Mediagazer: The Twisted Logic of Murdoch's Pivot on BSkyB Deal (Jeff Bercovici/Mixed Media)

2:50 AM ET, July 12, 2011

Top News:

News International papers targeted Gordon Brown — Newspapers obtained information from the former prime minister's bank account, legal file and family medical records — Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown …

New York Times:

British Tabloid Sought Phone Data of Investigators — LONDON — Shortly after Scotland Yard began its initial criminal inquiry of phone hacking by The News of the World in 2006, five senior police investigators discovered that their own cellphone messages had been targeted by the tabloid and had most likely been listened to.

Discussion: The Wire, Guardian and blogs.telegraph.co.uk

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

The Twisted Logic of Murdoch's Pivot on BSkyB Deal — Like a school of fish making random zigzags to confuse a pursuing shark, Rupert Murdoch is resorting to wild maneuvers to preserve his media empire — and his ambitions of still greater dominance — as it attempts to outrun a scandal that threatens to consume it.

Discussion: News Corporation, Wall Street Journal, The Wire, Deal Journal, Forbes.com, Multichannel, Guardian, Adweek and On Media's Blog

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

Life After Rupert's Reign: What Will Happen in a Post-Murdoch World? — With the Closure of the News of the World, the Rule of One of the Most Powerful Media Moguls of All Time Has Officially Begun to Wind Down — With Sunday's closure of News Corp.'s 168-year-old News of the World …

Aaron Elstein / Crain's New York Business:

News Corp.'s board knows something about hacks — At least one of News Corp.'s board members can well understand what victims of phone-hacking are going through. — In 2006, when Thomas Perkins served on the board of Hewlett-Packard, his residential phone records were obtained …

Discussion: Reuters, Adweek, Guardian and Company Town

Roger Cohen / New York Times:

In Defense of Murdoch — NEW YORK — Fair warning: This column is a defense of Rupert Murdoch. If you add everything up, he's been good for newspapers over the past several decades, keeping them alive and vigorous and noisy and relevant. Without him, the British newspaper industry might have disappeared entirely.

New York Times: News Corporation Moves to Delay BSkyB Deal to Avoid Its Collapse

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
News Corp. Shareholders in Class Action Over Hacking

Discussion: Guardian, Forbes.com, Multichannel, paidContent:UK, New York Magazine, Future of Journalism and Deadline.com

Andrew Essex / News Desk:
James Murdoch, Then and Now — James Murdoch, the younger son …

Discussion: Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, Forbes.com, Adweek and The Wire

Paul Mason / BBC:
Murdoch: the network defeats the hierarchy

Discussion: CNN, The latest episodes …, Daily Mail, The Atlantic Wire, The Big Picture, Guardian, Editors Weblog, Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, BBC, Telegraph, Metamedia and Future of Journalism

Nick Davies / Guardian:
Charles and Camilla warned over hacking

Discussion: BBC, Adweek and The Huffington Post

BBC:
Murdoch says chief Rebekah Brooks is his first priority

Discussion: Guardian

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Huffington Post suspends writer, apologizes for over-aggregated post — The Huffington Post has suspended Amy Lee, who wrote a summary of an Ad Age post that Simon Dumenco complained was unethical and brought just 57 page views to AdAge.com. Huffington Post Executive Business Editor Peter Goodman apologized …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, The Informer, FishbowlNY, LA Observed and Editors Weblog

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

What It's Like to Get Used and Abused by The Huffington Post — The Blog Queen Defends Her Aggregation Practices by Saying She Drives Traffic. Oh, Really? — One of the great and pressing questions of the post-blog age is: What constitutes unfair — unethical — aggregation?

Discussion: The Awl, Future of Journalism, Poynter, FishbowlNY, Strange Attractor, paidContent, WebProNews and eMedia Vitals

Ryan Tate / Gawker:

HuffPo Fires Writer for Doing ‘What We Were Taught and Told to Do’ — The Huffington Post indefinitely suspended a young blogger today for rewriting too much of someone's news article. This is pretty ridiculous, given HuffPo's systematic, officially-sanctioned approach to rewriting too much of people's news articles.

Dylan Byers / Adweek:
Is Huffington Post Throwing its Writers Under the Bus?

Discussion: The Wire

Economist:

Opening statements — There is no question that the internet is transforming the news industry, just as it has reshaped so many other industries. And, as in those other cases, the internet's impact has both positive and negative aspects. Does this, on balance, strengthen or weaken the news system?

Kai Nagata:

Why I quit my job: — Until Thursday, I was CTV's Quebec City Bureau Chief, based at the National Assembly, mostly covering politics. It's a fascinating beat - the most interesting provincial legislature in Canada, and the stories coming out of there lately have been huge.

Discussion: National Review and THE PLANET GUYS

Erik Wemple:

New York Post prostitution story gets shakier — The New York Post's “scoop” on Dominique Strauss Kahn's accuser is getting fishier, to the extent that's possible. The paper appears to have had documentation challenging the reliability of its only source in a story alleging that the accuser had worked as a prostitute.

Discussion: New York Magazine

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:

Newsweek.com Will Cease to Exist on July 19 — Right now if you go to newsweek.com, you'll see a basic magazine website, updated with content from the print version of the mag and a top navigation bar that directs you to content on its sister site, dailybeast.com.

Discussion: Folio, FishbowlNY and MediaPost

Terry Heaton / Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog:

We've got to do something about pre-rolls — Visual computing expert Mike Sullivan published a piece last week through MediaPost that ought to get every TV executive's attention. “Why Now Is The Time To Shift TV Ad Dollars To Online Video” is a serious look at the burgeoning market …

Paul Bradshaw / Online Journalism Blog:

An experiment in creating an ‘Auto-Debunker’ twitter account — As the conspiracy theories flew around last Friday, one in particular caught fire: the idea that the News Of The World might have been closed down because it would then allow for its assets - i.e. incriminating evidence - to be destroyed.

Discussion: Poynter and Future Journalism Project

Chrys Wu / Poynter:

Beginner's guide for journalists who want to understand API documentation — There are three letters that have been floating around the media world for several years now: API. Short for “application programming interface,” an API enables software programs to communicate with one another …

Discussion: New York Times and Journalism.co.uk

Reuters:

News Corp may be at risk for U.S. probe over bribery — (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp could face probes by U.S. authorities for possibly violating bribery laws, compounding the media mogul's problems after a phone-hacking scandal in Britain. — The Obama administration …