Mediagazer: Union-Tribune owner hires investment advisor to explore possible sale (Steve Myers/Poynter)

1:10 AM ET, July 14, 2011

Top News:

Bancroft Family Members Express Regrets at Selling Wall Street Journal to Murdoch — This story was co-published with The Guardian. — A number of key members of the family which controlled The Wall Street Journal say they would not have agreed to sell the prestigious daily to Rupert Murdoch …

Discussion: Poynter, Guardian, The Wrap, The Nation, Mediaite, Salon, The Raw Story, New York Magazine, On Media's Blog, Talking Biz News, Daring Fireball and The Wire

Seung Min Kim / The Politico:

GOPer wants FBI probe of Rupert Murdoch — New York Republican Pete King is calling on the FBI to investigate whether Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation hacked into the voicemail accounts of Sept. 11 victims, calling the allegations of the scandal “disgraceful.”

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Adweek, Media Decoder, Mediaite, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, Gothamist, Swampland, The Wire, Indecision Forever, Capital Tonight and blogs.telegraph.co.uk

John Cook / Gawker:

In Defense of Sleazy Journalism — As delightful as it's been to watch Rupert Murdoch's British fiefdom slowly drown in a foul swamp of wickedness and criminality, it's worth remembering that all good reporters are amoral monsters and that without a lot of highly questionable behavior …

Discussion: The Politico, The Sun, ProPublica, CBS News, BBC, Guardian, News Desk, New York Times, mUmBRELLA and Future of Journalism

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: paidContent:UK and The Wire

Larry Kramer / paidContent:
NoTW Lesson: The Coverup Is Usually More Damaging Than The Original Crime

Discussion: Guardian, The New York Observer and Forbes.com

BBC:
News Corp withdraws bid for BSkyB

Discussion: New York Times, Guardian, TVNewser, Sky News, paidContent, Poynter, CNN, The Daily Dish, MediaFile, Slate and Media Law Prof Blog

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:
In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Roger Ailes Stands to Gain

Discussion: TVNewser

Reuters:
Legal head of News International leaves company: source

Discussion: Mixed Media, Guardian, Guardian and FOXBusiness.com

Alexandra Topping / Guardian:
Phone-hacking scandal reaches US

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Union-Tribune owner hires investment advisor to explore possible sale — Platinum Equity, the private investment firm that owns The San Diego Union-Tribune, has hired an investment adviser “to help the company explore alternatives for its future,” the newspaper reported.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Julie Moos / Poynter:

The journalistic value of aggregation creates the business value — Aggregation has been core to this website's success for the last decade. Our most popular feature since 1999 has been a blog that earns its iconic place in journalism by highlighting the most interesting and important news for a passionate audience.

Discussion: New York Post

Gabe Rivera:
Let's call rewriters “rewriters”, not “aggregators”. Also: why Techmeme is wonderful.

Discussion: ZDNet, @dannysullivan, GigaOM, Silicon Valley Watcher, @kvox, Forbes.com and The Snitch, more at Techmeme »

Bill Keller / New York Times:

Let's Ban Books, or at Least Stop Writing Them — There was exciting news last month among the Twitterati. Brian Stelter, The New York Times prodigy and master of social media, announced to his 64,373 followers that he is going to write a book. The obvious question: What's up with that?

Discussion: Poynter, The New York Observer, The Wire and Gawker

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

AMI Slashing OK!'s Circulation — David Pecker's American Media Inc. is jumping right on fixing newly acquired OK! Weekly's weak circulation—by cutting it. — Effective with the second half of 2011, AMI will whack OK!'s rate base to 625,000 from 800,000, a decrease of 22 percent.

Reuters:

Global ads spend returning to pre-crisis level-Zenith — (Reuters) - The global advertising market is still expected to return to pre-recession levels this year, despite Europe's debt crisis and economic uncertainty slowing demand in the United States and Europe, according to media buyer ZenithOptimedia.

Thanks:beet_tv

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

The Latest iPad-Only Magazine — Here's a good example of putting your money where your mouth is: TabTimes, a new magazine about tablet news and put out by tech vets that can only be read on the iPad. — TabTimes, launching this fall as a free iPad app (and already on Twitter) …

Discussion: SiliconFilter

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

Guardian deputy editor: ‘It got pretty lonely’ covering News International scandal — Ian Katz, deputy editor of The Guardian, says covering The News of the World scandal was a lonely undertaking until last week. The Guardian has covered the scandal for two years, but the scandal …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, The Independent and The Atlantic Online

David Kaplan / paidContent:

NYT On The ‘Psychology Of Sharing’: E-Mail Still Rules — When the New York Times first began talking about creating a metered paywall for its website last year, the company was quick to note that social media links would be exempt in order to keep the traffic flowing.

Discussion: ANA and mocoNews

David Cay Johnston / MediaFile:

How I misread News Corp's taxes — By David Cay Johnston. The opinions expressed are his own. — Readers, I apologize. The premise of my debut column for Reuters, on News Corp's taxes, was wrong, 100 percent dead wrong. — Rupert Murdoch's News Corp did not get a $4.8 billion tax refund for the past four years, as I reported.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, On Media's Blog and Reuters

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.