Mediagazer: Vogue Casts 1,000 ‘Influencers’ for Network (Lucia Moses/Adweek)

12:20 PM ET, July 13, 2011

Top News:

News Corp withdraws bid for BSkyB — WATCH: Robert Peston says it will have been ‘incredibly painful’ decision for Murdoch — Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has announced that it is dropping its planned bid to take full ownership of BSkyB. — The announcement came as the House …

Discussion: Guardian, TVNewser, New York Times, Poynter, paidContent, The Daily Dish and National Review

Hollywood Reporter:

Confessions of a News of the World Reporter (Exclusive) … My first assignment was cake. I tagged along with a features reporter to interview Baywatch actress Traci Bingham because she was on the U.K.'s Celebrity Big Brother (or Big Bruv, as they call it) that season. Nothing unusual.

Discussion: The Wire

Reuters:

Legal head of News International leaves company: source — (Reuters) - Tom Crone, the legal manager at Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper arm, which is fighting widespread hacking allegations, has left the company, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday.

Discussion: Guardian and FOXBusiness.com

Alexandra Topping / Guardian:
Phone-hacking scandal reaches US

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Guardian, Reuters, New York Magazine and Guardian

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:
WSJ Ex-Editor on Scandal: News Corp. ‘Incompetent or Complicit’ (Exclusive)

Discussion: Poynter, Forbes.com, The New York Observer, Media Nation, Media & Entertainment, The Lede, Adweek, AdAge, Hillicon Valley, Media Matters for America and Bloomberg

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:
Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB bid is slipping with David Cameron's U-turn

Discussion: New York Times, Multichannel, MediaPost, U.S. Senate Committee …, The Nation, Broadcasting & Cable, Mediaite, Jon Slattery, Press Gazette, On Media's Blog, AllThingsD, Company Town, rbr.com, Media Matters for America, Paul Krugman and Globe and Mail

Gabe Rivera:

Let's call rewriters “rewriters”, not “aggregators”. Also: why Techmeme is wonderful. — Something bothered me about Simon Dumenco's piece about Huffington Post yesterday. Not the substance of his column, which was valid and well-argued, nor the favorable comparison to Techmeme, which was, well, favorable to Techmeme.

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

Thanks for the Apology, Huffington Post. Now Please Apologize to the Writer You Suspended — An Open Letter From Our Media Guy to Peter S. Goodman … Dear Peter, — My sincere thanks to you for your gracious apology. Your incredibly swift response to my column was heartening.

Discussion: Forbes.com, The Snitch, New York Magazine, digiday:DAILY, Future of Journalism, The New York Observer, Playboy.com, Erik Wemple, CJR, Poynter and Fortune

Yahoo! News:
HuffPo controversy highlights cavalier online editorial culture

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Gawker and Erik Wemple

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Times Company to Repay Carlos Slim Early — Updated The New York Times Company said Wednesday that it would pay back the $250 million loan from Carlos Slim Helú, a Mexican telecommunications billionaire, on Aug. 15, freeing itself from one of its larger financial obligations.

Discussion: Poynter and Media & Entertainment

Steve Myers / Poynter:

U.S. has same number of newspapers now as in 1890s — Stanford has used data from the Library of Congress to illustrate the spread of all kinds of newspapers across the U.S. from 1690 to 2011. Users can see which cities had multiple papers and click on them to learn more about them.

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

Yahoo Prepares New Web Ad Push — People are spending less time on Yahoo Inc.'s websites. So in a bid to reverse its waning influence, the Internet company is working on a way to get more of its content and advertising on others' websites instead. — As part of a network it expects …

Discussion: Adweek, AllThingsD, eMedia Vitals, AdExchanger.com and Future of Journalism

Aaron Gell / The New York Observer:

Bin Laden Hunter ‘CIA John’ Identified — The Man in the Yellow Tie, with Clinton and Panetta, and in a college yearbook photo. — Anyone who's ever logged in to a social network while in a jubilant, possibly intoxicated, frame of mind knows the dangers.

Discussion: Mashable!, News Desk, Future of Journalism, Runnin' Scared and New York Magazine

Jana Winter / Fox News:
Gawker Tries to Reveal Identity of CIA Agent Behind Bin Laden Kill

Discussion: The Wire

Lauren A. E. Schuker / Wall Street Journal:

Oprah to Take Bigger Role at Her Struggling Network — The queen of daytime television is moving into the corner office. — Oprah Winfrey is poised to become chief executive of her cable channel, OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network, starting sometime in the fall, according to people close to the venture.

Discussion: Company Town

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Vogue Casts 1,000 ‘Influencers’ for Network — It's not enough that a brand like Vogue can sway people to buy certain products by virtue of its clout. Brands today want to use the magazine's readers to spread the word about their products. — To that end, the Condé Nast fashion bible …

Discussion: The Wire

Rebecca Meany / Idaho Mountain Express & Guide:

Allen & Co. leaves town, takes secrets with it — Conference closes with no news of big deals — Wood River Valley residents typically don't give another thought to a celebrity spotted locally—less so if the famous name is a business executive. — But the collection of VIPs …

AdAge:

The Surprising (Content) Future of Google+ — It seems that there is a path that Google+ is headed down, with, or without our complicity: a media-sharing and discovery powerhouse.

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Just 1 in 10 TV newsrooms have beat-based reporters — Diana Marszalek writes that the disappearance of beat-based reporting “may be taking broadcast journalism down with it.” She cites a media strategist's estimate that just 1 in 10 TV stations assign their reporters to formal beats.

Discussion: NewsLab, Future of Journalism, TVSpy and Gannett Blog

Daniel D'Addario / The New York Observer:

Errol Morris, Gossip Boy — “Tabloid stories are about affairs of the heart—about why people do the things that they do, what could be their possible motivation.” Oscar-winning director Errol Morris was discussing Tabloid, his latest film, about a 1970s British-tabloid story involving …

Discussion: New York Magazine and Washington Post

Zooey Deschanel / Hello Giggles:

AN OPEN LETTER TO LOS ANGELES TIMES WRITER PATT MORRISSON — This is an open letter in response to a piece entitled Downtown LA: Good enough for the royals, but not for Zooey Deschanel?, written by columnist Patt Morrison, which appeared in the publication on July 10, 2011. — Dear Ms. Morrison,