Mediagazer: Opening statements (Economist)

10:55 AM ET, July 12, 2011

Top News:

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: Guardian, Press Gazette, Gawker, The Huffington Post, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, FP Passport, The Staggers and The Wire

Guardian:

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 …

Bloomberg:

News Corp.'s Lost $7B Shows Investor Concern — News Corp. (NWSA)'s loss of $7 billion in market value over four trading days shows investor concerns that a probe into alleged phone hacking by journalists at one London newspaper could have a broader impact on the company.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Wire and Forbes.com

David Cay Johnston / Reuters:

RPT-COLUMN-It pays to be Murdoch. Just ask US gov't: DCJohnston — David Cay Johnston is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed here are his own. — (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch may not garner as much attention for his financial savvy as he does for his journalistic escapades …

Discussion: On Media's Blog, Guardian and Adweek

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.

Discussion: NPR

New York Times:

News Corporation Moves to Delay BSkyB Deal to Avoid Its Collapse — LONDON — Battered by allegations of phone hacking by the now-shuttered News of the World, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation on Monday effectively delayed government action on its proposed takeover of the satellite broadcast …

Discussion: Poynter

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

News Corp. Sends Signal to Wall Street With $5 Billion Share Buyback — Another day, another surprise offensive by a News Corp. determined to navigate perhaps the worst crisis in its history without appearing to cave to outside pressure. Yesterday it was withdrawing from a compromise meant …

Discussion: News Corporation and Future of Journalism

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: The New York Observer, Reuters, Guardian, Adweek, Company Town and The Wire

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

Discussion: Forbes.com, mediabistro.com, News Corporation, Guardian, AllThingsD, The Wire, Multichannel and Adweek

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

Discussion: Guardian, Adweek, Forbes.com and The Wire

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

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

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:
Life After Rupert's Reign: What Will Happen in a Post-Murdoch World?

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.

Discussion: Poynter

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

Discussion: The Wire

Steve Myers / Poynter:
Huffington Post suspends writer, apologizes for over-aggregated post

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Future of Journalism, FishbowlNY and LA Observed

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:
What It's Like to Get Used and Abused by The Huffington Post

Discussion: The Awl, NetNewsCheck Latest, Poynter, Strange Attractor, FishbowlNY, WebProNews, paidContent and eMedia Vitals

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?

Discussion: Poynter

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:UK:

Publisher Penguin Waddles Into Social Media Experiment With Peer Index — A little social media experiment is underway at the publishers Hamish Hamilton/Penguin UK: the publisher has tied up with the social media site PeerIndex to try out a new way of promoting its books.

Discussion: The New York Observer and Forbes.com

New York Post:

Kutcher's son of Sun Valley — Ashton Kutcher created his own Sun Valley-like conference for cool kids after the older moguls headed home. — The “Two and a Half Men” star has been bolstering his rep as a tech entrepreneur by investing in a host of start-up companies through a partnership …

David Kaplan / paidContent:

PIB: Magazine Ad Pages Rise A Bit, As Food Category Starts To Stumble — By and large, consumer magazine ad pages have been trending pretty well the past year, ekeing out slim gains amid advertisers' continued migration from print to digital. But as the latest Publishers Information Bureau figures …

Discussion: MPA, MediaPost and Folio

R. Jai Krishna / Wall Street Journal:

HT Media Scouting For Hindi, Regional Language Newspapers — NEW DELHI — HT Media Ltd. is looking to expand its print, radio and online businesses through acquisitions and tie-ups, as it seeks to benefit from growing demand for information and entertainment in a robust economy.