbowlNY

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

SnappyTV Lets You Tune-In To TV Shows And Share Video Clips Online — There are a plethora of startups that offer a social, second-screen experience to watching televsion including TV Tune-In, GetGlue, Miso, and Tunerfish. Today, a new player is throwing its hat in the ring, but adding a new twist …

Nat Worden / Wall Street Journal:

Cable TV Tunes In Apps — Executives Look to Tablets to Bolster Audience as More Viewers Turn to Web — A group of high-ranking cable television executives met with Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs in Silicon Valley last April to discuss how to make more movies and TV shows available …